In 2015, Margaret Sullivan penned a great column for The New York Times titled “Awash in Data, Thirsting for Truth.”1 The column asked the question of how important is data to news reporting and to what extend can it obscure or reveal the truth? The answer, as you might expect, was not clear cut.
Lack of data when reporting may lead to people claiming that your story simply does not have the necessary “hard” proof. A focus on narratives of how individuals were affected by events personalizes the story and makes it more compelling and heartwarming. However, such narratives are not necessarily ...
