car_1 Archives

OSHA Workplace Safety data updated at NICAR Data Library

October 22, 2012

The Workplace Safety database from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has just been updated in the NICAR Database Library. WHAT’S IN IT? This ten-table database holds information on workplace inspections performed by both federal and state OSHA offices in all states and U.S. territories, from 1972 to Oct 2011 – just under 4…

IRE launches data journalism fund after donation from Google Ideas

October 19, 2012

Update: application deadline has been extended to Nov. 16. Investigative Reporters and Editors is launching a new fund that will provide crucial support for journalists working on data projects. The fund will allow more news organizations or individual journalists to work on investigative projects that involve data analysis. IRE will award grants thanks to a $50,000 donation…

Now accepting 2013 CAR Conference T-shirt designs

October 2, 2012

The journalists who attend the Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference do many things for their newsrooms: They analyze data, build websites, write stories, scrape and acquire records. To honor this work, the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting will sell a T-shirt celebrating the data geek in us all, and you’ll help design it. Proceeds from the shirt will help…

Finishing the CAR story, overcoming initial hurdles

August 28, 2012

By Laura KrantzGatehouse Media This summer I attended my first IRE conference, in Boston. I really wanted to learn Microsoft Excel skills and I did, thanks to patient IRE staff. But more importantly, I was inspired by all the ruthless journalists using creative ways to mine for data and writing compelling stories. I left itching to…

IRE, Google create new grant program for data journalism projects

August 9, 2012

A new fund that will provide crucial support for journalists working on data projects will be launched this fall. Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) will award grants thanks to a $50,000 donation from Google Ideas. IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit said the fund will allow more news organizations to do in-depth reporting. “Digging into data…

The value of adding CAR to your arsenal

July 10, 2012

John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recalls the moment everything clicked for him with computer-assisted reporting, at an IRE Boot Camp in 2010. When crash-course training didn’t stick with him, he convinced his bosses to send him to Columbia, Mo. What Diedrich left with were the skills that allowed him to produce ‘Wiped Clean‘,…

Free tools to tackle almost any task, from data wrangling to photo editing

June 14, 2012

By Chelsea Sheasley@csheasley What’s the best thing a reporter can tell their editor about new data tools? They’re F-R-E-E. Anthony DeBarros, senior database editor at USA Today and Matt Stiles of NPR’s news applications team shared their top picks for the latest free tools at IRE 2012’s “Free tools panel.” “Free can be very, very…

Rendering real-time

February 25, 2012

By 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…

Day one highlights, one reporter’s perspective

February 24, 2012

Patrick Sweet, a CAR reporter at the The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., and formerly at The Citizens’ Voice, shared some of his favorit sessions from the conference on his blog. Here are his thoughts on NewsCamp: Investigating text in the wild and Locating the story: The latest in mapping as well as other panels. His…

How journalists can target tablets