Data Driven Journalism Links and Resources

MOOC: Data-Driven Journalism | September 2013 Recommended Resources and Links about Data-Driven Journalism By Amy Schmitz Weiss, Lise Olsen, Derek Willis, Jeremy Bowers and Sisi Wei

© Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas MOOC, 2013 1

Amy Schmitz Weiss’ Toolbox:

• Great resources of additional how-tos with data-driven journalism: http://datadrivenjournalism.net/resources

• Understanding Data Journalism – Overview

http://journalistsresource.org/skills/reporting/understanding-data-journalism-overview-tools-topics

• Lessons from the School of Data Journalism: http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2013/05/lessons-from-the-school-of-data-journalism-125

• How to be a data journalist: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/01/data-journalism-how-to-guide

• Data Journalism Handbook:

http://datajournalismhandbook.org/

• Inspirational data journalism projects: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/-editors13-13-data-journalism-projects-big-and-small/s2/a553134/

• Information is Beautiful: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

• Data-Driven Journalism Resources by MOOC Student Dan Turner: https://datajmoocreading.hackpad.com/ep/group/nomTZ1zdHPU

• Data science, commoditized backends, and the need to know code: A roundup of NICAR 2013: http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/03/data-science-commoditized-backends-and-the-need-to-know-code-a-roundup-of-nicar-2013/

• Mailing list for Data Driven Journalism site and resources: http://datadrivenjournalism.net/mailinglist

Data Journalists to Follow on Twitter: @sisiwei @chrondigger @derekwillis @jbowers @brianboyer @amandacox @viegasf @michelleminkoff @stiles @ryanmark @smfrogers @martinbelam @nicolaskb @adrianholovaty @martinstabe



Lise Olsen’s Toolbox:

• For story ideas and inspiration, check out the winners of this year’s Data Journalism awards http://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/dja/

• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – story ideas, links and how-tos and a new offshore banking database: http://www.icij.org/

• IRE’s Resource center and Database library: http://www.ire.org/ • 2012 IRE award winners with links to stories: http://www.ire.org/awards/ire-

awards/winners/2012-ire-award-winners/ • Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad – IPYS has an archive like IRE’s and does a great conference

in Latin America called COLPIN: http://www.ipys.org/ A few of Lise’s favorite places to find data:

• Search systems public records directory: http://publicrecords.searchsystems.net/United_States_Free_Public_Records_by_State/

• Google’s Public Data Directory: http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory • International Census data links:

http://www.census.gov/population/international/links/stat_int.html • Links to public records via the London Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/data • Advanced Google search window here: http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Try searching within certain domains and by file type. • United Nations databases: http://data.un.org

Lise Olsen’s tips for networking and tutorials:

• Tweeting data journalists: https://twitter.com/marshallk/datajournalists/members • NICAR: Data, training and a list of people who can help with data-driven journalism

(see NICAR-L): http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar-l/ • Global-L: https://po.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=GLOBAL-L • Online News Association: http://journalists.org/ • Knight Center for journalism in the Americas Webinars – like this one in Portuguese

https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-14398-knight-center-and-anj-offer-course-brazilian-journalists-introduction-data-journalism

• International Center for Journalists has many tools and tutorials and information about funding and fellowships: http://www.icfj.org/

• ABRAJI in Brazil – great Brazilian investigative reporting organization, leaders in data journalism and hosts of this year’s global conference in Rio de Janeiro http://www.abraji.org.br/

• The Global Investigative Journalism Network offers resources and links to many other organizations that promote investigative journalism and datajournalism worldwide. http://gijn.org/member/

• Data journalism links: http://gijn.org/resources/data-journalism/



Lise Olsen’s tips for tutorials/basic mapping and data viz sites:

• Google Mymap video is only two minutes long and teaches how to make a map and embed photos or videos https://support.google.com/maps/answer/62843?hl=en

• Many Eyes – site with easy-to-try interactives http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/create_visualization.html

• Worldle – make graphics out of speeches, text. http://www.wordle.net/ • Document Cloud (text analysis and storage tool): https://www.documentcloud.org/home • If you know how to use spreadsheets: Use Batchgeo to map dozens or hundreds of addresses

by copying and pasting and hitting a button: http://www.batchgeo.com • Google Fusion tables to create relationship tables or maps:

https://developers.google.com/fusiontables/ • More top tools in the Data Journalism Handbook:

http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/delivering_data_7.html • Knight Digital Media Center tutorials: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/



Derek Willis’ Toolbox:

• Drawing Conclusions from Data: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/learning/statistically-sound-data-journalism/

• How to not screw up your data: http://veltman.tumblr.com/post/44638298912/how-to-not-screw-up-your-data

• We must understand our news content as data: http://michelleminkoff.com/2010/10/16/we-must-understand-our-news-content-as-data/

• The Bastards Book of Ruby: http://ruby.bastardsbook.com/ • Learning to think like a programmer: http://infovore.org/archives/2009/01/22/learning-to-think-

like-a-programmer/ • Statistics help for journalists: http://nilesonline.com/stats/

• A Guide to Computer-Assisted Reporting: http://www.poynter.org/uncategorized/69334/a-guide-to-computer-assisted-reporting/

• Excel Sorting & Filtering: http://ire.org/media/uploads/car2013_tipsheets/excel_1_tipsheet.pdf

• A Guide to Bulletproofing Your Data: https://github.com/propublica/guides/blob/master/data-bulletproofing.md

• Basic Excel Tutorial, Part I: http://www.forjournalists.com/media/BasicExcel1.pdf • Basic Excel Tutorial, Part II: http://www.forjournalists.com/media/BasicExcel2.pdf

• Quickly visualize and map a data set using Google Fusion Tables: http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2010/03/04/quickly-visualize-and-map-a-data-set-using-google-fusion-tables/

• Open Refine: https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/wiki • Open Refine Tutorial: http://dannguyen.github.io/NICAR-Google-Refine/



Jeremy Bower’s Toolbox: When things go wrong: Sometimes, your news app hits a snag and needs to be corrected. There are practices in place for correcting a story or a blog post; what should we do with our news applications? Jacob Harris explains: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/learning/times-regrets-programmer-error/ End of life: Even successful news applications don't necessarily live forever. What should you do when your news application or visualization is out of date? Matt Waite starts the discussion: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/learning/kill-all-your-darlings/ Sane data updates are harder than you think: News applications progenitor and all-around smart guy Adrian Holovaty walks you through the process of how to handle continuously updating data for your news application. Hint: It's harder than you think.

• Part 1: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/learning/sane-data-updates-are-harder-you-think-part-3/ • Part 2: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/learning/sane-data-updates-are-harder-you-think-part-2/ • Part 3: http://source.mozillaopennews.org/learning/sane-data-updates-are-harder-you-think/

In defense of building tools: Week 3 instructor Derek Willis writes about the other kind of news application -- the kind that is made for a specific purpose, like a tool. Not every app has to be journalism-focused; sometimes, we build to enable journalism rather than to be journalism. http://thescoop.org/archives/2011/08/10/in-defense-of-building-tools/



Sisi Wei’s Toolbox: Books:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte • The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics, Dona Wong • The Functional Art, Alberto Cairo • Visualize This, Nathan Yau

Additional Readings and Tutorials:

• Minard’s Sources, Edward Tufte • Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen, Hans Rosling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RUwS1uAdUcI • Making of Mariano Rivera’s Pitches, Xaquín G.V. • Mapping Social Statistics: Race and Ethnicity in Chicago, Bill Rankin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8pRcdMVkA3k • Race and ethnicity dot maps for cities all over the United States, based on the U.S. Census • Better Census Maps with Dot Density, The Why Axis • Good Design is Invisible, Reduce to the Essence, Tom Milway • Losing the Plot, John Grimwade

A Few Tutorials

• How to Make a Graph in Adobe Illustrator, Nathan Yau • How to Analyse Datasets with Tableau Public, Data Driven Journalism • How to make searchable, Web-based Google Charts, Michelle Minkoff • Cindy Royal’s beginner Highcharts handout • D3.js crash course, Espen Harlinn • A great and thorough introduction to Fusion Tables at Google I/O 2011:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z2o0mtnF1Bg ______________________________________________________________________________________

Data Driven Journalism Links and Resources

News & Politics

Transcript of Data Driven Journalism Links and Resources