>> Take a look to the published project “Behind the speech of Macri: checking and findings” . Experiment the look and feel.
Now,
The explanation and behind the scenes
This visualization was the result of great teamwork. La Nación and Chequeado (factcheking NGO) joined efforts to publish a journalistic high impact graphic piece to analyze the speech of President Mauricio Macri on the opening day of regular congressional sessions. After an exhaustive planning and coordination, 60 persons took part in different stages of the project.
Detail of the digital application.
The application consists of 3 tabs containing different analytical approaches:
Fact-checking
Focuses of the speech
Subjects of the speech
STAGES OF THE PROJECT
Before the speech:
On this initial step, it was designed the mockup of the speech and the layout and programming using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Several Google Drive Spreadsheets were created in order that both teams, Chequeado and La Nación could work at the same time from different physical places, thus optimizing time.
Graphs with data sets concerning sensitive topics were also designed. These data set could also be included in the application, provided that they were mentioned during the presidential speech (subjects such as inflation, poverty, retirement, etc.).
During the speech:
The Chequeado team made the collective checking live, by integrating the information load to the workflow that day. As a result, there was a total of 25 checking and 2 explainers. For the live checking, more than 50 persons (among them, specialists, journalists, volunteers and team members of Chequeado) met in a big room at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella where the President speech was broadcasted. There were summaries based on checking, but adapted to the necessary length for its correct display, plus the upload of minutes and seconds of each phrase, the ranking and the link to the article in the above mentioned Google Drive spreadsheet.
After the speech: the application was uploaded online in steps as it had been planned, since the three mentioned tabs had different preparation times. The first one was the data checking tab (made by the Chequeado team), then it was the Focus on speech tab and almost simultaneously, the Subject tab.
Publication platforms:
The application was first published in the digital platform (desktop, tablet and mobile format) and the following day it was published in a double page of the print version of La Nación.
Analysis of the speech:
The entire speech analysis was made through Google Drive. This allowed us to decentralize production and collaboratively work with different members of LA NACIÓN DATA.
The speeches of Mauricio Macri on March 1, 2016 and March 1, 2017 were copied in separate Google Docs.
The first analysis was focused on finding those moments where the President referred to the inheritance received from the previous Government, this administration and finally the commitments assumed.
Once these passages of the speech were identified, the text was divided in paragraphs on a Google Spreadsheet. Each paragraph was assigned an unique ID and then, each one of these above mentioned moments were included in a “Filter” column.
Additionally, the spreadsheet included two more columns where it was specified the video excerpt corresponding to that moment.
Those paragraphs were no reference was made for further analysis were left in blank.
The second analysis was focused on finding speech references concerning these subjects: Economy, Social subjects (education, health, etc.), Justice and Corruption, Security and Foreign Affairs.
The structure for the information uploading was made in the same way to that of the previous analysis. We created a column where the user specified the subject mentioned by the President and there were two other columns related to specific moments of the video of the speech which corresponded to said passage:
After these analysis, we counted the number of words for each one of the speech moments. That is to say, the number of words used to refer to the inheritance received, the number of words used as regards the administration and those referred to the commitments assumed. We estimated the percentages of each moment as regards the total text.
This same analysis was also made to the category of subjects that we gather on a second example.
We created a new spreadsheet to administer this information:
Finally, all the information was uploaded on a general file of the application software:
Additionally, for each one of the speeches analyzed, we made a count based on the most used words.
We used Wordle to structure the information in two columns: word and number of times used:
The information was then included in a .xls file, the monosyllable words and connectors were deleted, among other words. Finally, a ranking was made.
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