“25” Computer-assisted Reporting Ideas

(and a few tips)

In reality

Public Record laws vary from country-to-countryThe types of records may vary from country-to-country

But remember

Stories (and records) can be approached from different anglesData can be obtained through sources and through building databasesThere’s a network of reporters around the world willing to give advice

Why use CAR?

Databases give you more to the story

Data: Zoo association inventory database (not public)

Findings: Some of what are considered the best zoos regularly dump animals with hunting ranches and dealers

America’s zoos have a little secret: They breed animals with no intention of keeping them.

Every year, animals once admired at dozens of the country’s major zoos are sold or given away to dealers, contributing to a multibillion-dollar-a-year exotic species marketplace where they can be resold, auctioned off to the highest bidder or advertised to the public in specialty magazines.

Using data…

Databases give you more to the storyYour best analogies are in the data

Data: Government grazing leasesFindings: Most who benefit from renting government land at “dirt” prices are wealthy companies – not the lone rancher

ANHEUSER-BUSCH INC. has defined itself with Clydesdale horses for years. But high in one of the most fragile wilderness areas of California's Sierra Nevada range, the St. Louis beer maker has a different ambassador -- the cow.

To the chagrin of environmentalists, fishing groups and several independent biologists, cowboys working for the world's largest brewing company drive up to 900 cows every summer from the Owens Valley into the Golden Trout Wilderness.

Data: Home health workers and criminal conviction data

Findings: Many home health workers had criminal backgrounds

The Register By THOMAS ZAMBITO and MARY JO LAYTON For decades, Alvest O'Neill Williams has cared for the sick and elderly -- bathing them, feeding them, and performing work so intimate that in another time it would have been entrusted only to family. As a home health aide, he has been treated more as a friend than as hired help. But that was just his day job. At night, to feed a relentless addiction to heroin and cocaine, Williams slipped his wiry frame through the windows of people's homes while they slept, snatching money and jewelry. He has been convicted 11 times since 1962.

How to tell a better story with data

Databases give you more to the storyYour best analogies are in the dataContrasts are in the data

How to tell a better story with data

Databases give you more to the storyYour best analogies are in the dataContrasts are in the dataYou know what an “outlier” really looks like.

Caution: This slide contains extreme nerdiness

How to tell a better story with data

Databases give you more to the storyYour best analogies are in the dataContrasts are in the dataYou know what an “outlier” really looks like.You have more powerful figures.

The District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department have shot and killed more people per resident in the 1990s than any other large American city police force…

…In the last five years, D.C. officers shot and killed 57 people -- three more than police reported in Chicago, which has three times the police force and five times the population.

How to tell a better story with data

Your best analogies are in the dataContrasts are in the dataYou know what an “outlier” really looks like.You have more powerful figures You can make connections you might not otherwise be able to make

Data: Guns auctioned by police and guns used in crimesFindings: Guns that once were police weapons were later used in crimes

Stanley Williams was barely alive when police found him on a St. Louis street, propped against a brick wall, half conscious and leaking blood into a dark pool on the asphalt. "Puncture wound to the right leg," the detective noted ... Five tunnels carved in flesh by a .38-caliber revolver. What the detective did not record--did not know--was that the bullets were fired from a gun that once served as a District of Columbia police weapon. The Smith & Wesson Model 10, serial number D286307, had taken five years to wend its way from a police holster in Washington to the hands of a killer in St. Louis...

Data: Youth prison workers, criminal convictions and grievance dataFindings: Employees with criminal backgrounds were more likely to be accused of abusing inmates.

How to tell a better story with data

Contrasts are in the dataYou know what an “outlier” really looks like.You have more powerful figures You can make connections you might not otherwise be able to makeYou have authority (and you can be more certain of your results)

How to tell a better story with data

You know what an “outlier” really looks like.You have more powerful figures You can make connections you might not otherwise be able to makeYou have authorityYou have tools to do your work better and provide insight

Mapping tools

Tracking tools

Dos and Don’ts

Do your analysis as part of the initial reporting process

Dos and Don’ts

Do your analysis as part of the initial reporting process Use your Web site – We have so many tools now to enhance investigations online

Dos and Don’ts

Do your analysis as part of the initial reporting process Use you news organization’s Web siteDon’t try to impress your readers with detailed numbers

Dos and Don’ts

Do your analysis as part of the initial reporting process Use you news organization’s Web siteDon’t try to impress your readers with detailed numbers Make useful comparisons.

In 17 Western states, livestock grazing is allowed on 254 million acres of national forests and BLM land -- an area equal to California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Dos and Don’ts

Do your analysis as part of the initial reporting process Use you news organization’s Web siteDon’t try to impress your readers with detailed numbers Make useful comparisons. Reuse your database

Data: Science research grants

Findings: Trends had changed from air and space research to technology.

Dos and Don’ts

Use you news organization’s Web siteDon’t try to impress your readers with detailed numbers Make useful comparisons. Use examples from your databaseUse graphics

Dos and Don’ts

Don’t try to impress your readers with detailed numbers Make useful comparisons. Use examples from your databaseUse graphics Watch your math and numbers language

Dos and Don’ts

Make useful comparisons. Use examples from your databaseUse graphics Watch your mathWatch one of the biggest problems: the superlativeKeep the nerdtalk for the nerdbox

Dos and Don’ts

Use examples from your databaseUse graphics Watch your mathWatch one of the biggest problems: the superlativeKeep the nerdtalk for the nerdboxMake thorough checks

Make thorough checks Know the source of the information Know how many records you should have Get a hard copy report to double-check your totals Use a spreadsheet to check your math Check dirty data Beware of the "Wow!" Use multiple sources of data when possible Get historical over your data -- check past patterns Go back to the agency and ask them about it Use the buddy system Do footwork spot checks

Dozens of St. Louis voters are being wrongly accused of casting ballots from fraudulent addresses in last year's Nov. 7 election. They are among thousands of registered voters who, based on city property records, appear to live on vacant lots. But a Post-Dispatch survey of every one of those suspect properties turned up something else: hundreds of bona fide houses and apartment buildings that seem to be wrongly classified by the city assessor's office as vacant lots.

Voters and vacant lots

Data: Federal medical device failures

Findings: Many incidents were caused by nursing errors

Data: Immigration and Naturalization data

Findings: Between 1990 and 1996, nearly 18,000 Venezuelans were admitted like as permanent U.S. residents. The article details why people left Venezuela to come to the United States.

Getting Away With Murder in South L.A.'s Killing Zone

Unsolved homicide cases stack up relentlessly throughout the city's urban core. Frustrated residents fear that nothing will change.

By Jill Leovy and Doug SmithTimes Staff WritersDecember 30, 2003   

One intersection. Seven unsolved homicides. That's the tally for the cross streets of San Pedro and 84th dating to the late 1980s. The spot is typical of many in South and Central Los Angeles where extraordinary numbers of people are murdered and the killers are never caught. Unsolved homicides — killings for which no suspect is ever arrested — are stacked up block by block, mile by mile, in this part of Los Angeles. From San Pedro and 84th streets, they stretch east, west and south — two on one street, six on another, a massive number of killings which, taken together, create a chilling map of violent lawlessness.

Data: Census data 1951-1996.

Findings: Using census data, reporters were able to show the changes in the communities that make up Nova Scotia.

Elmer Leiendecker doesn't drive as often or as far as he once did. And rarely at night.

But at age 100, he still backs his red-and-white Cadillac out of the garage a few times a week to go to the grocery store or to meet up with friends over lunch or a game of bridge.

CAR on deadline

Sydney Morning HeraldData: Rent on publicly owned buildingsFindings: Big business gets low rent on publicly owned properties.

Data: Washington, D.C. travel data

Findings: Washington spends $5.5 million a year on travel for its employees, far more than other cities, and often with minimal records to justify the expense.

Data: School district credit card purchases

Findings: District card holders made questionable purchases with their cards.

Data: Lead blood tests of children

Findings: The rate of lead-poisoned children is 2 ½ times higher in Rhode Island than in the rest of the country. In Providence, the rate is four times higher than the rest of the country. Lead problems fall more on minority groups living in the cities.

Data: Location and condition of underground gasoline tanks.

Findings: Thousands of tanks in America are leaking. But equipment used to monitor the leakage is often faulty and there aren’t enough inspectors to view all the storage tanks.

Data: Bridge inspections

Findings: Nearly 40 percent of the 4,995 bridges in Massachusetts rate low enough to qualify for federal repair funds — a situation that state officials said posed a threat to public safety and the economy.

Lawrence Eagle-Tribune

Data: Welfare role (obtained from a source)

Findings: Public employees were receiving welfare checks

Hamilton Spectator

Data: Spreadsheet of election results.

Findings: The analysis, done on deadline, showed that a popular mayor lost his reelection bid because his supporters failed to turn out in key areas.

Think: Rows and columns

Behind every paper report…is a database

Although getting electronic records is preferred…

Sometimes you have to build it yourself

Findings: Medical professionals in Florida have systematically exploited Medicaid, prescribe huge amounts of prescription narcotics and leading to overdose deaths throughout the state.

Data: Missing and murdered women in Vancouver

Findings: For more than a decade, the disappearances averaged about one per year. The number jumped in 1995 when four women were killed; in 1997 and 1998, 21 women were killed.

Data: Details about children who died while in custody.

Findings: Children died after government workers failed to take key preventive action or placed children in unsafe homes or institutions.

   

Pulitzer Prize 2002

Data: Reporter Audits of bus driver behavior and bus lift repairsFindings: The transit agency was in serious violations of disability law. The stories resulted in a federal investigation of the agency.

Using databases to join

Statistical tools

Mapping

Where to get more information and ideas

CAR in Canada: ww.carincanada.caIRE Resources Center and ExtraExtra: www.ire.orgThe Centar za istraživačko novinarstvo: www.cin.ba FarmSubsidy.org