How was your NICAR26?
By David Rodriguez Data journalism is still new to me. Despite that, I decided to dive in head first and attend the recent NICAR conference in Chicago. It was one of my best experiences as a journalist so far. I was reluctant to attend after feeling ignored for being “just an intern” at another event…
Read MoreBy Alexis Allison If you Google the ingredients in sausage, you’ll quickly notice that little standardization exists between recipes. The same is true for the care and keeping of government data — whether at the city, county, or federal level. Partway through the panel dubbed, “Inside the sausage factory: An inside look at government data…
Read MoreBy John Sadler Hate crimes are on the rise. According to the FBI’s annual report, near the end of the succeeding year, 2016 was the second year in a row in which reported hate crimes rose. There is reason to believe this data is not comprehensive, though. It relies on local police reports, many of…
Read MoreBy Jing Ren Nick Penzenstadler from USA TODAY, Matt Drange from Forbes and Kim Smith at the University of Chicago Crime Lab discussed statistics and documents reporters covering guns should routinely gather at their CAR Conference panel. Because of the nature of her work, Smith’s team has access to many administrative statistics on firearms. She…
Read MoreBy Yue Yu What data sets can reporters get ahead of natural disasters? How can reporters cover disasters as they happen? What kind of follow-up leads should they chase? Matt Dempsey from the Houston Chronicle, Omaya Sosa from Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism and Lee Zurik from WVUE-TV in New Orleans broke down the…
Read MoreIf you’re walking down the street in San Francisco, it’s impossible to ignore. On any given day there are nearly 7,500 homeless people on the city’s streets. It’s an issue many of America’s largest cities are struggling to keep up with. But some have found a cheap solution to reduce their homeless populations: one-way bus…
Read MoreBy Dariya Tsyrenzhapova Only one-third of victims of sexual harassment ever report those incidents to the authorities, Bernice Yeung said. Yeung, a journalist with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and a member of award-winning teams that produced documentaries “Rape in the Fields” and “Rape on the Night Shift,” spoke as part of a…
Read MoreBy Tyler Wornell Tracking the flow of money in an election can be a crucial reporting tool for knowing who’s influencing elections and how. Tracking some of that money could prove difficult, though. In Friday’s CAR Conference panel, “Wagging the Dog: Using campaign finance data to cover the midterm election,” Denise Roth Barber from the…
Read MoreBy Virginia Ward A series of small compromises between players and coaches often lead to high-risk operations within sports organizations. Syracuse University professor Jodi Upton, USA Today database editor Christopher Schnaars and Raycom investigative producer Jill Riepenhoff shared their experience investigating college and youth sports. From major infractions to Title IX investigations, journalists are uncovering…
Read MoreBy Alexis Allison “The only thing that white people have worse than black people is osteoporosis,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, said during the “Investigating racial inequality” panel. “That’s the amazing thing about America,” Hannah-Jones said. “Anything you want to measure, somebody’s tracking it based on race.” Susan Smith…
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