A Comparative Study Of Data News In New York Times "The Upshot" And Caixin "Data Report"

Popularization of computer technology and the vigorous development of the Internet brought the storage capacity of the human information skyrocketing.Under the background of big data application and popularization,the data journalism was emerged on this condition.Both traditional media in the transition period and the rapidly rising new media discover the opportunities for development in this report form,and they begin to practical exploration on data journalism.This paper first summarizes the research status of data news at home and abroad,and traces the historical evolution of data news.This paper bases on the data news columns from two medias' data journalism columns in China and the United States.They are--“Data report" of Caixin,and "The Upshot" from New York Times,The author compares the published data journalism works as samples to analysis of the similarities and differences between both of them in data journalism production,data sources,content trends and visualization means,and analyze the influencing factors of the differences,and puts forward suggestions on the development direction of the field of data journalism.After comparing the two columns,the author found that the common points of "data report" and "the upshot" are reflected in data source mechanism,the type of topic,report function,etc.and the differences are mainly reflected in the composition of the production team,the degree of data open source,and the form of visualization,etc."Digital Report" team composes to reporter,editors and designers.Its data openness is relatively low,and in visualization tend to decorative elements more information chart design;"The Upshot" production team is a large number of experts and scholars from all areas of society,its reporting data openness is high,providing specific data source information and data source files,visual form to promote the concept of high data ink ratio.The main factors that make up the difference are as follows:a.Different political and economic situations between China and the United States;b.Different media positioning between Caixin and New York Times;c.Different quality of production team and professionals;d.Different ideas of data open source;e.Different visualization concepts.Based on the practical exploration on data journalism of two columns,the Enlightenment of data journalism practice is as follows: a.Adopt multiple visual forms to improve user's reading experience;b.Improve the data literacy and strengthen the cultivation of compound talents;c.Expand the data source and attempt crowdsourcing mode to produce the data journalism.