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We’ve been reaching out to Atlanta-area journalists and compiling their suggestions on what to eat and drink during NICAR15. We've heard back about grungy little spots for late-night eats, beer bars with endless taps, tapas and live music.
What follows is a big ol' compilation, separated by neighborhood and proximity to the conference hotel. Some of these suggestions came up over and over. Others, we’ll call "sleepers."
Read through, then join in the conversation by leaving your favorite Atlanta spots in the comments or tweeting them with the hashtag #NICAR15.
Porter Beer Bar: More than 800 beers in-house and 44 of them on tap. Plus food.
Star Bar: A community bar with live music Wednesdays through Saturdays. They sometimes charge a cover (looks like $6 and $10 on the Thursday and Saturday of the conference), so check before or bring some cash.
Manuel’s Tavern: Actually, just a hair north of L5P. Manuel's is a neighborhood bar always with a hand in state politics. And we’ve heard it should be hopping during conference time with the state legislature in session.
Majestic Diner: Again, a little north of L5P, near Manuel’s. A 24-hour diner that does dine-in or carry-out.
Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q: A good, well-known barbecue spot with a fun hangout atmosphere.
The Vortex (also a location in Midtown): If you’re planning on making #NICAR15 your last stop on earth, might as well hit The Vortex for a Triple Coronary Bypass burger. Its contents: three burger patties, three fried eggs, 14 slices of American cheese, 10 strips of bacon and two grilled cheese sandwiches (the “bun”).
Mary Mac’s Tea Room: Old-fashioned spot for southern fare, and reasonably priced.
Escorpion: Nice tequila bar and restaurant just a mile from the hotel.
Lure: Good seafood in an atmosphere that’s part sophisticated, part casual.
Barcelona: Wine bar and tapas restaurant open late. Outdoor seating with a fireplace.
Tacqueria del Sol (with other locations): A little Mexican tacqueria – order, then take a seat. Good place to grab a couple tacos and a cheap drink with a small group.
Jeni’s Splended Ice Creams: Delicious ice cream, right there near Tacqueria del Sol.
Six Feet Under Pub & Fish House (another location in Grant Park): Reasonably priced seafood and an extensive menu. Good beer selection. Great rooftop patios at each location when the weather permits.
Bocado: Burgers, creative sandwiches and cocktails.
Within Marriott: The convention hotel offers several options for food and drink: Sear, a more upscale place for steaks and seafood; High Velocity, a sports bar with 29 TVs; Pulse, a lounge area set around a 50-foot sail; the M-store, a convenience store; and Starbucks.
Nearby: White Oak Kitchen and Cocktails, Alma Cocina, Hard Rock Cafe, Firehouse Subs, Benihana, Jalapeno Charlie’s, Pacific Rim Bistro, Morton’s Steakhouse
Other resources:
Thanks to everyone who pitched and voted on the 2015 Lightning Talks. Here are the talks we’ll be hearing Friday, March 6 at 4:30 p.m. You can read more about them on our Lightning Talks page.
And a special thanks to Sisi Wei and Jeremy Bowers for developing our new Lightning Talks platform!
Dori J. Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and longtime champion of diversity in journalism and civic life, died Tues., Feb. 24. She was 56.
From the Maynard Institute:
Maynard advocated tirelessly for the future of the institute and its programs, reminding all that the work of bringing the diverse voices of America into news and public discourse is more vital than ever. Under her leadership, the Institute has trained some of the top journalists in the country and helped newsrooms tell more inclusive and nuanced stories. New programs are empowering community members to voice the narrative of their own lives. On the morning of her death, she was discussing plans with a board member to help the institute thrive and to attract funding to support that work.
Read more about Dori Maynard’s legacy on the Institute’s website.
By Matt Rumsey, Sunlight Foundation
On Feb. 6, the Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to the Sunlight Foundation explaining how it planned to comply with our FOIA request for Enterprise Data Inventories. These inventories are compiled by 24 federal agencies as part of President Barack Obama’s 2013 open data executive order.
The release, which we believe will represent the largest index of government data in the world, is not just important for open government advocates. It’s important for journalists, researchers and more.
President Obama has made opening government data a priority throughout his term, but has not always been successful in making data easily accessible. The Sunlight Foundation has argued that, for an open data policy to be truly effective, the public must have access to a comprehensive list of government data holdings.
Already, government data sets are regularly used to inform reporting, conduct public oversight, create visualizations, and more. Public access to a proper index of government data will only expand these opportunities.
If the EDIs look how we expect, they should not only list large numbers of government data sets, but also include information that will make this data easier to understand and access. Public data sets will be linked to, and any data that the government chooses to withhold will come with an explanation as to why. In addition, all data will have a human contact point for questions and feedback.
We are particularly interested in seeing these explanations for why government denies access to data sets. Having that information should inform public debate, allow for more targeted FOIA requests, and ultimately result in more data in the hands of journalists, researchers, and other interested parties.
No longer will an interested party have to navigate through the bowels of an agency bureaucracy or send a broad FOIA in the hopes of getting to the data they want. No longer will they look at a piece of government data and have to wonder where to look for more or who to contact if they have questions.
These indexes, if developed and maintained properly by the agencies, will reveal a vast trove of government information to the public. They should empower journalists and researchers to dig ever deeper into the federal government and allow them to uncover stories that were previously uncoverable.
Matt Rumsey is the director of the Advisory Committee on Transparency at the Sunlight Foundation.
Do you have reporters or editors on your staff who would benefit from training to help them produce enterprise and investigative stories?
Thanks to a grant from Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ) is working with Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) to offer a two-day Watchdog Reporting Workshop for journalists from your region.
We're looking for two reporters, editors or producers from your newsroom who you believe have the desire and the potential to do in-depth investigative stories. No previous investigative reporting experience necessary. This workshop will teach the basics including how to mine the internet for information that leads to compelling stories, how to crunch data, how to conduct an investigative interview and how to investigate businesses and nonprofits.
If your team is chosen, there will be ongoing story consulting to help you complete a project.
Workshops will be held in three cities: Los Angeles, at the University of Southern California, on April 9-10; Omaha, at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, on May 11-12; and Atlanta on June 16-17. The sessions and the follow-up training are free, thanks to the support from Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. You'll be responsible for any travel costs.
To nominate a team for this opportunity, complete this form. The deadline for the Los Angeles workshop will be by the end of the day March 22, 2015. The deadline for the Omaha workshop will be April 12; the deadline for the Atlanta workshop will be May 7.
In your application, you'll be asked to list a specific project you would like to work on following the workshop. Please be as specific as you can, as we want to ensure that we work with news organizations that not only desire to do better work, but are committed to the effort.
We’re changing up the podcast this week and spending our entire episode on one story. IRE’s Shawn Shinneman talked with Los Angeles Times reporter Richard Marosi about his 18-month investigation into the working conditions of Mexican agribusinesses supplying produce to major U.S. supermarkets and restaurants. Tune in to hear Marosi discuss the reporting challenges he faced on the ground in Mexico.
Also on this episode: A 3-minute guide to mapping by former NICAR database library student Travis Hartman.
We’ll be bringing you more in-depth stories on future episodes of the podcast. If you have an idea for a segment or a behind-the-story feature, we’d love to hear from you. As always, our episodes are available for download on iTunes and Soundcloud.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Product of Mexico:
Mapping and QGIS:
By David Eads, NPR
Citizens of NICAR!
I'm happy to announce that Erika Owens and I are curating a conversation track at NICAR 2015. We will hold safe, structured small-group conversations about fascinating subjects Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning in Atlanta.
Learn more or pitch a session at https://etherpad.mozilla.org/NICAR2015-conversations
Our goal is to create a safe, diverse space at NICAR for conversations that aren't well-suited to the traditional experts-in-front-of-a-crowd format. We want to have a space for conversations about important stories, about issues like industry pay and discrimination, and for birds of a feather to gather and discuss common interests.
Contact me (davideads@gmail.com) or Erika Owens (erika@mozillafoundation.org) if you have any questions or comments.
Thanks to everyone who submitted a Lighting Talk idea for the 2015 CAR Conference. Now it’s time to narrow the more than 50 ideas down to the 10 talks we'll hear in Atlanta. Go online and vote for your favorite proposals. The polls close at 11:59 pm (Eastern) on Feb. 22.
What are Lightning Talks? Lightning Talks are 5-minute presentations on topics wide and varied. NICAR attendees can submit and vote on the talks, and the 10 with the most votes will be presented on Friday, March 6 at 4:30 pm.
There will be a brief membership meeting at the Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference in Atlanta to vote on several changes to the Articles of Incorporation.
The first of these changes IRE's rules to allow student members to vote. Currently students and associate members do not have voting rights. IRE's Board of Directors met in June and voted unanimously to extend voting rights to students. That change must be approved by membership to be enacted.
The next redefines what a "professional member" is, to better reflect the way the news business has changed and crucial new roles have been created.
Currently professional membership is defined as "persons substantially engaged in reporting and/or editing." The proposed definition defines professional membership as "persons substantially engaged in news gathering presentation or production."
The other two ballot items are more procedural in nature. The first removes a sentence that defines who can vote (this is redundant to the previous section that membership is being asked to change to give student voting rights) and because it only applies to in-person voting. The second clarifies that the Executive Committee of the IRE Board can take votes by phone or electronically, as opposed to being in person.
The language for each ballot item is below. The membership meeting will be held in connection with Lightning Talks and the Phil Meyer Awards presentation on Friday at the conference. There will be no online or absentee voting for these measures, as the Articles of Incorporation require in-person voting for measures that change the Articles.
In all cases IRE Board members support these changes unanimously.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit at mark@ire.org or 573-882-1984.
1. Members will be asked to change the definition of "professional" membership:
Current: Section 5.01…The Professional class shall be limited to persons substantially engaged in reporting and/or, editing.
Proposed Change: The Professional class shall be limited to persons substantially engaged in news gathering, presentation or production…
2. Members will be asked to allow students to vote in IRE elections:
Current: Section 5.01... Neither Associate or Student members shall be eligible for the voting rights which are reserved to the other classes of members. (Amendment adopted 6/7/08)
The proposed revision removes students from that clause.
Proposed Change: Associate members shall not be eligible for the voting rights which are reserved to the other classes of members.
3. Members will be asked to remove the following wording from the Articles:
Current: Section 5.02. Voting Rights. Each Professional, Academic, or Retired member of the Corporation who is present in person shall be entitled to one (1) vote upon each question voted upon at all meetings of the members without regard to his or her class of membership.
Proposed Change: To remove Section 5.02 from the Articles of Incorporation.
The change is recommended because the section is redundant and to remove any mention of “in person” voting. IRE has allowed absentee voting or many years, and now allows online voting.
4. Members will be asked to clarify the rules to allow the Executive Committee of the IRE Board of Directors to vote by phone or electronically.
Current: Section 9.01.. affirmative vote of the majority in number of the members of the Executive Committee, present in person or by proxy.
Proposed Change: affirmative vote of the majority in number of the members of the Executive Committee, present or by proxy.
Domingo, 8 de marzo
9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
265 Peachtree Center Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Este taller práctico de tres horas se dictará en español y enseñará a periodistas cómo utilizar el programa Excel, una hoja de cálculo electrónica la cual es una herramienta importante para agilizar la entrega de reportajes del periodismo que cubre presupuestos, salarios, elecciones y más.
Se aprenderá cómo usar el Internet a profundidad y cómo encontrar datos valiosos para su reportajes. Asientos limitados.
La inscripción es de $35. Para registrarse, presione aquí.
El taller es gratuito para aquellos que están registrados en la Conferencia CAR completa, pero se require la registración para el curso. Por favor, póngase en contacto con amy@ire.org para registrarse.
Para obtener más información acerca de la Conferencia CAR 2015, visite la página www.ire.org/conferences/nicar2015
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