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### Christian McDonald: Moody’s Resident Data Mastermind

By Kassie Araque

Christian McDonald, Innovation Director for the School of Journalism and Media, earned an assistant professor position at the University of Texas at Austin in 2018 after five years as a lecturer. Now, McDonald teaches three courses in the Moody College of Communication exploring the growing connection between technology and journalism.

Before UT, McDonald was the data and online projects editor at the Austin American-Statesman, where he produced data stories for print and online. McDonald found unique ways to present topics outside traditional print or video formats, such as “scrollytelling” — a type of online content where graphics and statistics appear on the screen as the reader scrolls through the article.

“I feel strongly that a lot of our best journalism is born from data,” McDonald said.

McDonald also teaches the university’s Digital Innovations Capstone, a journalism course funded by the Dallas Morning News Innovation Endowment. The class teaches students the principles of design thinking and sees them work collaboratively to develop and market their own products. Final projects from the course range from podcasts to mobile apps and bots.

“It’s trying to bring that mindset to journalists, or expose journalists to that mindset, so that we can build better news products for people in the future,” McDonald said.

McDonald is also a regular attendee at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, an annual data journalism conference. Investigative Reporters and Editors hosts the conference, which it founded in 1989. Skills sessions and panels train journalists to retrieve and analyze data ethically. McDonald estimated that out of the over 900 people in attendance at this year’s conference, about 40% were first-time attendees.

McDonald attended the 2023 conference in early March with eight current UT students, but the professor said he was happy to see a few former students as well. McDonald said he enjoys the collaborative, supportive culture at the conference the most.

“It’s home for me. It’s like these are my people,” McDonald said.

The data journalism subgenre saw an exponential rise in recent years, and McDonald said he makes an effort to teach with transparency and promote repetition. McDonald uses open-source code, so others can easily fact-check him or apply their research to any work he produces within their own communities.

McDonald said open-source code also allows him to fact-check his own findings with experts in the field, and easily explain his processes. It also makes it easier for students to identify and correct their mistakes.

“I like teaching,” McDonald said. “Data being a part of journalism, it helps kind of push back against that hashtag #FakeNews kind of mentality.”