Posts Tagged ‘web-1’
Double-check environmental data
Many 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 MoreLearning to liberate data
By 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 MoreAvoid data dumps, focus on the story
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 MoreThe story behind failing government monopolies
By 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…
Read MoreMoving a story beyond the data dump
By 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 MoreHow journalists can target tablets
By 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…
Read MoreFinding sentiment in text
By Anna Boiko-Weyrauch @AnnaBoikoW It’s been nothing but unrequited love between computational linguists and journalists, until now. For years, linguists have parsed the English language by examining news articles, Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Noah Smith, said at the NewsCamp::Text as Data workshop on Thursday morning. “You may not know this,” he said, “but…
Read MoreMaking the most out of the 2012 CAR Conference
More than 100 panels, demos and hands-on training sessions will be offered at the 2012 Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference. From the basics of data analysis using Excel and Access to editing a news app and mining unstructured text for stories, this year’s conference has panels for all skill levels of data journalists, as well as general panels for…
Read MoreIRE mentors guide journalists’ international investigative projects
(Washington) — During the past year and a half, more than twenty experienced reporters and news executives have mentored Fund for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) grantees, lending a hand in the reporting, writing and editing of their work. Wanjohi Kabukuru (left) with New York Times reporter Ron Nixon. The two met through IRE’s mentorship program. Nixon provided guidance…
Read MoreNew York Times’ Abramson to keynote 2012 IRE Conference
Jill Abramson, who took over as executive editor of The New York Times in September, will deliver the keynote address at the 2012 IRE Conference in Boston. She is the first woman to hold that position in the newspaper’s more than 160-year history. More than 800 journalists and journalism educators are expected to attend the four-day conference…
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