Journalists weigh in on data, graphics and polling ahead of the midterm elections at Storybench roundtable
As Americans begin to cast their votes in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, polling efforts have picked up steam. The task of making sense of this flood of information often falls on reporters. “I think the onus is on journalists to make sure that we’re being as clear as possible,” said Christina Prignano, co-editor of The Boston Globe’s StoryLab.
Prignano joined Yoohyun Jung, fellow Storyab co-editor; Chiqui Esteban, a director of graphics at The Wall Street Journal; and Eli McKown-Dawson, chief elections analyst for statistician Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, for “Data Journalism and the Midterms,” a recent roundtable presented by Storybench and co-sponsored by the Northeastern University School of Journalism and Center for Transformative Media. In a wide-reaching discussion covering the public’s increased skepticism of polls, the emerging technology making data easier to both read and display, and the changing responsibilities of data journalists, the panelists broke down the role of polls as a measure of public opinion ahead of the midterms.
“You can interview individual people for a story, but that’s not going to give you any sort of estimate of what public opinion in the country or even a particular state or congressional district looks like,” McKown-Dawson said.
He said polls are not a perfect guess, but they are “still our best option” for gauging the general public’s attitudes. The panelists encouraged journalists to use their skills of inquiry and verification to identify reliable data sets and polls.
“There’s an overabundance of stuff out there,” Jung said. “It’s become even more important than ever to have the smell test, and the ability as a journalist to read through the methodologies and to spot [red flags] and say, ‘Oh, this is wrong. Oh, they talked to 13 people.’”
McKown-Dawson agreed, adding that fellow reporters should look at the poll’s website and research to assess who’s involved, both who answered the questions and the organizations who created the poll.
Once journalists understand how pollsters or researchers collected the data, they can decide how to shape and present it, panelists said. Prignano said her focus is on testing the data through a series of trial and error efforts, scratching drafts and starting over when they aren’t working. Esteban said he often looks for questions that might fly under the radar.
“What I always like to do is to go beyond the intention of vote or generic ballot or popularity, favorability, and all the sexy [questions], and look at other things that the poll has been asking and the trends,” Esteban said.
To optimize his graphics’ readership, Esteban explained that he often keeps in mind two types of audiences: the Lisa Simpsons, who scrutinize graphics and data to the last detail, and the Bart Simpsons, who take one glance at the visuals and move on. The challenge, he said, is to create graphics with layers that are accessible for everyone.
Jung also pointed to the tension between the certainty journalists must have of the facts behind their story and the margin of error data they must convey. She said news editors — looking for simplicity and clarity — will often ask her to remove caveats.
“They’re like, ‘Make it more concise. Take this out. It sounds like there’s a lot of uncertainty,’” Jung said. “And I’d be like, ‘There is!’”
Wrapping up, the panelists discussed how evolutions in technology have changed how they do data journalism over the course of their careers. Jung explained that when she started as a journalist more than a decade ago, dealing with data was a more basic process.
“But these days … we’re kind of like sticking our hand into the void a little bit and then walking out with stuff, especially with the use of AI, right?” she said. “[Data has] become more complicated in many ways and more specialized, but I also think it has such a big role in democracy.”
Esteban, remarking that he had the longest career out of the four — he recounted a story from his intern days in Spain, where his part in covering the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was to go buy a map of New York — also encouraged journalists to slow down and focus on quality instead of speed of publishing. He said he sees readers flock to election results the following morning, not late on election night.
“Don’t just run to tell things,” he said. “Just tell them better.”
The next Storybench panel will be “Journalism Under Pressure,” led by documentary filmmaker and founder of The Braver Work, Catherine Lee, on Nov. 5.
Audio of the full roundtable, including Q&A
