Data processes are often repetitive. Download the dataset, clean it, analyze, visualize, publish. What if new data comes in? Start all over again. From Google Sheets to Python, automation can streamline this process — saving time, enabling live coverage, or helping you be first with recurring stories. But is it worth automating everything?
Through real examples — from election coverage to internal requests from other teams — we’ll share our ongoing reflection at El Confidencial’s data desk: how we decide what is worth automating, what has worked (and what hasn’t), and how maintaining a small library of reusable scripts has helped us speed up our workflows and focus more on storytelling. In this practical session, we will take a step back from the daily grind to rethink how automation can help us work smarter, not harder.
Some knowledge of HTML or spreadsheets is desirable, but not required. We will mention Google Sheets, data visualization platforms like Datawrapper or Flourish, and languages like SQL, R or Python, as well. It is recommended to have access to an AI (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral) in order to participate in some of the examples we will give in the session.
