A session that challenges professional and student journalists to dig deeper, deliver more accountability and bring an enterprising/investigative mindset to their work. Training will include examples of using records, documents, data and experiments to bring more impactful reporting. No matter what the size of your team, your journalism can go deeper. Bring your laptop for the exercises. No previous data experience is required. Trainer Aaron Mendelson is the data reporter at KPCC, the NPR affiliate in Los Angeles.

1. Driving daily enterprise
coverage with
documents and data
Albuquerque NewsTrain, October 25, 2019
Aaron Mendelson
KPCC Southern California Public Radio
amendelson@scpr.org
@a_mendelson

2. Why data?

3. Find important stories

4. Hold government accountable

5. Quirky, fun data stories

6. Find key statistics

7. Be a smarter, more creative watchdog

8. Find new angles

9. Verify what sources tell you

10. Create databases for reference

11. Win prizes
2015 Pulitzer for Public Service
Post & Courier in Charleston, S.C.
Database of 300 women killed in
domestic abuse

12. Get jobs

13. Data reporting has a decades-long
history
1989 Pulitzer
winner for investigative
reporting:
Bill Dedman

14. What else can data bring to your stories?
Unique stories your competitors won’t
have
Good web traffic
Cool stories

15. You don’t have to love math or have a
PhD in statistics
 Lots of the math in data reporting is very simple (adding,
subtracting, multiplying, dividing) … just done 100 or
1,000 or 1,000,000 times
 I haven’t take a math class since high school

16. There are many data tools out there

17. Spreadsheets will take you far

18. You’re in good company
“I use Stata for anything
hardcore and Excel for the rest.”
Nate Silver
Reddit AMA,
1/18/2013

19. Your experiences with data?

20. Our goals today
Develop a data state of mind
5 ways to find data on any beat
How to interview data
Trying it out in Google Sheets

21. Developing your data state of mind
Questions and tools to ask yourself for
any story
These are our 5 ways to find data on any
beat

22. 1. Collect your own
This is the hardest way to get data,
requires time and patience

23. 2. FOIA + New Mexico Inspection of
Public Records Act
Study up on state and federal open information laws
Lots of great resources out there, including
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Experts in your newsroom, academics, attorneys can
all be allies
If you don’t have a dozen pending requests out, file
some tonight

24. 3. Learn the bureaucracy — Forms!

25. 3. Learn the bureaucracy — Retention
Schedules

26. 3. Learn the bureaucracy — Work
backwards from reports

27. 3. Learn the bureaucracy — Befriend the
nerds
Data and IT people are often behind the
scenes
They often have a wealth of information.
Ask to talk to them

28. 4.Find it from online resources
Governments
Universities
Libraries
Think Tanks

29. 5. Google it
feat. a datahunt
Google advanced search
site:www.tax.newmexico.gov
filetype:xlsx

30. What’d you find?

31. Once you have data
Keep it handy for breaking news. Build
a library of data you can draw on the
next time news happens on your beat
Be organized with how you keep data
so it’s easy to find

32. Interviewing data
What questions do you want to ask about your data?
What questions can your data not answer?
Common data story types to keep in mind
What’s the outlier? Biggest campaign contributor.
School with the lowest test schools.
What’s typical? What’s the average or median — the
story that is representative of a broader trend.
What’s changing over time?
Your data can lead you to human sources

33. Spreadsheet Exercise 1
http://bit.ly/newstrain-nm

34. Make a copy

35. Freeze the top row

36. Sort

37. Next up: Filter

38. Filter for just one team

39. How do we sort to get the salaries on
the Lakers, highest to lowest?

40. On your own: Filter for the Phoenix Suns’
(PHO) salaries, then sort highest to lowest
Who makes the highest salary?
Devin Booker, $27,250,000

41. More practice, new spreadsheet
bit.ly/newstrain-budget

42. What’s your data story?
Aaron Mendelson
KPCC Southern California Public Radio
amendelson@scpr.org
@a_mendelson

43. Questions
 I also want to acknowledge a deep debt to previous NewsTrain presentations
by the fabulously talented Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe and Manuel
Torres of the Marshall Project