Data-Journalism as a Tool in Investigative Journalism: Specific, Formats, Methods

In the digital era Data integrates faster into different fields of journalism. Nowadays the amount of open digital sources available for studying and analysis has increased at unprecedented rates. There are many government lists, social networks, independent databases that can be useful in more accurate and clear storytelling. However, it challenges journalists to learn how to gather, sort and visualize data. This research aims to describe what data-journalism is and how it can be used in such jenre as investigative reporting. The research provides a critical overview of the debates on how new developments, networks and instruments are changing the social, economical and political investigations. A range of researchers debate in quite polarizing terms whether the data driven journalism is more objective or not. The work will analyse both international and Russian practice. The author uses a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with professional investigative reporters and open-data experts as an empirical method. The main problem adressed is how they deal with unorganised and hard-to-reach data and cooperate in newsrooms.