C.W. Anderson (University of Leeds)

Fri 20 April 2018, 16:00 – 18:00

Register: https://apostles-of-certainty.eventbrite.co.uk

This talk will trace the long history of quantified journalism in the United States, beginning in the early 20th century and taking us up to the present day. From this history, an argument is made that the general trend in journalism has been the increased comfort in asserting professional certainty when reporting the news. These trends are especially pronounced in today’s data-driven, digital media environment. The talk argues that journalism has learned the wrong lessons from science and that it needs, in an era of hyper-partisanship, to embrace a provisional uncertainty as both a normative and political strategy.

C.W. Anderson is a Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, and the author or co-editor of four books: “Rebuilding the News” (Temple), “Remaking the News” (MIT), “The Sage Handbook of Digital Journalism” (Sage) and “Journalism: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford). “Apostles of Certainty: Data Joutnalism and the Politics of Doubt” is forthcoming in 2018 from Oxford University Press.