What skills do data journalists need and possess? Where is data journalism being taught, and by who? a new study asks. Bahareh R. Heravi of University College Dublin, examined data journalism education in higher education. The research draws data from the 2017 Global Data Journalism Survey (206 participants from 43 countries) and a dataset of 219 modules or programmes on data journalism.

Heravi finds that journalists usually don’t have a strong level of education in the more technical areas of data journalism. 50% of respondents had formal training in data journalism. They were highly trained in journalism or related fields, though.

64% of respondents wanted to acquire more skills in data analysis, 63% in programming and 51% in visualizing data. The journalists were also eager in updating their skills in other relevant areas. Most  journalism programs around the world fail to provide these kind of skills above the basics.

148 of the courses Heravi studied are situated in the United States. According to the data, only 25 universities around the world offer complete programmes on data journalism.

The field does not have a strong academic underpinning, Heravi states. Only teachers of 58 of the modules and programmes had PhD-level education.

The article ”3WS of Data Journalism Education” was published in Journalism Practice and is available on the publisher’s website (abstract free).

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