Joey Senat, a media law and public affairs reporting professor at Oklahoma State University's journalism school, always told us to stay in a public records state of mind.
In today's world, we need to take it a step along. We need to also stay in a data state of mind.
Ziva Branstetter, projects editor at the Tulsa World, once told a panel I attended that the best ideas for investigations typically spring up from beat reporters. I think it's the same way with CAR stories.
I've always preached that all beat reporters need data skills.
When I first arrived at the Sun-Sentinel earlier this month, one of the first people who e-mailed me was Mc Nelly Torres, who I'd seen around at several IRE and/or NICAR conferences. Mc Nelly, a member of the consumer watchdog team here at the paper, had done some neat analysis of gas pump inspections in south Florida.
"In South Florida, 34 percent of the gas stations inspected in the past
three years had at least one gas pump that failed accuracy tests used to determine if the devices are giving consumers the correct amount of gas they pay for, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis found."
Mc Nelly produced a great Sunday p1 by requesting the data from the Florida agency with oversight. She knew not only how to get the data, but how to analyze it.
Newspapers across America are spending an awful lot of money training reporters how to get audio and video, and then how to edit it. But aren't newspapers missing the boat by forgetting about content? It doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have or how much audio/video is on the Web site if the content isn't there.
Isn't that what we dislike about TV? All flash but no content?
CAR skills aren't hard to pick up. It just takes time and some monetary commitment from organizations.
Steve Lackmeyer, one of the finest reporters around, is old school. He's a shoe leather guy. But Lackmeyer recognized CAR skills aren't a substitute for shoe leather reporting --- they show you how and where to do better shoe leather reporting.
Lackmeyer, a mentor of mine at The Oklahoman, went to NICAR with me in Denver. He went through some of the boot camp stuff on Access and Excel. He came out excited.
"I can do this!"
This after just a couple hours of training.
I hope the industry doesn't forget that content is the No. 1 issue. Without content, we have nothing.
And I can make a great case that CAR skills will pay off big for beat reporters and the content they produce.
Mc Nelly's story proves it.
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3 comments:
Thanks Ryan!
I think every reporter should be required to know spreadsheet as a basic skill - it's really no more difficult than using the Internet.
I forgot to mention - fantastic last score today with the DHS daycare stories. I suspect there are some folks today at The Oklahoman who sadly may be waking up to the importance of CAR a bit too late. You will have to come back here come spring - you will have wood to collect.
Keep them coming Ryan. The sad reality is that changing the culture in our newsrooms is not easy as we all know. I was in Lawton, Okla. when I got the fellowship to attend a CAR boot camp back in 2000. Weeks after completing the training that changed my career, I was packing, again, and heading to South Carolina where I began to write CAR stories after I found a job. But not every newsroom I've been ever since has embraced CAR and some of those newsrooms don't even give credit to the CAR person behind the analysis, which I think is wrong and I considered to be some sort of plariarism. Thankfully, I have not been the victim of that but I have dear friends who have been taken advantage of without getting the credit they deserved.
Ryan: I must confess that my face got red when I noticed that you mentioned me on this blog.
Now returning to our topic at hand, I believe that perseverance is part of our jobs as we deal with regulators, and leaders in our community to write high-impact stories. It is our job to get the information we need to inform the public and use every tool at our disposal to reach that goal. And I firmly believe that we should apply that same mentality to ourselves to change the culture in our newsrooms.
Perseverance.
Dear colleagues: Don't give up!
Mc Nelly Torres, a former Oklahoma resident, who believes she's a daughter of the world because she's moved more times than what she would like to remember, and that she finally came to her senses in 2005 when decided to call South Florida home.
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