Now more than ever, journalists need to know how to work with data. From covering public spending to elections, the WikiLeaks cables to the financial crisis - journalists need to know where to find and request key datasets, how to make sense of them, and how to present them to the public.
The book is an international, collaborative effort involving dozens of data journalism's leading advocates and best practitioners - including from Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, the Chicago Tribune, Deutsche Welle, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Helsingin Sanomat, La Nacion, the New York Times, Pro Publica, the Washington Post, the Texas Tribune, Verdens Gang, Wales Online, Zeit Online and many others.
Jonathan Gray, lead editor for the handbook, says: "The book gives us an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at how data is used by journalists around the world - from big news organisations to citizen reporters. We hope it will serve to inform and inspire a new generation of data journalists to use the information around us to communicate complex and important issues to the public."
The Data Journalism Handbook is an initiative of the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation.
The book will be freely available at datajournalismhandbook.org under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike License. Additionally a printed version and an e-book will be published by O'Reilly Media.
Over 2000 people have signed up to get the handbook so far.
Coverage on Guardian Datablog: http://bit.ly/ddjbook-guardian
Table of contents: http://bit.ly/ddjbookoverview
Overview graphic: http://bit.ly/ddjbook-overview
Cover graphic: http://bit.ly/ddjbook-cover
