December 31st, 2010 | by Derek Willis | published in Journalism
As part of some infrastructure changes around these parts, I’ve moved the Database of CAR Stories to a new home (hello, Linode) and changed its name. It’s now GreatJournalism.net, which I plan to expand to include not just computer-assisted reporting projects but fantastic journalism produced in all kinds of ways. DOCS had kind of languished [...]
December 7th, 2010 | by Derek Willis | published in Car Tools, IRE, Journalism
Update: the student price for the conference, $100, does not include IRE membership. That’s $25. Both are bargains. Hey there, journalism student! A bunch of your colleagues are having a get-together in February, and you should come. Actually, you need to be there. I’m talking about Investigative Reporters and Editors’ annual Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference, held [...]
November 21st, 2009 | by Derek Willis | published in Journalism
The job cuts at the Washington Post on Friday have produced a round of comments, broadly summed up by Steve Yelvington earlier today. They certainly begged the question that occurred to me as a former employee of both the Post and WPNI, its soon-to-be merged online operation: “What explains this kind of decision?” First, let [...]
November 9th, 2009 | by Derek Willis | published in Car Tools, Journalism
Update: Duke’s Sarah Cohen responds in the comments. The intriguing title of a recent report from scholars at Duke is “Accountability Through Algorithm: Developing the Field of Computational Journalism“. Semi-related to CAR, Computational Journalism is defined as “the combination of algorithms, data, and knowledge from the social sciences to supplement the accountability function of journalism.” [...]
July 24th, 2009 | by Derek Willis | published in Journalism
Innovation. We’re told over and over (often by people who don’t actually do much more than talk, but that’s another story) that our industry needs it. So, you ask, how I can get me some of that innovation stuff? In my experience, there’s only so much that a single person (or a small group of [...]