Finding data for journalism Steve Doig

 Sociology: “Color of Money”, census  Weather disaster: “What Went Wrong”, Katrina  Environment: “Boss Hog”, “Toxic Waters”, FL wetlands, “Ghost Factories”, “Smokestack Effect”  Medical: “Culture of Resistance”, radiation errors, Medicare fraud, “Playing with Fire”  Justice: Racial disparities in sentencing  Safety: railroad crossings, aviation, Data-driven investigations

 Search (browser and Google)  Spreadsheet (Excel)  Database manager (Access, MySQL)  Statistical software (SPSS, R)  Programming (SAS, perl, Python, et al.)  Mapping (ArcMap, QGIS, Mapmaker)  Visualization (Google Fusion Tables, R, Stata, et al.)  Exotica: GPS, satellite imagery Technical Tools

 Dog licenses  Sports statistics  Lottery winners  “Personal” ads Data feature stories

 Newsroom math: Percentage change, crowd counting, etc.  Descriptive statistics: Mean, median, range  Correlation and regression  Understanding p-values and confidence intervals  Indexes: ◦ Dissimilarity (measures segregation) ◦ Diversity (measures population mix) ◦ Benford’s Law (used in forensic accounting) ◦ HHI (measures market competitiveness) Methods

Search engine

 Which government office – in China or elsewhere -- would have the data you want?  Look for “data” links on websites  Get on lists of agencies and organizations that interest you  Join Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE)  Use search to find scholars who are expert in your topic of interest  Gather your own data! Strategies for getting data

Questions?