Netease DataBlog

2021 Shortlist

Country/area: China

Organisation: NetEase Datablog

Organisation size: Small

Netease DataBlog is one of the pioneers in data journalism of China. It has been deeply engaged in the data journalism field for nine years which is considered as a media of great influence both in industry and academia. We commit to events sorting in logic and information mining in depth, presenting stories to audience in forms of infographics, H5, interactive charts and data maps by extensive auxiliary information.

Since the establishment of DataBlog, we have been actively working on stories about issues in social, economic, cultural, health, environmental, etc, for which we have received positive responses, including our follow-up stories on COVID-19.

DataBlog covers stories in all fields, and we could always present accurate interpretation from an appropriate and attractive perspective regardless of topic selections.

And for this very reason, data journalism is a niche in China though, the work of DataBlog could always achieve ideal communication effects. And now we are the column with the most followers among all peers in China. The amount of our audience is over 13 million.

Presently, our team consists of two editors and a designer. And we share a strong as well as impressive style no matter in content or in visualization. As a newsroom in small scale, now we applied for the 2nd Sigma Data Journalism Award. And We hope to learn from other workers in competition.

Description of portfolio:

Series stories on COVID-19 is packaged into a portfolio for the competition.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, DataBlog acted instantly, and we are one of the earliest data journalism columns in China to cover revelant stories. In the early stage of the outbreak, the crowd knows little about coronavirus. By combing the epidemic data published by the government, we collected 129 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with complete or partial patient information including gender, age, infection symptoms and medicial state of the patients to partially present the basic picture of the epidemic to our audience as much as possible.

In addition, we made other tries. 33 days after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan on December 31, 2019, the epidemic spreaded across the country. We decided to use SVG data map to inform readers the spread trajectory of the epidemic during the 33 days.

Besides, in another work of ours “Cases Across Four Generations: How 527 Cluster Epidemics Spread“, we conducted statistics on the temporal and spatial span of the spread of cluster epidemics in China, the proportion of cases in three or four generations, the propagation algebra and more to warn the public of the necessity of not clustering during the epidemic period.

Except for COVID-19, medical resource is also within our concerns. At the beginning of the outbreak, we investigated on statistics about the use of beds and the change of bed occupancy rate in designated hospitals for treating COVID-19 confirmed and suspected patients in Wuhan, on the one hand; On the other hand, we have worked with a pressure meter for medical care in various cities in Hubei, calling for people to pay attention to the state of medical pressure in other cities in Hubei.

It is worth mentioning that we are getting more diversified in such exploration of topic selection about COVID-19. We not only focus on the coronavirus itself, but also pay more attention to how the people should live that affected by the COVID-19.

On January 23, 2020, Wuhan started lockdown for COVID-19. We found the Weibo hashtag “Diary of the lockdown” where plain people would record their dailylife and feelings. We analyzed the content of these diaries and restored the life of everyone with it after the lockdown.

Additionally, in “Delivery Guy Tells Secrets Behind the Lockdown in Wuhan“, we cooperated with the takeaway platform to peek into the living conditions of Wuhan people under the lockdown through takeaway orders, and found that the routine of people had alterd though, their taste remained. At the same time, we also found that many orders were sent to hospitals, many of which were from other address entrusting concern for people in Wuhan.

This is the introduction to the COVID-19 serises stories covered by DataBlog. We hope it will be of help for you to understand our work.