The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
By Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 News stories should avoid boring readers by not becoming jargon-by-numbers accounts of events, Anthony DeBarros of USA Today said at the “Making sure you tell a story” panel. “Our readers want better,” he said. “We’ve got to make our stories sing.” Ron Nixon of The New York Times said reporters have a…
Read MoreBy Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 News stories can be deepened through data, said speakers in the “Using data journalism to investigate the news” panel. “News happens fast,” Arizona Daily Star Rob O’Dell reporter said. From tracking crime to finance, incorporating data in journalism goes beyond daily reporting and anecdotal information. Adding visualizations, numbers and maps allow the public to…
Read MoreBy Sarah Morris@smorris198888 In The Art of Requesting and Negotiating Data, David Hunn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jennifer LaFleur of ProPublica talked through some strategies for getting data. LaFleur began by saying that data can come from inspections, licenses, things that are enforced or purchased. If there was a form, then there would…
Read MoreBy Anna Boiko-Weyrauch@AnnaBoikoW To understand your data, let’s go back to grade-school science class. Remember when you learned about the forest, and all the animals that call it home? The forest is a dynamic ecosystem. Your data is like a chimpanzee; it plays a role in the forest ecosystem. Over time, the changes in the…
Read MoreBy Anna Boiko-Weyrauch@AnnaBoikoW Syntax error. What does this bit of code do? Syntax error. Let’s go back to the source. Syntax error. Maybe try this? After two hours of educated guesses, trial, error and some friendly help, Pam Dempsey, of cu-citizenaccess.org, and I had finally scraped our first bit of text: the word “2011” from a page of…
Read MoreBy Hilary Niles@nilesmedia Excel has two free, plug-ins for Windows users that can dramatically help reporters: NodeXL and PowerPivot. (Sorry Mac devotees, nothing for us.) Tom Torok, CAR editor of The New York Times, and Peter Aldhous, New Scientist’s San Francisco Bureau Chief demoed the two plugins at the 2012 CAR Conference. NodeXL is a network analysis tool compatible…
Read MoreBy Sarah Morris @smorris198888 In Integrating CAR: Story Ideas for the Whole Newsroom, Mark Wert of The Cincinnati Enquirer and Jaimi Dowdell of IRE/NICAR gave ideas and tips relating to different beats that would require CAR skills. Some of the tips they shared included: Build your own database. Use two databases to tell a story.…
Read MoreBy Kyle Deas @KyleDeas News organizations looking to enter the mobile space are confronted with a bewildering array of formats, devices, and operating systems. In a late-day session on Thursday, Daniel Lathrop and Will Sullivan talked through some of the options and the reasons why newsrooms could take one approach or another. Lathrop is the…
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