Tow Center for Data Journalism – December 3, 2014. Sensors and Journalism: “This report you have opened is not monolithic. You can match its sections to your needs. The first section introduces our topic. It starts by describing the landscape where sensors and journalism combine, and continues on to define necessary terms for understanding this area of research. Reporters are using sensors in an era when the rapid development of technology is moving data into the mainstream of journalism. The increasing ubiquity of sensors, their increasing capability and accessibility are on the supply side, while investigative reporters, computer aided reporters and journalist/technologists are on the demand side. We are including drones in the field of sensing, partially because of the amount of attention they’re currently receiving, and partially because of their potential to extend human sight far beyond our bodily bounds. While recent commentaries about journalistic sensing have focused just on sensors that journalists have built themselves (or commissioned), our definition also includes journalistic uses of data from sensor systems that are not controlled by the reporters themselves. We have excluded opinion polling, information gathered by humans’ five senses, and data produced by monitoring computer processes like bit-torrent networks. That said, our description should not be used to separate sensor-based journalism from other reporting processes. The intellectual tools we discuss may be useful for many data-intensive projects, and sensor reporting needs to be integrated with traditional forms.”

Introduction & Executive Summary
The First Section: A Framework
The Second Section: Case Studies
The Third Section: The Legal and Ethical Considerations for Sensors and Journalism
The Fourth, Final Section: Recommendations
Endnotes
Author Biographies