Pratheek Rebala, 26

News Developer, The Center for Public Integrity Education: George Washington University, bachelor of arts in international affairs

What advice do you have for other young professionals in the news industry?

Listen and learn from others. We are all surrounded by incredible colleagues who have something they can teach us. So don’t be afraid (or too proud) to ask questions or reach out for help.

Don’t compete; collaborate. Build relationships with journalists in other newsrooms and those outside the industry. Then, when pitching stories, look for ways to tap into those relationships to broaden the scope and impact of your work.

Support and fight for yourself and your fellow journalists. We all know our industry’s systemic problems. It might not always feel like it, but you do have the power to improve our business. Be an ally. Stand up for your colleagues. Share your salary info. And absolutely unionize your workplace.

Why is data important in journalism and news media?

At the Center for Public Integrity, we focus on uncovering systemic inequities in our society. Although, often, going into an investigation, we don’t have a sense for what the story is, our first question is always “what data is out there.” This systematic approach is crucial to look past pre-existing notions to characterize the scope and extent of these issues.

Data also allows us to reach our audience in new and creative ways using interactive graphics and other tools that enable our readers to contextualize the story in ways we otherwise couldn’t. For instance, for our story on polling place changes in Baton Rouge, we used voter file data and polling place locations to build a graphic that readers could use to visualize every single voter affected by each decision to move or close a polling place.

Similarly, data allows us to build tools to empower other reporters to localize stories and broaden the impact of our investigations in ways that would be impossible for us to do ourselves.