The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
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Infect the CMS
We web developers strive for rugged independence. The luckiest of us have total control over our web stacks and the design of our projects, unlike those poor sods forced to labor within the Content Management System (CMS). Therein lies the problem; being apart means being invisible unless you spread your content to the CMS and beyond. This tipsheet will discuss some strategies and experiences for getting your app content to find readers where they are. http://harrisj.github.io/infect-the-cms/
Tags: app; CMS; content management system
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Git and Github: Learning to commit to version control
You need version control, and git is the answer. This class will introduce basic git commands and walk you through using the social coding site Github to store and organize your projects. It's ideal for anyone working on web development, scraping and scripting to gather or clean data. You should set up an account on Github before the class, and it's recommended, but not compulsory, that you be comfortable navigating the command line.
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Developing reusable visualization components using D3 and Backbone
This session will step through a process for creating components for standards-based Web content, focusing in particular on the creation of common building blocks for data visualization in JavaScript. D3 is an increasingly popular choice for developing visual content and we will look at how items ranging from simple bar charts to custom graphics can be packaged up for easy reuse. Backbone is a widely used toolkit for creating browser-based applications and we will examine how its models and views can play a role in the creation of components. Consideration will be given to combination, customization and the power of reuse versus the perils of over-generalization. https://github.com/rflow/nicar-13-examples/blob/master/slides.key
Tags: data visualization; Java Script; D3; backbone
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Data tactics for the well-rounded business reporter
Business is all about numbers and data. In this session, you will get tips for finding and using data to beef up your stories about business and economics. No heavy lifting here, but it would be useful to have some experience with spreadsheets.
Tags: business reporting; business; data; numbers
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ProPublica News Apps Desk Coding Manifesto
There's a lot to think about when it comes to news apps, but not all of it is coding. What story is it telling? Does it tell it consistently and in a fact-based way? Does the story it tells agree with the reporting (and if not who's got explaining to do!) What's the lede, what's the nut (yes, apps have those). https://github.com/propublica/guides/blob/master/coding-manifesto.md
Tags: news app; development; style; ProPublica
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The ProPublica news apps style guide
There's a lot to think about when it comes to news apps, but not all of it is coding. What story is it telling? Does it tell it consistently and in a fact-based way? Does the story it tells agree with the reporting (and if not who's got explaining to do!) What's the lede, what's the nut (yes, apps have those). https://github.com/propublica/guides/blob/master/news-apps.md
Tags: news app; development; style; ProPublica
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The Design and Structure of News Application
There's a lot to think about when it comes to news apps, but not all of it is coding. What story is it telling? Does it tell it consistently and in a fact-based way? Does the story it tells agree with the reporting (and if not who's got explaining to do!) What's the lede, what's the nut (yes, apps have those). https://github.com/propublica/guides/blob/master/design-structure.md#intro-the-design-and-structure-of-a-news-application
Tags: news app; development
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The one-query story: Quick hits for your newsroom
Amaze your editors and wow your readers with these quick-hit data story ideas. Learn techniques on how to look for the short-form watchdog and how to juggle it all. Afflict the comfortable by fact-checking their statements, find expert sources and use spreadsheets to inform your next project.
Tags: spreadsheets; query; data; car
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Inside baseball: What data journalism can learn from sports
This panel will identify areas for data journalism exploration by examining the current state-of-the-art baseball data analysis. Sports are the original form of data journalism -- box scores predate open government movements by about a century. And Joseph Adler's "Baseball Hacks" trained newbie Web CAR reporters how to scrape and analyze data sets using Perl and MySQL. Finally, sports analytics are a leading indicator for other kinds of analysis. Sensors, economic analysis, leverage are all de rigeur in baseball but still up-and-coming in data journalism. We'll take the concepts being used to analyze baseball, football, soccer and apply them to standard data journalism chores.
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Data-Driven Beats
How can the tools and techniques used in data journalism be applied to the day-to-day demands of beat reporting? What challenges do newsrooms face reorganizing and adding structure to beats? We'll share our experiences building sites like Homicide Watch DC and PolitiFact, and look at examples of other projects that add structure and data to daily beat reporting. http://eyeseast.github.io/data-beats/
Tags: None