Data and technology: one of the challenges for journalism

In the constantly changing society we live in, the way journalism is done has undergone major changes. However, it must be noted that the pillars of journalism continue to be based on ethical values, the search for truth and objectivity. One of the factors contributing to change in this profession is the widespread use of new technologies. In this work, in order to adjust teaching to the new emerging needs of future professionals, we will focus on the information contained in the data and how to analyze it, since the data have been increasingly used as a source of news. The proposed challenge was to analyze how three leading Portuguese newspapers covered the news of the pandemic caused by COVID-19. In this sense, it was necessary to prepare the database for analysis and plan what information to extract from the data. In addition to Excel, used to organize the database, we used the Python programming language, which allowed for a more detailed analysis of the news coverage of the pandemic.