Philip Meyer, the outsider who created Precision Journalism

Abstract

The value of Philip Meyer’s trajectory for journalism studies is the main point of this interview. He created the concept called Precision Journalism, which brings journalism close to science through social research methods, and is also the name of a book published for the first time in 1973. Although Precision Journalism doesn’t necessarily require the use of computers, Meyer started to work with them before their popularization, during Detroit’s riots in 1967, after spending nine months at Harvard University. By using sample in the journalistic narrative, Meyer and Detroit Free Press staff won a Pulitzer Prize one year later. Precision Journalism is a concept still used, but nowadays is more associated to data journalism. In this interview, answered by e-mail, Meyer not only remembers his career and talks about journalism practice, like the use of data, hypothesis and transparency, but also reveals his perceptions about journalism in the future.