NICAR24 Expected Sessions

Pre-registration classes

You'll need to buy a separate ticket to attend a pre-registration class.

• AI and ML: From before and beyond ChatGPT – $40
• Becoming a Court Listener: Tools for breaking stories and investigative research – $40
• Digging into data – $75
• First Python notebook: Data analysis on deadline – $75
• First Visual Story: Launch a data-driven website – $40
• Introduction to R – $40
• Let's make mapping better – $25
• Master Class: Managing investigators… or how to lead journalists born to challenge authority – $40
• PyCAR – $55
• Under pressure: Real life in real time with breaking news – $25
• Upping your Excel game – $25
• Using Python to build data pipelines you can share with your newsroom – $25
• Web scraping in R with rvest – $40
• Web scraping with Python – $40

Commons

Community building

• Taking care: Navigating our mental health as journalists

Hands-on

AI

• AI 101: Coaching ChatGPT to help you with your coding and data tasks
• AI 303: Visualizing data with large language models
• Getting hands-on with AI tools for journalists

Command-line tools

• Command-line data analysis with VisiData
• Finding needles in haystacks with fuzzy matching
• Introduction to the command line (Macs)
• Parsing federal campaign finance data with FastFEC
• Terminal tricks: Repetitive tasks made simpler for journalists

Data visualization

• Beyond the bar chart: Advanced data viz with Datawrapper
• First automated chart: Taking Datawrapper to the moon
• Getting started with Datawrapper

Data wrangling

• An introduction to gathering data with APIs
• Data wrangling with code
• Extracting data from PDFs using off-the-shelf tools
• Findings and using undocumented APIs (repeat)
• PDF next steps: Extracting data using command-line and other tools
• Regular expressions: Puzzling out clean data
• Reshaping data using Google Sheets and Google Colab
• Scraping without programming
• Scraping without programming (repeat)
• Scraping your local criminal justice system
• Using CAPTCHA-solving services to automate CAPTCHA solutions in web scraping
• Using OpenRefine to clean your data

Finding the story

• Bringing data journalism to the sports section
• Cracking the courts with data
• Data for redistricting and election coverage
• Finding the story in health data
• Finding the story in weather data
• Finding the story: Beyond the horse race in 2024
• Finding the story: Digging into IRS data on nonprofits
• Finding the story: How corporate tax breaks impact public budgets
• Finding the story: Inflation data
• Finding the story: Providing context to the equity and inclusion debate using education data
• Finding the story: The American Community Survey
• Finding the story: Trade data
• Finding the story: Working with data from Grist's Land Grab University 2.0 investigation
• How to analyze freely available real estate data to tell your community's story
• Navigating federal campaign finance data ahead of 2024 elections
• The 411 on 311: How to use 311 data to report on your community

• How your newsroom can build a self-hosted map stack
• SELECT * FROM INTERESTING (but in Python)

Mapping

• Mapping disparities in the news with QGIS
• Mapping disparities in the news with QGIS (repeat)
• QGIS 1: Spatial analysis for beginners
• QGIS 2: Analyzing geographic data

On the beat

• Finding the story: Weather and climate data

Python

• Findings and using undocumented APIs
• Intro to regression analysis using Python
• Python: Extracting data from complex PDFs using pdfplumber
• Using Python for data analysis
• Using Python to scrape websites

R

• Publishable charts with R: Make ggplot2 submit to your will
• R 1: Intro to R and RStudio (repeat)
• R 2: Data analysis and plotting (repeat)
• R 3: Gathering and cleaning data (repeat)
• Spatial analysis in R
• Stats in R

Safety and security

• Go dox yourself

Spreadsheets

• Google Sheets 1: Getting started with spreadsheets
• Google Sheets 1: Getting started with spreadsheets (repeat)
• Google Sheets 2: Formulas & sorting
• Google Sheets 2: Formulas & sorting (repeat)
• Google Sheets 3: Filtering & pivot tables
• Google Sheets 3: Filtering & pivot tables (repeat)
• Google Sheets: Advanced pivot tables (repeat)
• Google Sheets: Importing and data prep
• Google Sheets: Using string functions to manipulate data (repeat)

Statistics

• Beyond percentage change: The next formula every reporter should know
• Develop and test hypotheses on a risk assessment algorithm

Tools and tech

• Analyze large datasets in Google Sheets via Google Cloud
• Datasette: An ecosystem of tools for exploring data and collaborating on data projects

Networking

Community building

• Code Buddies: Get help on your data project
• LGBTQ+ networking & listening session
• Networking for journalists of color
• Networking for students
• Women in data: Community-building and networking

Educators

• Past, present and future of data journalism education

Panels and demos

AI

• AI 101: AI-driven tools, tips and tricks to empower your data journalism
• AI 202: Cooking with generative AI
• AI 303: Case studies
• Auditing algorithms and AI for bias
• Using AI tools for data journalism

Climate & Environment

• Data and accountability on the climate change beat
• Fire, smoke and prevention: Using data to investigate the wildfire crisis
• Reporting on water with data (what's in your water and how much water you have)
• Using geospatial and tabular data for impactful climate reporting and visualization

Educators

• Data education beyond the tools

Election coverage

• Backgrounding local elections: The questions, documents, and data the public needs
• How to keep your finger on the pulse of foreign influence
• Obtaining public records and data to power your 2024 election reporting
• Uncovering shadow campaigns in 2024 elections
• Unleashing the power of data in investigations to expose political influence operations

Equitable news gathering and reporting, exposing systemic inequities

• Data storytelling to empower migrant communities
• Finding and telling stories for the communities you cover
• Finding and using data about LGBTQ+ people
• How to apply DEI principles to your data analysis -- even when data doesn't exist
• Reporting on zoning: The invisible laws that shape our urban inequality
• So you want to report on racial disparities
• Trans data: How we can do better
• Undercovered stories about trans communities

Finding the story

• Finding the story in criminal justice data: Crime, police, prisons and more

Management

• Making your stories ironclad

On the beat

• Building and learning a new beat in data
• Covering state-based and local courts – transparency, tips, and tricks
• How to track opioid settlement funds in your state
• Using data in government and policy reporting

Public records

• Navigating FOIA
• Updates in FOIA litigation

Safety and security

• Encryption and risk-reduction practices
• Securing your social media accounts with the magic of browser extension automations

Tools and tech

• Elevate your graphics with Illustrator and Inkscape
• How to make data viz with (almost) every tool
• Scraping TikTok and Instagram videos for investigative reporting
• Tools to make your data and visual tasks easier
• Who's behind that website?

Other sessions include

• Behind the story: 2023 Philip Meyer winners
• Crisis reporting with remotely sensed data
• Data around the world for investigations everywhere
• Enhancing your news stories with Census Bureau data
• How to do data- and document-driven investigations in small and/or underserved newsrooms
• Integrating accessibility into your newsroom
• Large-scale scraping projects: Best practices for doing it legally and ethically
• Leveraging local newsrooms to uncover hidden police accountability stories
• Reconsidering data on mass shootings
• Scraping the worst of the worst
• Starting, growing and maintaining a data desk at student publications
• TV for data reporters
• Text analysis in different languages for investigative journalism
• The power of knowing your (data's) weaknesses
• Visual investigations
• Web APIs in R with httr2

Special

Finding the story

• Finding the story: Higher education data