Bolstering transparency in our reporting
Back at the Herald News, several of the editors and reporters wrote a regular series of columns for the newsroom called “Best Practices.” In digging through my archives, I’ve found several that are...
View ArticleWaking from an election results nightmare
Sometimes, especially after a particularly trying election night, it starts to feel like we may be suffering from post-polls PTSD. For the past year and a half, we’ve been experimenting at The...
View ArticleNerds need credit too
It seems odd in 2012 that in some newsrooms the data journalists don’t get the same kind of credit for their work that other reporters receive. I suppose it’s understandable, if NICAR-L is any...
View ArticleHow to get a head count at the parade
This is another in the series of “Best Practices” posts from my archives from the Herald News. This was also written by Jonathan Maslow, and offers some solid street reporting tips for counting the...
View ArticleNot another blinking PDF!
There are few things more frustrating than trying to get a simple spreadsheet from a government agency and being told by a spokesman that the data (say, a table of property tax rates in municipalities...
View ArticleTalking data in the Nutmeg State
Intro to data The slide deck Handouts: Newsroom math overview Numbers in the Newsroom by Sarah Cohen Newsroom math crib sheet by Steve Doig Extra reading The roots of “precision journalism” How Jason...
View ArticleMore tips for using OpenRefine
At IRE’s computer-assisted reporting conference this week in Louisville, I am once again teaching a course on using OpenRefine to clean data. Although the program has changed names over the last few...
View ArticleLearning to commit to version control
At this week’s computer-assisted reporting conference in Louisville, IRE has me doing double-duty. In addition to my class on OpenRefine, I’m also teaching a hands-on session on git and Github. This...
View ArticleWhat I learned organizing a hackathon
It all started in September, at the Online News Association’s conference in San Francisco. I crashed the #wjchat party and ended up meeting the infamous Debbie Galant, the force of nature behind...
View ArticleDiving in to Data with SPJ
Today, I had a chance to speak at the Society of Professional Journalists’ Region 1 Spring conference, held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Debbie Galant of the NJ News Commons and I talked...
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