The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
By Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 Campus coverage can be daunting, but looking beyond the campus is a way to get the story, Jennifer Wheeler of The Register-Mail said at “DataU: the databases you need to cover higher ed.” From grants to graduation rates, one of the major databases to mine for information is the Integrated Postsecondary…
Read MoreBy Jon McClure@JonRMcClure Sex sells. But it sometimes buys, too. Online. As described in the panel “Hidden databases: Mining the private parts of public officials,” the trick is learning how to uncover the online footprint of public figures and track the nefarious deeds they might do under the cover of online alter-egos. Russ Ptacek of…
Read MorePhoto credit: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism Congratulations to Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times, for receiving the 2012 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, for their series “Methadone and the Politics of Pain.” Berens will be speaking at IRE’s Watchdog Workshop this weekend in Spokane, Wash. Berens and…
Read MoreBy Anna Boiko-Weyrauch@AnnaBoikoW “Hacking the Census” was a collection of lightning talks on tools, tricks and codes to hack the Census and American Community Survey, ranging from introductory to advanced. Steve Doig, professor at Arizona State University, said the Census has information about people and households, of course, but there’s also info on business, education, foreign trade, and more.…
Read MoreBy Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 One way to get around bureaucratic hassles is to get the to the data directly by scraping it off the Web. The fight for public records can sometimes be avoided by taking the data directly from websites, Dan Nguyen of ProPublica said. On Saturday, Nguyen led a hands-on class of “Web…
Read MoreMany investigative reporters are recreational data users, but data alone cannot be trusted. “You can’t take what is in those databases for granted,” said Kate Golden, a reporter and multimedia producer for WisconsinWatch.org. At the panel “Environmental analyses for any newsroom,” she emphasized the importance of speaking with the lead agency to find out what…
Read MoreBy Jessica Pupovac@jessicapupovac IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit and training director Megan Luther led a whirlwind tour of 25 data-driven stories during their “Year in CAR 2011” presentation, paying special attention to those projects that reporters can and should attempt to “do at home.” Highlights in the “do-it-yourself” category included: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s piece on…
Read MoreBy Hilary Niles @nilesmedia Some of the pithier annectdotes from this year’s conference surely belong to Tony DeBarros, Ron Nixon and Ben Welsh, for their presentations during “Making sure you tell a story.” Their three presentations, in rapid succession, covered ground from story craft to news strategy to robotics, and still managed to present a…
Read MoreBy Jon McClure @JonRMcClure What is real-time anyway? The Guardian’s Alastair Dant discussed the concept in terms of a continuous feed of information and provided a few tips on how journalists should approach it during “Dealing with real-time data.” Chaos is raw real-time data, Dant said. To render it journalists must first conceptualize the continuous…
Read MoreBy Jon McClure @JonRMcClure Paul Overberg of USA Today and Brad Guilmino of HNTB Corporation discussed the potential stories coming from the decline of two long-monopolized government services: road maintenance and mail delivery. Though they may seem like monolithic enterprises, in actuality there are lots of competing stakeholders. In many cases, these systems represent microcosms of dysfunction…
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