Topic: Data Gathering and Analysis

The Dangerous Numbers Game in Immigration Coverage
A radio journalist talks about the effects of lazy reporting, ‘opinion journalism,’ and some inherent difficulties in accurately telling this complicated story.
By Ted Robbins

Data Talk When Reporters Know How to Listen
‘My god, I had no idea newspapers could do this kind of thing!’
By Stephen K. Doig

Learning How Data Work With Reporting
By Stephen K. Doig

Digging Through Data and Discovering a Profitable Handshake
The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team set out to determine why the state’s health care costs are so high and ended up revealing a hidden deal between powerful forces.
By Marcella Bombardieri and Scott Allen

Tracking Toxics When the Data Are Polluted
How computational journalism can uncover what polluters would prefer to hide.
By James T. Hamilton

Diving Into Data to Tell Untold Medical Stories
‘The U.S. press seemed to accept as established truth that cholesterol lowering is vital and that statins are the closest thing to wonder drugs. I’m not any smarter than my colleagues, I worried. Maybe I’m just wrong.’
By John Carey

Mining the Coal Beat: Keeping Watch Over an ‘Outlaw’ Industry
Digging through records, creating new databases, and asking key questions leads a West Virginia reporter to important investigative stories about the coal industry.
By Ken Ward, Jr.

Publishing and Mapping Iran’s Weblogistan
By Melissa Ludtke

Examining Water Supplies in Search of Pharmaceutical Drugs
‘Secrecy, it turned out, was our biggest enemy, but not for the reasons investigative reporters typically encounter ….’
By Richard T. Pienciak