Case Study: The Age achieves rapid, interactive data-driven storytelling with Tableau Software

Telling stories through data at The Age

The Age, a major Australian news outlet, needed a faster way to find and tell stories from large raw datasets while meeting tight production deadlines for print, online and tablet. Data journalist Craig Butt faced the challenge of turning messy records (e.g., 30,000 VCE student entries) into clear, publishable narratives and interactives without lengthy design or coding work.

Using Tableau, Butt quickly aggregated and visualized the data into interactive dashboards—most notably a VCE high-achievers tool that let readers explore school results—which ran with the story and earned front-page attention. The platform enabled rapid turnarounds (sometimes under 20 minutes), streamlined multi-platform publishing, and supported training others in data journalism, improving The Age’s ability to discover and present data-driven stories.

The Age

Craig Butt

Data Journalist