Three countries, six languages and a handful of data

Not many people have had the experience of living abroad, Jonathan Tourino Jacobo is now on his third country after moving to Birmingham recently. He was born in Switzerland where he attended school, and then moved to Spain for his bachelor’s degree.

‘All of my education, I did it in Switzerland, except for the bachelor’s (in journalism), which I did in Madrid.’

It’s unsurprising then, that Joni’s interest and start in Journalism was during his time in Madrid. However, it wasn’t during his course that he gained a love for it, an apprenticeship at La Voz de Galicia really sparked something.

‘I did an apprenticeship three years ago in Spain at a newspaper called La Voz de Galicia, for two months in the economy section. I liked it, because I wasn’t very happy about the course, as there were only two or three parts that were interesting. So, when I did the apprenticeship I was thinking “I know nothing” and I was rediscovering everything.’

This experience of the real world of Journalism has given Joni a wealth of experience and helped him learn a lot of what he knows about Journalism. One experience on his course did nevertheless ignite Joni’s love for journalism, and that was interviewing Álvaro Rigal, an investigative journalist that worked on the Panama Papers.

‘We had a class where the teacher wanted to teach us about data journalism, and when I heard about it, I was like “we need to interview this guy.” And I enjoyed doing the interview.’

One element of this experience particularly stuck with him.

‘We were very prepared, we had a list of 10 to 15 questions, with different categories and subjects. I remember, when we ended the interview he asked if we had any more questions. I was like, yeah, and I can’t remember what I asked him, but he said “oh… interesting question.” I was surprised he thought it was a good question.’

It’s experiences like this that have led Joni to enjoy interviews, and also made his interest in journalism greater. There is a lot of information you can gain from other people and learn from. It always helps you get information from someone if you can speak their language, and Joni isn’t lacking in that department.

A man of many languages

You’d expect someone that has lived in three different countries to have picked up the language of each. Joni has gone a step further however.

‘Actually, I can speak two more languages, I love to speak different languages. That’s why I wanted to do a masters in Data journalism because I always wanted to learn coding, and I felt like it was a good opportunity to learn coding with the masters.’

If he is being modest, Joni says he can speak five languages, in reality he can turn his hand to six. He has Spanish, French, English, Galician, Some Italian, and can even hold a conversation in Portuguese, due to its similarity to Galician. It seems that he’s not done yet, he has visited Japan, and has a desire to learn Japanese next.

The importance of data

Joni has interest in the use data in a variety of fields, including some of his hobbies like Video Games and TV series. Using data in these settings, can give you somewhat of a feeling of being inside the boardroom of a major production company.

‘A few years ago, there was a website called TV by the Numbers I think, to see what the audience in the US was for TV shows. You could see how many millions watched that show, and that show, so I could guess which shows might be cancelled because not many people are watching it. Another TV show doesn’t have many viewers, but it’s on a different channel. I tried to apply some data thinking to that.’

Data has a more practical use for Joni too, and he wants to learn more about Data visualisation to cut through the noise that surrounds a lot of news in the current climate. Information and news can have much greater impact, and can be found much more easily, once data is presented in an accessible and interesting way.

‘Through learning coding, I want to do “fun things”, if you can call it that, like data visualisation. Some stories by the New York times and other places are interesting, they write the article and as I read it, I feel that it is trying to give an implication to the reader. This is by, for example, putting a map, and you click and can see New York and what’s happening in Manhattan.’

Using data to answer questions via data visualisation undoubtedly exhibits a quality that Joni believes is one of his best assets, curiosity. The want and need to ask and answer questions through a stream of new information sits at the heart of what he wants to achieve.

A curious character

The phrase “curiosity killed the cat” is without doubt outdated, and quite a damning indictment of a trait that is so useful. It is curiosity that drives Joni forward, and what really makes him want to progress in Journalism. This couldn’t be more emphasised by his want to learn new things, be that languages or skills such as coding, and push journalism into the future.

‘I’m quite curious, I always want to learn new things. I’m always curious to discover the new thing in journalism, because it’s always interesting to see how you can improve it, and what new ways there are of doing journalism.’

‘A few years back, a group of Spanish journalists created a bot, called Politibot in Facebook messenger. Each day you receive news and you could interact; they gave you a few options to choose.’

‘I love this idea to interact with people. That’s one of the things I like, and with data visualisation, I’ve seen so many amazing things lately and I’m like, wow! I want to be able to do that. I love to learn new things.’

An unconventional, and slow, route to Birmingham

It may be confusing for some that Joni would swap Madrid for Birmingham. However, there is a rather obvious reason behind his move to the West Midlands.

‘In Spain there is only one place that does a masters in data journalism, whereas in the UK there are plenty more, and so I chose Birmingham.’

The choice of Birmingham and travelling to the UK in times of pandemic has had its issues though, as Joni is currently quarantining for 14 days. This isn’t even the first period of time that he has had to endure in quarantine.

‘The journey, it was a bit complicated. First, I was living in Spain, when (the pandemic) happened. I arrived one week before the lockdown in Spain. There was a lockdown and six months later my parents came to Spain for their holidays. I’d spent six months without seeing my parents or my brother. We came back to Switzerland, had to quarantine for ten days. Now I’ve come to Birmingham and I have to quarantine for 14 days.’

‘In Spain it didn’t affect me a lot, because I’m more of a stay at home person. To me it didn’t happen, it didn’t affect me, at least physically or mentally. Now that I’m in Birmingham I can’t get to know the city, see the university, I have to wait until after the classes start.’

Joni hasn’t been wasting his time though, as he’s been reading books and looking at spreadsheets to help himself prepare for the Data Journalism Masters. This certainly displays the curiosity that he sees as being a key part of the reason why he is a journalist.

The future

With such a broad range of Language skills and experience in different cultures, it isn’t surprising that Joni can see himself going to any number of countries for work in future.

‘When I was in Madrid would always ask me (where I will end up), and I was like, “wherever there’s a job for me I’ll go.” Be it in Spain, in the UK, in Japan, in the US, South America. I want to learn new things, new places, new ways of seeing things. It’s not about where, it’s what I can do there.’

Family in Argentina and the political climate in South America certainly make it an enticing prospect for a journalist like Joni. His interest in polls and politics are demonstrated by his university dissertation on Brexit and the 2016 US election and how they were represented on different newspaper front pages.

Yet, it is Japan that he would consider his ‘dream’ destination for work. Many may prefer the comforts of home and don’t stray far in life, it is fair to say that the past, present and future for Joni are very much international.