Data Journalism at German Newspapers and Public Broadcasters: A Quantitative Survey of Structures, Contents and Perceptions

Abstract

ABSTRACT In times of shrinking news budgets and increased pressure for innovation in media organizations, data journalism has come into the spotlight as an area still expanding in newsrooms. The practice drives quantitative and collaborative forms of journalism while its practitioners are said to further challenge the status quo. Using a standardized computer assisted telephone survey, this study contributes the first representative quantitative overview of data journalistic activities, contents and assessments in Germany. A population of 305 newspapers and public broadcasters was surveyed in 2018 for structures, processes, contents and perceptions of data journalism. The survey’s response rate was 36% for newspapers (N = 105) and 100% for broadcasters (N = 12). The results indicate that data journalism in Germany is well established (75% of the media outlets) and mostly practiced by individuals or small teams. On a content level, the most important topic for newspapers is local/regional coverage, for public broadcasters politics and economics. The media outlets use freely available data from statistical offices most often. Newspapers do not seem to fully leverage the potential of sophisticated forms of presentations of their data projects. The interviewees themselves demonstrate a strong believe in data journalism’s ability to transform journalism towards more transparency.