Journalism Trainer Freelance
I spent 20 years in the BBC, where I specialised in Central and South Eastern Europe, becoming Editor of Macedonian and Croatian programmes before leading the BBC World Service Training team. In 2010 I became a freelance trainer, and quickly became involved in data journalism training, which has interested me ever since.
I work mainly on short introductory courses for various clients, including the BBC, Eurovision and the Centre for Investigative Journalism. My main areas of interest are in Investigative Journalism and use of Open Data. I teach the use spreadsheets through Excel or Googlesheets, plus Open Refine, but increasingly use R myself and am beginning to show others how to get started with it. I have had a lifelong interest in languages. After getting a degree in French, I have picked up German, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian and a little Macedonian along the way, enabling me to at least get a decent meal in various countries!
Databases can be so much more than just a place to find stories. Why not make a database the story? To showcase their storytelling power, we looked at 7 of the community's favourite examples of journalistic databases.
The term ‘open data’ might imply that it’s readily available, but it was clear from your submissions in this edition that accessing relevant data isn’t without its challenges.