Interview: Dr James Cheshire on the problem with “clickbait” data journalism

“I think there’s a lot of infographics out there that are really a bit rubbish.”

So says Dr James Cheshire, one of the co-authors of  “London: The Information Capital”, a new book featuring data visualisations and infographics centred round the UK’s capital.

A lecturer at University College London (UCL), Dr Cheshire, 27, completed his PhD in Geographic Information Science. He mapped distributions of people’s surnames, and tried to uncover what your surname says about you based on its geographical origin. The project sparked his interest in large population datasets.

He is a keen advocate of open data, and sees London as setting the bar for other cities.

“The reason we called the book London: The Information Capital is because we think it does set a pretty high bar for other cities to open up its data.”

Available data not necessarily accessible

“The principle of open data and availability of data and all that kind of stuff is undoubtedly a good one.

“The downside is, or the challenge is, actually making something available doesn’t necessarily make it accessible.

“Making the datasets easy to find and making them easy to manipulate or to use is the next step, and one that comes along with the provision of data in the first place.”

.@PenguinUKBooks It was mad. 100 graphics in 9 months came out to be about 1 graphic written and designed every 3 days #infocapital

— LDN: Info Capital (@theinfocapital) October 30, 2014

But he doesn’t think much of what he calls “clickbait” data journalism, citing the Daily Mirror’s Ampp3d as an example.

“Clickbait” easily forgotten

“I really enjoy data stories put together and carefully thought out over several days worth of effort, rather than some of the clickbait stuff.

“The clickbait stuff is here today and then forgotten about, whereas the really good quality stuff tends to last a bit longer, people tend to think about it a bit more.”

What about the more established nationals?

“Some of the stuff that the Guardian Datablog does can be really good, some of it can be a bit dry or a bit dull or whatever.

“I think the guys that are the best are still the New York Times in terms of their graphics.”

“People don’t like uncertainty”

He says that the biggest challenge that he and his co-author Oliver Uberti have tried to communicate with the infographics in their book is that “people don’t like uncertainty.”

It is this uncertainty that can lead journalists to oversimplify and thus slightly misrepresent data stories.

“Traditionally in statistics you put error bars or something, or you say like plus/minus 5%.

“That plus/minus bit is often left off because people don’t necessarily understand it, or the journalists or whoever it is are keen to present a straightforward story.

“We often talk about that in academia – that’s one of our biggest challenges when we talk to journalists: How do we communicate that uncertainty without sounding like we’re wrong, but without sounding like there’s an absolute number for something.

“Because the world is not that simple, unfortunately.”

(Chart: “Islington has issues” from London: The Information Capital)