Doxa.Comunicación nº 027 (2018) Monográfico

Data Journalism, the successor of Investigative and Precision Journalism,acquires a new dimension in the Big Data environment that is prompting the redefinition, currently in progress, of a new professional profile: the data journalist. The opening of large databases, the use of new statistical software, and the constant renewal of visualization tools open the door to a journalistic specialization that requires modification of routines and specialized training. This emerging and expanding profile is undergoing uneven development in the Spanish media. With the objective of becoming familiar with its evolution, this research offers the results of an open questionnaire sent to Spanish data journalists that focused the object of study on three categories: routines and training, the use of sources, and visualization tools. The main results seem to indicate that not all media have a specific section of data, that there are training deficiencies remedied by means of self-learning, that they use mostly public sources, and that visualizations are developed with a high level of creative freedom.