0:00:00 > 0:00:08This week Samira Ahmed examines how BBC News deals with data.
0:00:10 > 0:00:18Hello and welcome. The budget was a useful as ever statistics, how does
0:00:18 > 0:00:22BBC News try to help us understand facts and figures to data
0:00:22 > 0:00:26journalism? And the Queen and Prince Philip celebrate their 70th wedding
0:00:26 > 0:00:38anniversary making the date of their marriage, when?
0:00:42 > 0:00:46Africa editor Fergal Keane was on the spot in Zimbabwe for the news at
0:00:46 > 0:00:53ten.It is the night of the free, a night like no other in their lives.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58A great tension has broken. The Epoque of fear, of desperation, of
0:00:58 > 0:01:04Robert Mugabe has ended. How rarely does politics translate into
0:01:04 > 0:01:15something so truly felt?This is history in the making. This is
0:01:15 > 0:01:20history, you skies!That was the BBC reporting the choice reaction of
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Zimbabweans or joining in the celebrations itself? One viewer that
0:01:22 > 0:01:28the latter writing...
0:01:36 > 0:01:40One consequence of Robert Mugabe resignation was the Queen became the
0:01:40 > 0:01:43worlds oldest living Head of State and as it happened Her Majesty had
0:01:43 > 0:01:47had her own cause for celebration the previous day common anniversary
0:01:47 > 0:01:52which featured prominently on the news all day. When it came to
0:01:52 > 0:01:56Newsnight on BBC Two, Emily Maitlis signed off with the programmes own
0:01:56 > 0:02:02take on the landmark occasion. Before we go on the 20th of November
0:02:02 > 0:02:071937 and a skies and cheered on by thousands of well-wishers, Princess
0:02:07 > 0:02:11Elizabeth Wright Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. 70 years later the
0:02:11 > 0:02:17Queen and Prince Philip are celebrating their platinum wedding
0:02:17 > 0:02:24anniversary but the relationship with Europe was about to change.
0:02:24 > 0:02:29Spain was in crisis as warring factions fought for control. Some
0:02:29 > 0:02:33things don't change, including those grey skies. Here are some pictures
0:02:33 > 0:02:39from the 1937 day.Good night. Apt parallels between 1937 on the
0:02:39 > 0:02:44present day but was the wedding of the Queen and Prince Philip actually
0:02:44 > 0:02:52in 1937 as confidently stated there twice?Know, the year was 1947.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55Surely it should have been apparent that the Princess Elizabeth would
0:02:55 > 0:03:03not have married at the age of 11. Few checks facts and surely Emily
0:03:03 > 0:03:06Maitlis's common-sense should have told her none of this could be true.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11What next? An article about Prince Charles visiting the troops on the
0:03:11 > 0:03:18Western front?Thank you to all the viewers who pointed out Newsnight
0:03:18 > 0:03:23mathematical mistake. For which they have apologised. Last Saturday, the
0:03:23 > 0:03:28body of guy Pope was found near her home in Dorset after extensive
0:03:28 > 0:03:33search. Police have described her death as unexplained and on Monday
0:03:33 > 0:03:37released without charge three members of the whole family who were
0:03:37 > 0:03:42arrested on suspicion of murder. That led Gary to ask,...
0:04:13 > 0:04:18Wednesdays news was dominated by the budget. The bulletin started with a
0:04:18 > 0:04:22report from political editor Laura Kuenssberg.Almost ready to go, a
0:04:22 > 0:04:28big day for Downing Street. His prescription for months has been
0:04:28 > 0:04:34shaky, to say the least. -- whose grip. The priority for number ten
0:04:34 > 0:04:41and 11 those powerful next-door neighbours was for today's events
0:04:41 > 0:04:47not to slip, to keep the budget is tightly within their grasp. The
0:04:47 > 0:04:52Chancellor, the aim to be the steady National bank manager not terror the
0:04:52 > 0:04:56rules altogether. Knowing his own job as well as the government's
0:04:56 > 0:05:02fortunes would be shaped by what she was about to say.Much more
0:05:02 > 0:05:05followed.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39Glenn almost picked up -- also picked up on the Westminster village
0:05:39 > 0:05:44aspects of the coverage.If ever there was a prime example of
0:05:44 > 0:05:49Westminster media card talent is the prior reporting the budget. I would
0:05:49 > 0:05:53suggest the most important thing for the people of this country is not
0:05:53 > 0:05:58whether the Chancellor keeps his job all the respect of his Cabinet
0:05:58 > 0:06:04colleagues but how the budget will affect each and every of us. We do
0:06:04 > 0:06:08not want an opinion from the Westminster insiders, wake up and
0:06:08 > 0:06:12smell the coffee, political presenters.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15There was plenty of detail around the Budget coverage, including a
0:06:15 > 0:06:17welter of facts figures and statistics.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20To help the audience make sense of these, BBC News and
0:06:20 > 0:06:23especially its web-site provided a number of graphs and other visual
0:06:23 > 0:06:26material, enabling us all to see the impact of some
0:06:26 > 0:06:27of the Chancellor's measures.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31And the state of economy.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35These are all part of a big area of growth for BBC news known as data
0:06:35 > 0:06:36journalism.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39And with me now to tell us about it is John Walton.
0:06:39 > 0:06:40Data journalism is talked about a lot,
0:06:40 > 0:06:46what is it and is it something new.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49I think data journalism is no different from traditional
0:06:49 > 0:06:51journalism, except for the raw materials a data journalist is
0:06:51 > 0:06:52using.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55So a data journalist is often starting their story with data or
0:06:55 > 0:06:56statistics.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59So you might find them rummaging in a spread sheet, which
0:06:59 > 0:07:01is quite different image from that of the typical kind of roving
0:07:02 > 0:07:03reporter.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05But I think it has been with us for a long time.
0:07:05 > 0:07:07You could argue that people like Florence
0:07:07 > 0:07:10Nightingale could be a data journalist, if you look at the kind
0:07:10 > 0:07:12of visualisation she did of the figures around
0:07:12 > 0:07:15the Crimean War, so that kind of thing has been around
0:07:15 > 0:07:16for a long time.
0:07:16 > 0:07:17There is ever increasing amounts of data and
0:07:17 > 0:07:26it's part of daily life, so we need to be across that.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28A lot of what you do is personalised.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31Can you talk us through what you did on the Budget?
0:07:31 > 0:07:34Yes, so for the Budget we produced, in collaboration with the business
0:07:34 > 0:07:37team and Deloitte, we made a Budget calculator where people coming to
0:07:37 > 0:07:40the web-site could tap in about 10 or so questions, put in their
0:07:40 > 0:07:42figures and from that we would give them
0:07:42 > 0:07:43a quick summary of how the
0:07:43 > 0:07:44Budget might have affected them.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46So that's getting people way from just
0:07:46 > 0:07:49having to deal with the averages or the national figures that the
0:07:49 > 0:07:50Chancellor might be giving them.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52What we are hoping to do is put somebody
0:07:52 > 0:07:54in the story themselves, so
0:07:54 > 0:07:56they can see directly how this affects them.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58How much data are you dealing with on stories,
0:07:58 > 0:08:00perhaps you would look at the house pricing story you did
0:08:00 > 0:08:01recently.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04So the house pricing story is a really good example of that.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06We wanted to see how house prices had
0:08:06 > 0:08:08recovered since 2007 and the crash.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10And what we did to do that was we looked at eight
0:08:10 > 0:08:13million rows of data - all the house sales in England and
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Wales over that period.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17So we could look at how that had changed across
0:08:18 > 0:08:20England and Wales.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23And we were able to look at those figures and
0:08:23 > 0:08:26estimate that about 58% of neighbourhoods had not recovered
0:08:26 > 0:08:29once inflation is taken into account.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31So their house prices were actually lower than when they
0:08:31 > 0:08:38started in 2007.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40Are you finding new stories as well through
0:08:40 > 0:08:41this?
0:08:41 > 0:08:45Yes, so one series of stories was on the NHS, when we looked at
0:08:45 > 0:08:46NHS figures.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48We have also done the house price story that we mentioned.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51But we are looking in all sorts of places.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53We did some civil aviation figures.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56So there is lot of different data sources and this is a
0:08:56 > 0:08:58growth area for journalists.
0:08:58 > 0:08:59There is so much data.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01Not everybody has the skills to interpret it
0:09:01 > 0:09:11themselves.
0:09:16 > 0:09:17Some people have said that the personalised
0:09:17 > 0:09:19stories that can appear on the news web-site,
0:09:19 > 0:09:20can seem oversimplified.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23Do you put in enough data for them to be really meaningful?
0:09:23 > 0:09:26I think we do, I think that as long as you put
0:09:26 > 0:09:29context around the figures, if you can show how they may have
0:09:29 > 0:09:31changed or you can show how they may compare
0:09:31 > 0:09:33to another country, as long as you're
0:09:33 > 0:09:34putting context around the
0:09:34 > 0:09:37figures, I think the audience can make their own judgments as to how
0:09:37 > 0:09:39useful they find them.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41We also with more than half of the audience to
0:09:41 > 0:09:43the web-site at least coming on a mobile phone,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46we have a very small canvas to work with, so people have
0:09:46 > 0:09:49to be able to take in figures that are just
0:09:49 > 0:09:50on that small screen and we
0:09:50 > 0:09:52have to work with that.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55One complaint we have had at Newswatch
0:09:55 > 0:09:59and it comes up, when they're watching reports that give a number,
0:09:59 > 0:10:04X million pounds extra to NHS, but not a context tot make
0:10:04 > 0:10:07a judgment about them.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09That has not been a criticism of web-site, but sometimes
0:10:09 > 0:10:10of news reports.
0:10:10 > 0:10:16Why is that happening and what can you do about
0:10:16 > 0:10:17it?
0:10:17 > 0:10:18I think it happens simply
0:10:18 > 0:10:20because you, if you're covering
0:10:20 > 0:10:23something like the budget it is difficult not to get into the
0:10:23 > 0:10:24figures.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27But I think there are things you can do to humanise that.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29If you want to help people understand figures you can bring
0:10:29 > 0:10:32them down to a human level and instead of saying there maybe
0:10:32 > 0:10:34one billion pounds spent on such and
0:10:34 > 0:10:37such, you try and work out what that figure might be per household.
0:10:37 > 0:10:38Or per person.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40Or if it is education per child.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42So you humanise the figures and make them smaller and
0:10:42 > 0:10:52making them more relevant to people.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56Before we go, a taste of what Thursday's afternoon life brought
0:10:56 > 0:11:01its viewers in the studio ahead of this weekend UK beats botching
0:11:01 > 0:11:06Championship were Jack Ruppert demonstrating that at Simon McCoy.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28Tara Mulholland posted her reaction on Twitter.
0:11:32 > 0:11:41But after the item was re-shown an hour later, Richard Mills thought...
0:11:41 > 0:11:45Do let us know if you would like to see more or less beat boxing on BBC
0:11:45 > 0:11:49News and if you have any other opinions on BBC News and current
0:11:49 > 0:12:01affairs or would like to appear on the programmes you can call us...
0:12:06 > 0:12:10That is all from us. We're back to hear your thoughts about BBC News
0:12:10 > 0:12:19coverage again next week. Goodbye.