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General Motors recalls Cobalts after series of fatal crashes
The death of 16-year-old Amber Marie, who died when her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt crashed the air bag failed to deploy, was an early warning in what would become a decade-long failure by G.M. and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to address a problem that engineers and regulators had been alerted to years ago. For…
Read More#NICAR14 in sketches
If you’re following Emily DeMarco (@eademarco), of PublicSource, on Twitter, you know she sketched her way through the 2014 CAR Conference. We turned her visual depiction of #NICAR14 into a Storify. Here are a few of our favorite cartoons: Thanks to all the @IRE_NICAR organizers, speakers (and Nicarians for retweeting my #comics!) #nicar14 pic.twitter.com/cKsFyKnsO4 —…
Read MoreA quick trip through data in the sciences
By Anna Boiko-Weyrauch Policy fellows from the American Association for the Advancement of Science took the audience on a tour of techniques they use in their work and presented some tips on how to interact better with experts in various scientific fields during the Saturday session, “A quick trip through data in the sciences.” Carolyn Lauzon presented a…
Read MoreClean that dirty data with OpenRefine
By Tim Sandoval Reporters who’ve used Microsoft Excel for a story know that analysis doesn’t begin until the data has been cleaned. Spreadsheets provided by governments or other entities are often not formatted the way reporters would like. Some agencies format the data in confusing ways, or do problematic things like spell words incorrectly in…
Read MoreVIDEO: Census tips for every beat
By Irina Ivanova Census tips for every beat from IRE/NICAR on Vimeo. We all know the census contains data, but getting just the data you want out of it can be tricky. Paul Overberg and Ronald Campbell know this. Campbell used to call American Fact Finder “the tool of the devil” (though today only about…
Read MoreThe art and craft of finding people
By Karim Lahlou Journalists Julie Tate, The Washington Post, Rick Yarborough, NBC Washington, shared tips on how to locate sources using a combination of online and offline resources. Whether you’re looking for a source’s location, criminal history, or election contributions, the following list they’ve compiled is more than enough to get started. Get the link…
Read MoreInside the global offshore money maze
By Anna Boiko-Weyrauch You can search for companies and individuals in your area who are hiding assets offshore with a database maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Members of the team walked the audience through their project on offshore tax havens at the Saturday session, “Inside the global offshore money maze.” When the…
Read MoreStorify: Static vs. Dynamic Web Applications Debate
[View the story “NICAR Debate: Static vs. Dynamic Web Applications” on Storify]
Read MoreGitHub: Make reporting better together
By Tyler Fisher Many NICAR sessions feature journalists telling other journalists how they can improve their lives and work. On Thursday, Ben Balter from GitHub made a pitch to journalists from the outside: Become familiar with git and GitHub and you’ll be able to make better products on the web. Balter said his goal was…
Read MoreFree the data: Getting government agencies to give up the goods
By Rebecca Lai Since the dawn of Wikileaks, the public has come to expect original documents. Often, however, government agencies refuse to cooperate and prevent reporters from getting their hands on original records. Even though the Freedom of Information Act and other statutes provide journalists with tools to negotiate, these laws still have flaws and…
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