Introductions

02 Sep 2015

Introductions

Links for discussion

• Cop video
• Cops among Florida's worst speeders, Sun Sentinel investigation finds - Sun Sentinel
• Cop Speeds database

• Investigative Reporters and Editors | How the Sun Sentinel reported its Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of off-duty cops

  Links for workshop

• Slides for class 1

• How to Create a Pivot Table in Google Spreadsheets

Assignments for Sept. 9

Read:

• A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change, by Adrian Holovaty, 2006

• The Rhetoric of Data, by Nicholas Diakopoulos, 2013

• The New Nationwide Crime Wave, via Wall Street Journal, 2015

• Murder Rates Rising Sharply in Many U.S. Cities, via New York Times, 2015

• The Big Conundrum: Should Journalists Learn Code? - American Journalism Review

Homework

Create a Github account, write a document in Markdown, and upload it to a new repo

• Sign up for a Github account.
• Email me the name of your Github account.
• Create a New Repository and name it something unique.
• Create a new README.md file. Write anything you want but show me you know the basic syntax.
• All repos will be public. However, after you email me your user name, I'll make you a contributor to a private repo for you to upload future homework assignments.

Find a government CSV

• Find an interesting data set and write a memo about its potential.
• Write 2-3 paragraphs as if you're pitching the story to an editor on so he or she can give you time to work on it.

• Answer the following questions about the data:

  • Where did it come from?

  • How was it collected?

  • What's missing?

  • How could it be better?

  • Who's responsible for maintaining it?

• Summarize the spreadsheet two different ways using pivot tables

• Upload the spreadsheet, memo, and pivot table sheet analysis to your new Github repo (Tutorial on Getting started with the Github desktop app)

Due Sept. 9 before 2 p.m.