A Day In The Life Of… Meike Eijsberg, Data Journalist at The Telegraph

When Meike Eijsberg was growing up, she didn’t initially know she wanted to be a journalist, mainly because she didn’t know such a role existed. But, when she was told to choose between her love of numbers and languages, she discovered the newsroom as a place you really could combine both. 

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Meike has honed her analytical insight across several roles, now working as a data journalist for the Telegraph. Previously, she was part of the graphics journalism team creating infographics, charts and maps.

We caught up with Meike at the Student Publication Association National Conference 2024 to learn more about a day in the life of a data journalist, her different roles at the Telegraph, and being a polyglot.

How did you get started in journalism?

I did a master’s in data journalism at City St George’s, University of London. I was already looking at doing a masters there whilst I was studying international affairs. I knew that I wanted to go into journalism, but I didn’t know which field of journalism just yet.

I started following data journalists on Twitter (now known as X), and saw what they were writing about. I had started to look into several programmes, because there are lots of MA journalism programmes, but the one I eventually picked was brand new. In fact, I was the first cohort; we were just five people.

So that’s what I did for a year, during Covid. I then spent a couple of months applying for jobs and I got lucky and landed the infographic job at the Telegraph. They have been a lovely team and now I am able to get into an even better role.

Did you always know you would end up as a journalist?

I didn’t know that it existed when I was young. In secondary school, I was studying multi-science subjects like mathematics and physics, but also economics. They definitely required numbers, but that’s ok, I like numbers! I was taking four languages at one point too, because in the Netherlands, no one ever wants to learn Dutch, so we learn every other language. I speak Dutch, French, English, and German.

I like languages and I like numbers, and at the time I was told I had to make a choice between them. I was told to either do language and focus on things like politics or social affairs, or go straight into STEM subjects. But then I later learnt that there is something that combines both. You can combine both your love for language and writing and reporting the things that are happening in the world, and take into account some numbers and data and analytical elements.

What does a typical day in the life of a data journalist look like?

I have to start anytime between 9am and 9:30am. It’s not very early, actually, compared to some other people who are up at 6am, running around. We have a shared email inbox with everyone who’s in the journalism graphics team, and if it’s a very busy newsday and if things happen overnight elsewhere, that inbox will be filled with commissions from different desks. So, [it could] be [the] foreign [desk]and I’ll have to make a map annotating, say, a strike that happened in Gaza. So that’s usually what I do first: stories that happened overnight.

Then, news might come in. So, there’s lots of polling happening with the elections [at the moment], so there’ll be a poll requested at some point, for which I’ll either have to find data for or someone will literally send me a screenshot of it.

I think on my busiest days I’ve created 15–20 visualisations. A few of those were very simple ones. Very simple line charts, bar charts. If the business desk is reporting on trade, which is very generic, they would’ve already found data themselves and all that’s left for me to do is just make the bar chart.

But if there’s anyone who’s not as familiar with data but still wants to feature some sort of data in their story, they’ll send a commission and ask if we can help. If they’re open to my input then it’ll take a lot longer to work on one visualisation — up to half a day, even.

What piece of work are you proudest of?

Probably the first and second year anniversary of Ukraine, because that was planned way in advance. So, that was working with a lot of the data people who were researching a lot and we were trying to find ways to best represent that. One very big visual we did in the first year was how the front lines changed. That was, excuse my language, a pain in the ass to make. It was a challenge because it was the first time we were reporting on such an event.

What do you like doing after work?

I like cooking. I just like going home to my flat and cooking meals that I usually pre-plan. Just the little things I can look forward to. I live with my flatmate, who I’ve known since uni, and we just exchange office gossip at the end of the day.

I’m very good at keeping things separate, I’m very good at compartmentalising. I try to look at it as if I’m just applying technical skills to make something look visually appealing and produce journalism, essentially. I try not to think about it that much.

Things that influence me a lot, things that make me nauseous, was when we were working on graphics for a story about Lucy Letby. It was difficult to leave the office after that.

Another story that was difficult was that submarine that went down with the billionaires. Everyone was constantly reporting on it and all I could think about was what must it feel like to be that deep in the ocean and then just implode. It made me feel very nauseous. But overall, I’m quite good at just keeping things separate because I work with just software and not humans.

Data journalists are chained to their desks a little bit. We don’t go out as much, which means we aren’t as involved in bringing the human element, although I think the best sort of data journalism story you can do is one where you find the story in the data and then find people who can represent these numbers — how can I bring back the human angle and make this a story that people actually care about? I think a good data story starts with numbers and ends with a face that you can bind the number to.

What would you tell budding data journalists?

Just be curious, that’s it really. It’s a job for those who never want to stop learning and I love being a student. I did a couple of degrees because I enjoyed learning so much! I think graphics journalism, data journalism that requires you to have technical skills, those will always change so you have to keep up. So it’s good motivation to keep learning to stay relevant in the field.