Computer Assisted Journalism

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Computer Assisted Journalism

• Ideas, Innovations, Intentions
• BBC 4 July 2001

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Tools - Tasks

• Internet Websites
• Fact checking
• Locating background material
• Finding official sources to contact
• Getting datasets to analyze
• Second-sourcing information
• Getting story ideas from news releases

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Tools - Tasks

• Newsgroups / Mailing Lists
• Finding people with experience
• Getting ideas about angles on a story
• Hearing what people are talking about the
  buzz
• Getting relevant articles on a topic

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Tools - Tasks

• Analytical Tools Spreadsheets, Databases,
  Mapping
• Putting isolated events into context
• Doing proactive reporting not just reactive
• Ensuring accountability of government data
• Finding aberrations in the data / clusters that
  need to be reported getting tips from the data
  
  story

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Train Wrecks

• Check the background / get facts, details
  Connex / British Rail sites
• Get articles on other train wrecks archive,
  online files from other newspapers
• Get reactions from train passengers newsgroup
  

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Train Wrecks

• Put event into context 56 such incidents last
  month an increase of 21 on the previous May
  spreadsheet or database
• Put event into context Part II Which routes
  are they happening on? Where are the most
  dangerous areas? - mapping

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Where youd get the data

• Keep your own recording
• Examples of datasets built by newsroom /
  researchers
• Get the data
• Independent study by WS Atkins
• Health and Safety Executive list
• Signals Passed at Danger list

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Spreadsheets

• For calculating change over time, comparisons
  between units
• For recalculating budget changes on the fly
• For doing your own analysis
• For organizing information

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Asylum requests in the Netherlands
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Spreadsheet examples

• Election night voter turnout
• Census data
• Drug raid reports
• Crime reports
• Zoning votes

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Mapping Spot Trends

• Seeing Data Geographically
• Data that contains location
• Directly, such as address, lat/long, etc.
• Indirectly, such as postal code or name of
  district
• The kinds of stories to be told
• Census / demographics
• Crime
• Environmental

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Mapping Story Ideas

• Where are the arson fires in your city?
• How does one county compare with another (welfare
  benefits, cancer rates, minority residents)?
• Which schools have the highest test scores or
  highest teacher absences?
• Columbus Found that the least-experienced
  teachers in elementary schools were clustered in
  inner-city

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Where to get data

• National Digital Archive of Datasets
• http//ndad.ulcc.ac.uk/
• London crime statistics http//www.met.police.uk/p
  olice/mps/mps/press/stats.htm
• Environment Agency
• http//www.environment-agency.gov.uk

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Some useful data map displays

• Choropleth maps
• Graduated color
• Unique value
• Dot map
• Graduated symbol
• Unique symbol

• Dot density
• Chart
• Pie
• Bar

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Dr. John Snows cholera map
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Births/Population (ratio)
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Dot map (single symbol)
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Dot map (graduated symbol)
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Unemployment in EU15
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Biggest Political Parties in Netherlands
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Traffic Accidents in Utrecht
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Restaurants in Utrecht
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Rich and Poor Neighborhoods at Utrecht
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Reporters for Dutch Media over the world
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Violence per 1000 for Dutch police districts
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Maps Online

• Census maps
• LA Times
• Washington Post

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Goals

• Find stories before they are stories
• Bring the story home to the reader, to the
  readers home
• Get angles no one else is covering
• Self-reliance not depend on their take
• Provide interactive content online enhance and
  deepen story package

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Issues

• Checking credibility of sources
• Determining reliability of data
• Differences between US and European data
  collection policies
• Verifying currency and completeness of the
  records collected

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