NICAR adviser David Herzog will be on hand Tuesday, Nov. 20 at 2 p.m Eastern (11 a.m. Pacific) for a live Q&A about EconoCheck on the Journalism Accelerator. EconoCheck, an IRE-Sunlight Foundation resource launched during the 2012 campaign, helps reporters quickly find and understand data about key indicators. Drop by to discuss how journalists can continue to tap into it for post-election economic reporting and how we might improve it.

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The Workplace Safety database from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has just been updated in the NICAR Database Library.

WHAT’S IN IT?

This ten-table database holds information on workplace inspections performed by both federal and state OSHA offices in all states and U.S. territories, from 1972 to Oct 2011 – just under 4 million records.

OSHA classifies businesses by their location, name and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), making it possible to analyze inspections, violations and accidents involving a certain occupation or those in a given region or city. The data also include details on the ...

By Mc Nelly Torres

Víctor Hugo Michel is excited and overwhelmed.

He hasn’t stopped thinking about all the stories he will be able to report and write using the data analysis and investigative tools he learned this past weekend at the IberoAmericana University in México City.

“I never thought I could organize data, rank it and compare it electronically to find new trends and information which is not easy to see with the naked eye,” said Michel, a reporter for the newspaper Grupo Milenio in México City. “These tools are like using a new set of ...

   I’ve always considered the response to a big data request a fair indicator of how good the story might be:
“Why do you want this? Nobody’s ever asked for that before.” Nice.

“It’s impossible to get this to you and even if we could, you wouldn’t understand it.” Even better.

“Screw the public records law. You’ll need a court order.” I’m drooling into my keyboard.

But I’ve had to rethink that philosophy following publication of “Unfit for Duty,” our nine-day series on how state and local officials handle serious incidents of misconduct by ...

Every day, thousands of Muskegon County residents pour into their favorite restaurants to dine with friends and family. Yet until now, little was known about whether those restaurants followed practices aimed at preventing people from getting sick.

While looking through more than 22,000 electronic health-inspection records spanning four years, I found numerous instances where restaurants repeatedly violated rules that help prevent foodborne illness. Schools, hospitals and food stands were cited for breaking the rules, too.

Raw chicken and crabmeat sitting out at room temperature. Food kept past its expiration date. Cockroaches, mice and fruit flies living in kitchens. Employees ...

After I learned the banks that had been bailed out by taxpayers had become the main purchasers of tax liens in Arizona, I knew I was onto a potentially big story.

I began interviewing several tax lien buyers and found that this was a common practice not only in Tucson and throughout Arizona, but all over the country. My goal was to use what was happening here as a window into the larger story.

From the beginning, I thought the key to the story was the fact that the bailed-out banks were using money to buy up tax liens rather ...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deported an illegal immigrant who was a witness in a homicide case, an attorney told me. "Prosecutors are going to drop the charges."

Sure enough, the case crumbled and the U.S. citizen who had been charged with murder was set free. ICE agents had deported the witness after he was arrested on unrelated charges and booked into the county jail, court documents showed.

Local and federal authorities responded by pointing fingers at each other and insisting this was an isolated incident. The problem, a breakdown in communication, had been addressed, they promised ...

Many Texans had no idea that carcinogenic radiation was in their tap water.

For decades, the environmental agency that was supposed to protect the public from pollution had been deliberately changing radiation test data for water systems.

Not only had false data been reported to consumers, but the "lowballing" also allowed water providers to avoid breaking federal safe drinking water rules.

This all began when KHOU I-team member Keith Tomshe noticed a disclaimer on his water bill stating that small amounts of arsenic, also a carcinogen, had been found in his neighborhood’s drinking water. The disclosure is called a ...

Badger Guns and Ammo in suburban Milwaukee rose to national prominence in the 1990s when reports showed it had sold more crime guns than any other dealer in the nation.

In 2007, I learned from sources that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had found serious problems at the store, known then as Badger Outdoors. Such records on gun stores are shrouded in secrecy by law but I discovered the ATF was considering revoking the license – a rare move taken against only the worst gun dealers.

However, a few months later ATF’s plan evaporated. The ...

Located just south of Chicago, Indiana's Lake County has long been a hot-bed of political corruption, bloated government and patronage jobs. County government spending became so rampant that the largest corporate taxpayers in 2005 commissioned a study that recommended cutting government spending or consolidating services to save taxpayers millions. Few of the recommendations were adopted, and about two years later, the Indiana General Assembly forced a frozen tax levy specifically targeting the county's wasteful ways.

Times of Northwest Indiana reporter Bill Dolan and I spent four years collecting a decade's worth of electronic spending records for all ...