Developing a tool to provide data to journalists at a rate that matches the chaotic pace of 2020

How does a research organization go about developing an interactive tool to display timely poll results so that journalists and others can access it quickly and easily, and what are some key findings, lesson learned from studying the coronavirus outbreak and the 2020 election?

As part of its yearlong Election News Pathways project, exploring how Americans’ news habits and attitudes relate to what they hear, perceive and know about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Pew Research Center built an interactive data tool to bring survey results to journalists and other audiences, in close-to-real time. This session will feature key findings from the data itself, a discussion of how the tool was developed, and a case study of how the Center was able to adapt the tool beyond its initial purpose, pivoting to use it as a mechanism to cover public opinion of the coronavirus outbreak.

Suggested Speaker(s)

  • Amy Mitchell
    Director of Journalism Research, Pew Research Center
  • We envision this session as a panel of Pew Research Center staff, to demonstrate the collaborative effort between our research, digital, web development and user experience teams required to build and launch a product with timely data for journalists to access. Making this a Pew Research Center panel also gives us maximum flexibility, so that the panel can happen regardless of whether the ONA conference is held in-person or remotely (in case the Coronavirus situation doesn’t allow for travel by late September). The panel would consist of experts from our research, digital and UX teams.