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This three-part series moderated by Brant Houston of the University of Illinois walks through a data-driven story, from interviewing the data to proving the story to your editor to telling it to your audience. Using a database (available from the NICAR data library) of government-backed loans from the Small Business Administration, a group of reporters…
Read MorePhotos by Travis Hartman I walked into the Tableau Public session with absolutely no experience — and within about 10 minutes the instructor had us open up some data, sort through a few of the elements, and create a visualization. Its immediate ease of use is clear. To produce quick, coherent interactive charts seemed pretty…
Read MoreFOIA Machine is a new open-source web platform to manage your open records requests. It’s aimed to help you get what you want from your request, avoid being ignored and appeal when you are denied. “It’s aimed to help you get what you want from your request, avoid being ignored and appeal when you are denied”,…
Read MoreCheryl Phillips of The Seattle Times and Anthony DeBarros of Gannett Digital presented on how to fit your data to the appropriate presentation style. Just like when you’re shopping for clothes, you should ask a lot of questions before you buy (or in this case, before you spend resources designing anything). What is the story…
Read MoreGoogle Fusion tables has a new look.You can learn how to use it with Google Fusion Tables tutorials, and get a grip on how to import map data, and style, filter and share your creation with the world. Learn step-by-step how to formulate “lots of points” maps, heat maps and intensity maps. Some other cool…
Read MoreStart small, follow audit trails, and follow up. This session’s panelists offer advice, and underlying it all are those precepts, applicable to both your data skills and your investigative inquiry. The panel included Erin Jordan of The Gazette/KCRG-Cedar Rapids, Josh Sweigart of the Dayton Daily News (Cox Media Group), and Tim Eberly of the Atlanta…
Read MoreIRE executive director Mark Horvit and training directors Jaimi Dowdell and Megan Luther offered advice this morning for how to make the best use of the conference. For first-time attendees, here are a few basic things to keep in mind: There are three types of sessions: panels, demos and hands-on rooms. Panels follow a fairly…
Read More“Families’ abilities to hold potentially negligent nursing facilities accountable have been diminished by a recent change in state law that bars records of abuse and neglect from use in the courts, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has found.” Read Wisconsin Watch’s full investigation here.
Read MoreWednesday was a busy day preparing for the start of sessions on Thursday, but one panel was already under way — “Breaking Local Stories with Economic Data,” hosted by the (Sponsored by Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism). Paul Overberg of USA Today and Thomas Dall and Jeannine Aversa of the Bureau of…
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