Susan Carroll Fellowship
By Tierra Smith Data journalists explained the problems they encountered using hacked data during a panel at the 2016 CAR Conference in Denver. Hacking is illegally accessing a computer system that you do not have permission to use. Not only can the hacker face criminal charges, but journalists could as well. In order to avoid…
Read MoreBy Tierra Smith Correctional facilities tend to document everything. But it can be difficult for journalists to get records from the juvenile justice system because cases and incidents involving minors tend to be confidential. Chad Day, a reporter for The Associated Press; Kim English of the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice; and Paula Lavigne, a…
Read MoreWhen you write to your colleagues, text your friends or speak to your sources, it may seem like the only people with access to the conversation are you and the other person. For most people, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Independent journalist Quinn Norton, Andy Boyle of NBC News and Jeff Larson of…
Read MoreBy Jennifer Lu Judging by the “oohs” and “ahhs” of appreciation from the audience, ProPublica reporters Ryann Grochowski Jones and Charles Ornstein reminded us why the humble Excel spreadsheet is still an excellent resource for data journalists. In this hands-on session, they covered how to use Excel for health care reporting. To cover health care…
Read MoreLee Zurik | Photo by Jocelyn Stargell-Zachery Jocelyn Stargell-Zachery talks with Lee Zurik, evening anchor and chief investigative reporter at WVUE-TV in New Orleans. Stargell-Zachery: What sparked your interest in the field of journalism? Zurik: I was kind of a freak, and I wanted to be in journalism since I was like 10 years old.…
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Read MoreWeb scraping serves as a helpful last resort reporting tool for data journalists, but it comes with its fair share of ethical and technical concerns. At this year’s NICAR conference, Martin Burch of The Wall Street Journal, Ricardo Brom of La Nación, Amanda Hickman of BuzzFeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology, and the Arts, and…
Read MoreBy Quint Forgey The old newspaper adage, “there is no news in the newsroom,” no longer applies to American media. That’s because journalists can easily access publicly available data to quickly enhance reporting and put journalists hours – even days – ahead of competitors when local news breaks. In Thursday’s session, “Data for breaking news,”…
Read MoreBy Kouichi Shirayanagi The United States is becoming increasingly racially diverse, especially in the West, Southwest and Southeast. However, the Midwest and New England still remain heavily white. The Hispanic population is growing at the fastest rate. Stephanie Ewert, chief of the Foreign-Born Population Branch at the U.S. Census Bureau, said that especially among children,…
Read MoreBy D.B. Narverson Veteran educators offered three key tips for teaching data journalism during a CAR Conference session Thursday: Teach so that each lesson builds into the next, and review often. Use topics of interest to students, whether it’s restaurant health inspections, the plight of journalists overseas or a stray dog. Create situations where students…
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