How McClatchy leveraged interactive data content to better serve and engage its readers

Dataherald Impact

Situation

McClatchy is an award-winning news organization operating in 30 growing markets within the US. With its team of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and deep-rooted commitment to local journalism, it is one of the most storied American journalism franchises.

McClatchy has invested heavily into delivering high-quality local journalism to the communities it serves. McClatchy has been particularly focused on bolstering its use of data content such as charts, maps, and graphs, to better convey information to its readers.

However, leveraging data from dozens of external data sources is not easy. It requires discovering the right data sources, translating that data into best-in-class data content, and building and maintaining data pipelines so that the data content stays up-to-date. All of this work requires dedicated data teams, and for a company like McClatchy that owns numerous properties throughout the country, maintaining multiple data teams can be cost prohibitive.

Approach: A tool so easy, anyone can use it

McClatchy wanted a software tool that anyone in their newsrooms could easily use. The software needed to enable each of McClatchy’s local properties to browse dozens of relevant data sets (such as real estate prices, local unemployment rates, and air quality trends), and create engaging data content — all in under 60 seconds.

McClatchy chose Dataherald because it took care of the hard data work. By building robust data pipelines on a broad range of topics, which update automatically in sync with the source, journalists were able to find relevant data and build customized, highly interactive visualizations in a matter of minutes and without ever needing to code. Rather than spending time doing data engineering, journalists were able to focus on insights and analysis.

Result

Dataherald has enabled McClatchy to tell more data-driven stories while boosting engagement across its 10 major markets. We have deployed our product at several McClatchy owned sites like Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star etc. allowing them to publish data-driven stories on topics that matter to their readers without having to worry about data complexities or hiring multiple data teams. Check out some examples of how McClatchy properties are deploying Dataherald visualizations to captivate their readership: