Database Journalism

Matt Carroll

Matt Carroll of the Boston Globe came to explain the concept of database journalism to our class. Carroll, an admitted computer nerd pointed out that working with numbers is something that journalists typically don’t like. Seeing as journalists tend to be more English/History versus Math/Science, Carroll understands where they’re coming from, but emphasized the fact that great stories can be found by just examining raw data.

“Data can compare people and towns and then lead to questions as to why things are the way they are,” he said.

Carroll’s first example was regarding a story he did on the topic of gun licenses in Massachusetts. After analyzing all the data he was able to plot his findings. Among the plethora of graphs, Carroll went with a map of Massachusetts with all the information available by county by just scrolling over that section of the map. He also pointed out that the graphs you decide to use vary on the information you’re trying to portray–Carroll recommended many-eyes.com, a great web site, which offers an extensive array of graphs for a given project.

Unfortunately, for all the benefits of database journalism, there are some perils attached. You have to be careful, he said, because you may sometimes mess up the numbers and then the results won’t make sense. He used an example of car accidents by hour that he did. Carroll couldn’t figure out why there were so many accidents occurring at midnight–the he realized he’d mixed up 12:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.

It’s little mistakes that are treacherous to a journalist working with databases. “It’s all about the numbers, and you have to be careful with them,” he said.

Pru-rific

Click to see more pictures

For anybody coming to Boston, there are two buildings that stand out: the John Hancock building and the Prudential building. Though be careful, if you’re in Beantown, don’t say Prudential, just call it “the Pru.”

On the 50th floor of the Pru there is an observation deck called the “Skywalk Observatory” and its windows circle 360 degrees–in my opinion, this observation deck offers the best view of Boston.

One of the great qualities of the Skywalk is its availability. They’re open seven days a week from 10:00am-10:00pm during the summer hours (April- November) and for their winter hours  (November- March) they’re also open seven days a week from 10:00 am- 8:00 pm (but not on Christmas day).

Admission varies: Adults are $12.00, children under 12 are $8.00, seniors (62+) are $10.00, and if you have a valid college ID it’s also $10.00.  These rates include an audio tour, a multi-media theater show, and a Dreams of Freedom museum. Active duty military and those with a dependent ID card receive free admission, as well as those with a valid MTA card.

The Skywalk is a thrill to go to because the elevator you take up 50 floors is one of the fastest you’ll ever be in. And since nobody in their right mind would deliberately walk up 50 flights of stairs, these speedy elevators make this attraction absolutely handicap accessible.

AS.com

If you’re like me, well, then that’s a plus.

All kidding aside, if you’re a sports fan, and an read and understand Spanish, then I’ve got the web site for you.  AS.com is a wealth of athletic knowledge and if you have any interest, then they’ll satisfy your urge. A word of warning, however, is that this site is mainly Spanish (and European) focused, so most of the content is regarding Spanish soccer and Euroleague Basketball.

If you go straight to their home page, it’s mostly about soccer, or fútbol, with a few other stories on other sports. However, if soccer isn’t your thing, then don’t be discouraged because there are plenty of other options. Just look at the top of the page for the drop  down menus and you’ll be able to chose from: tennis, basketball, motor sports (F1), cycling, and others, as well as an opinion and blog sections by respected AS writers. AS also  incorporates video clips from various sporting events to see the weeks best goals, dunks, etc.

One thing I love about this site is that it’s a local site. Like I said a few weeks ago when I spoke about globalpost.com, there’s no reporting like local reporting. I firmly believe that if you have the chance to read the local viewpoint of a situation or event then you are reading the best version of what happened. By reading AS, I’m reading the Spanish perspective on Spanish soccer, on the country’s best tennis player, Rafael Nadal, on Spanish cyclist or Spanish racers. I have the opportunity to read about what these people feel passionate about, and that truly reflects in the writing.

If I could change something about the site, I guess I would have to say that it would be nice to have content in my first language, English, but as one of my classmates brought up, English content would detract the local angle aspect which, in my opinion, makes AS a great news source.

Mapping Journalism

When incorporating multimedia into today’s journalism, a new tool is now easily available to journalists–mapping. The most contemporary aspect of mapping locations today is being used on peoples mobile devices, namely cell phones. Google Maps has created an application for the iPhone, among other devices which gives an individual the ability use this GPS technology wherever they go.

As consumers of this new technology, we can really enjoy some great benefits. If you’re the person who is always getting lost, now you won’t be. Another ability of these maps is to show a plotted course and help an individual understand where people have been and where they’re going. This Tour de France map from 2008 is a perfect example of how the map can have information attached. Just place your curser over the numbers indicating the stage and a little window pops up telling you the stage winner, overall leader, and a link to an article about that stage and the Tour so far.

In today’s era of “I want everything now,” this mapping technology helps people get to where they want with greater speed. This mapping ability also comes with links to your desired destination. If you, for example want to find coffee in and around Northeastern University, then there’s a map for that as well. With these maps, you can just click on the icon where the coffee shop is and then you’ll get some handy information, like the address, hours, and the price for a medium coffee.

One you’ve found your desired destination, you can even get directions to the location. Mapping poses so many benefits that it’s strange to think that this technology can possibly have any negatives. However, sometimes the information you receive is a bit confusing to understand and may be a bit misleading. Election maps that show “red states” and “blue state” will depict which way the state went, but it the overall image may be much more of one color when that color doesn’t even win. This 2008 presidential election map is a perfect example of how even though many states voted one way, to make a map like that may be misleading.

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Newcomers to New Media

I grew up in Los Angeles with a pretty tight knit group of friends. If you had to put us in one of those classical Hollywood high school groups, it would be a mix of jocks and surfers, mainly because we did both. I played soccer (along with some others), some played basketball and others were into the aquatics (swimming and water polo). The thing is, we were all, to some extent, athletic and could at the very least, hold our own in some pick-up basketball or football.

Now as we’re growing up, it’s becoming harder for us to find time, to all get together. Some have stayed in L.A. while others, like myself, have left the city for school. We’re all back at Christmas time, but then again, some of us go trips with our families to the local mountains for a ski/snowboard trip. Either way you break it down, it’s tough for our whole crew to get together.

Social media has really helped things along. Now, all but one of us has a facebook account, so we can “stalk” each other that way, we play in an annual fantasy basketball league with Yahoo! so we can, as the box says, “talk smack” about someones team (or squad as we like to call it), and just recently some one of them decided to start his own web site, then he posted a link to another one. So now, I’m just doing the buddy thing and giving them a shout out.

Jeremy Hassan blogs on his site about “all things Los Angeles…good places to party, eat, hang out, good movies, things to do, places to see, and so much more.” Maybe you’re not from L.A. but you’ll certainly be going there at some point or perhaps have some friends in your group who are going there and his site, mrjeremyhassan.com, will definitely be a good place to get a quick pointer or two on where to go and what to do.

If you’re into basketball and sneakers, then my other buddy Charlie Oriel has you covered. His blog, charlesoriel.com, has his experienced opinion on what’s going on with sneaker releases as well as all your insane basketball highlights from the high school level, all the way up to the pros.

They’re both also interested in all your comments so let them hear your thoughts early and often!

Final Project

For my final project I’m planning on interviewing Evan Brunell, who is a sports writer and the founder of MVN.com, a site, that unfortunately shut down. He basically created a sports information network, an online radio show to go along with the site, and he is venturing into other new mediums of media to continue his sports endeavors.

Twitter as News

Syracuse University was pretty much penned in as a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament for about a month. Their first round match against the University of Vermont proved to be something like a competitive practice. Syracuse dominated the entire game, that is, with the exception of the 15-2 UVM run at the end of the first half.

I covered the game on my twitter, and have decided that, as a news covering platform, twitter isn’t really that great. Perhaps, it would have been a bit more practical and useful if I covered something small because then my posts may be the only way someone could find the information on whatever event I was covering.

I did what I could to keep my followers interested and threw in personal observations and opinions to give my tweets my own personal flavor. Check out my twitter page and tell me how I did!

A Twitter Expedition

My brand new twitter page.

Our most recent assignment was to follow a few people on twitter.com and give our initial impressions of this new wave of internet communication/information dissemination. Since I’m all about sports, I decided to follow some athletes, writers, teams, and league accounts.

My first impressions are:

1. I don’t really get Twitter. To me, it seems as though people are, in essence, going on their front porch with a megaphone and announcing whatever they want to the world.
2. It’s just a bunch of quick snippets and you have to look into everything if you really want to know what’s going on.

The second point is why I don’t really like twitter. With following the NBA, several ESPN accounts (MLB rumor central, NBA rumor central,and  Soccer news), every tweet is a link to an article. I thought that tweets were supposed to be informative and a fast way to break stories to a large audience–for example, ‘Lackey signs with Boston! Contract negotiations to come.”

As a Boston sports fan, I decided to follow the Celtics, and the Patriots. Their posts are more of what I thought twitter would be like.

With respect to individuals, for now, I’m following Bill Simmons (A.K.A. The Sports Guy), ESPN personality Kenny Mayne, and all around character/wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. Their stuff is a bit more entertaining because it’s just shameless self promotion. They’re not trying to break news, they’re just screaming into the megaphone that is the internet. I guess the difference is that I decided to follow them because I believe that once in a while one of their quotes will be memorable or memorably hilarious.

To me, if you really want to take advantage of Twitter, you need a smart phone and you need to completely throw yourself into it. Personally, I don’t want to go back and consistently check twitter to find out what’s going on all the time. Perhaps I’m just already accustomed to receiving news and information the way it’s currently offered and I don’t need a more immediate medium. Maybe things will change, who knows. But for now, I’m not a fan of twitter.

Posting on the Globe

My Reinventing the News class had the good fortune of going on a field trip last Wednesday to the headquarters of GlobalPost, an online news agency who has reporters all over the world reporting on what’s going on in those international locations. Naturally, since this was my first field trip since my sophomore year of high school, I was excited.

Charles Sennott, the executive editor of GlobalPost.com spoke to us about his vision and how he got this project rolling. One important factor that he stress was how important it is to have people stationed all over the world. It seemed as though he has the perception, which I completely agree with, that the best news is local news because the people doing the reporting are reporting on what’s going on in their own backyard. Taking this concept with an international news agency simply means inserting your journalists in the mix and converting them into locals.

They have a wonderful study abroad link where students studying abroad act as the local reporters on various issues. Zoe Schlag, a Tufts University student studying in Valparaiso, Chile wrote about the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami threats while she’s abroad.

For me, however, I wish there were more sports covered. There is a sports page, but that only comes once you scroll your mouse over the “Beats” tab and then select “Sports” in the drop down menu. I would think that in gauging what’s going on in a foreign city, sports would be more, well, just more. When I was abroad in Madrid, Spain, I spend a ton of Euro’s (which means, unfortunately, more dollars) attending soccer games because: one it’s my favorite sport, but two because it’s the most popular sport in Spain and it was the best way to become more of a local.

After reading a few articles, it’s clearly obvious that this tactic is working. The ability to go into extreme detail only comes as a result of an individual’s comfort with their surroundings and can only manifest after time spent living and experiencing the local culture.

In their in depth examination of the Taliban, Sennott along with renowned photographer Seamus Murphy and  GlobalPost’s local reporters, composed an exquisite piece titled, “Life, death and the Taliban,” which is comprised on audio, video, and several articles examining the rise and history of the Taliban, along with the current status of power the militant group has today. The amount of material they published shows an immense breadth of knowledge and days if not weeks of field work necessary to create such a masterpiece.

A word of caution, however, is that GlobalPost is only for those extremely interested in what’s going on around the world. Because of the manpower and region they wish to cover (the entire planet), GlobalPost has an immense amount of content on its website. Also, when you have an interest in a certain topic or issue, there are not only several articles, but several long articles on a given subject.

This website is not your quick headlines and lead paragraphs so you can make believe you know what’s going on. To appreciate what they do, you need to budget time into your schedule, but after consuming their product, you will be informed, and in today’s age where everything has some sort of global component, that’s really not a bad thing.

Red Sox Off Season Talk

Being a college student in Boston is AMAZING!  Being a college student at Northeastern, now that may be the best (and yes, I’m fully aware that that is a bias statement).  Northeastern’s location in Boston is superb.  Right in between the Orange Line (Ruggles Station) and the Green Line (Northeastern University), we’re also a few blocks away from the Pru, the Charles River, Newbury Street, and my favorite, Fenway Park.

With this in mind, I went around my school and asked some of my peers what they thought of the moves made by the Sox in the offseason.