Abstract

The future of data-driven journalism has attracted widespread attention, but what about the future in data journalism? In other words: How do future predictions shape the formulation of knowledge claims in newsmaking that relies on the analysis of large troves of digital data? Based on interviews with professionals working on such projects, we study how they exploited predictive analytics to make evidentiary propositions and we interrogate the epistemological conceptions that underpin this future-oriented data journalism. Despite growing ambitions to generate more precise prognoses in a shorter amount of time, the practitioners downplayed the journalistic relevance of such projections. Instead, they stressed their dependence on past numeric information and the time-consuming effort needed to produce forward-looking stories that connect with the public. We argue that acknowledging the temporal exigencies around anticipatory news allowed those working on data journalistic projects to explore the possibilities of probabilistic storytelling while at the same time maintaining a professional paradigm of fact-based, post hoc reporting.

摘要

数据驱动新闻的未来引起了广泛关注，但数据新闻的未来呢？换句话说：在依赖大量数字数据分析的新闻制作中，未来的预测如何塑造知识主张的制定？基于对从事此类项目的专业人士的采访，我们研究了他们如何利用预测分析来提出证据主张，并询问支撑这种面向未来的数据新闻的认识论概念。尽管越来越有志于在更短的时间内产生更精确的预测，但从业者淡化了此类预测的新闻相关性。相反，他们强调他们依赖过去的数字信息以及制作与公众相关的前瞻性故事所需的耗时工作。我们认为，承认围绕预期新闻的时间紧迫性使从事数据新闻项目的人能够探索概率故事讲述的可能性，同时保持基于事实的事后报道的专业范式。