Hans Rosling urged journalists to use data to see the big picture of the world: If there is progress, remember to cover it. It made him a prominent figure in the innovation of journalism, which not many are aware, writes Cathrine Gyldensted.
August last year, I sent an invitation off to Hans Rosling.
Would he come to The Netherlands and speak at a conference with The Guardian, BBC and MIT? We wanted him to tell the assembled journalists from Scandinavia, Europe, Africa and America, how his work was relevant to us. We seek to show a more accurate picture of the world through data. I was met with email silence. I never heard anything back.
I began wondering if something was wrong. With him?
I knew well that Rosling was highly sought after. But the mail address I had was his private and given to me through colleagues in the Swedish journalism community. Finally, two months later came an answer and from a completely different entity. Fernanda from Rosling's Gapminder Foundation responded. She regretfullly turned our invitation down. Professor Rosling does not accept any bookings, she stated. Nor for the upcoming year. But we could try to contact his son, Ola.
Then, yesterday came the announcement which made my heart sink.
Hans Rosling had succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
Rosling is a globally recognized voice and held numerous presentations around the world, including several TED talks. As a statistician, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and a strong explainer of longitudinal data Rosling showed us how world progress is real and influential when it comes to for example health, poverty, education, corruption - you name it. Rosling's overall message was that the state of the world is much better than the media says. "You can not use the news media if you want to understand the world," Rosling famously stated when he visited Danish Broadcasting in 2015.
But few people realize how much influence Rosling ended up having on innovating news journalism for the better. It began years ago in his home country, specifically on Sweden's Television/SVT. The Head of the Foreign News Desk Ingrid Thörnqvist invited professor to speak for her newsroom of correspondents.
"It started with a good scolding. "You journalists do not understand anything about what is really happening in the world. You only report war and misery, disease and hunger. But that is not what the world looks like, Rosling exclaimed." So writes Thörnqvist about the meeting.
Rosling data and statistics made a lasting impression on the sceptical journalists. Ingrid Thörnqvist tells how she sat with an open mouth and a flushed visage. She realized the active role she and her reporters had in feeding a skewed view of the world to their citizens. How they bore responsibility for the Swedish people not getting accurate information and knowledge about the state of the world.
It was the beginning of systematic and sustained action in SVT, where coverage of Africa was the first that was altered. Under the heading 'New Africa' their team crisscrossed the African continent and reported on young entrepreneurs with ambition, educated and articulate policy-makers, good governance and a growing middle class. As a supplement to all the classic Africa coverage.
This initiative was heavily criticised by Swedish NGOs who angrily attacked SVT. They were afraid that if focus was shifted from malnourished children with bloated stomachs, donations would suffer. But SVT continued. Fortunately.
Later Rosling opened Danish journalists 'eyes, through this interview on national TV which went viral all over the world.
But, it was Ingrid Thörnqvist, which opened my eyes to the value of Rosling's work in journalism. At a journalist school in The Netherlands, where I currently run a department for constructive elements in journalism, Rosling message has found its way into our teaching material and curriculum.
We have six focus areas. Number five on the list we call 'The Rosling':
Under number five we teach how the use of solid data sets gives us a better opportunity to judge if a something, a story topic, has seen societal progress or setback. We use data to create infographics, explaining the news, so we go from covering incidents to covering context. Our journalism student are taught 'The Rosling' and use it actively in their work. Newsrooms, we work with , get it as part of their trainings. At conferences 'The Rosling' is a prominent part of our presentations.
For us it makes sense, what the Swedish professor said. Use data to acknowledge the big picture. If there is progress, remember to report on it, too. It can easily be done in conjunction with coverage that points out problems.
In a world where we are drowning in information, but starving for wisdom, Hans Rosling's message and life's work is more important than ever. Even though the protagonist now is silenced.
This work will continue, more focused than ever.