The emergence of data‐driven journalism (DDJ) can be understood as journalism’s response to the datafication of society. We retrace the development of this emerging reporting style by looking at what may be considered the gold‐standard in data‐driven reporting: projects that were nominated for the Data Journalism Awards (DJA), a prize issued annually by the Global Editors Network. Using a content analysis of the nominees from 2013 to 2015 (n = 179) we examine if and how, among other aspects, data sources and types, visualisation strategies, interactive features, topics, and types of nominated media outlets have changed over the years. Results suggest, for instance, that the set of structural elements data‐driven pieces are built upon remains rather stable, that data journalism is increasingly personnel intensive and progressively spreading around the globe, and that journalists, while still concentrating on data from official institutions, are increasingly looking to unofficial data sources for their stories. Keywords: data, data journalism, data‐driven journalism, content analysis, Data Journalism Awards, reporting style, presentation form, visualisation