2.1 - Filtering and sorting in Excel

Tuesday, January 21

Social scientists throw away outliers. Journalists write about them.

  • Steve Doig, ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism

In class

Due this week

Preparation

Reading

  • “Take an Interviewing Approach to Find Stories in Data”, by Derek Willis, Mediashift, July 2014.

  • “What is a data state of mind? And how you can develop it,” Mary Jo Webster, Data Driven Journalism, September 2016

  • “Demystifying Data Journalism,” Mashable Media Summit with Susan McGregor and Sarah Cohen, December 2012. The story I mention in this video, “Ghost Factories” from USA Today, is no longer live online. Unfortunately, the website with the project doesn’t exist anymore. If you want to read it, try finding it in the Wayback machine (good practice for you) or look at archives through the library. It was first published in mid-2012.

Recommended:

IRE conference audio “Data on Deadline”, with slides. You’ll have to sign in to get it. (One caveat: we’ll use Social Explorer instead of the Census Factfinder for Census data.)

Stories from datasets that we’ll use in class this week

  • An op-ed from a former director of the NEA, 2017 LA Times. (Good for a little background on the programs and what might be in the dataset. Note that the recent budget increased 2020 funding, although the Trump administration had recommended eliminating it. A similar pattern happened in Arizona, when Doug Ducey recommended eliminating the state agency, but the legislature funded it.)

  • NFL: Why fewer players are being arrested since 2014, Brent Schrotenboer, USA Today, Oct 11, 2018. We’ll try to replicate some of his analysis in class.

Tutorials

Optional: Spreadsheets for Journalism, by Brant Houston, an excerpt from his new edition of the book, goes through the skills we’ve done so far. You might find a different approach to it useful if you’re unsure.