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The New York Times' data journalism course now available to the public

The New York Times wants more of its journalists to have those basic data skills, and now it’s  releasing the curriculum they’ve built in-house  out into the world, where it can be of use to reporters, newsrooms, and lots of other people too. Here’s  Lindsey Rogers Cook , an editor for digital storytelling and training at the Times, and the sort of person who is willing to have  “spreadsheets make my heart sing”  appear under her byline: Even with some of the best data and graphics journalists in the business, we identified a challenge: data knowledge wasn’t spread widely among desks in our newsroom and wasn’t filtering into news desks’ daily reporting. Yet fluency with numbers and data has become more important than ever. While journalists once were fond of joking that they got into the field because of an aversion to math, numbers now comprise the foundation for beats as wide-ranging as education, the stock market, the Census, and criminal justice. More data is released than
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So When Is a Journalist Considered a Terrorist?

An Istanbul court on April 17 arraigned Adil Demirci, a Turkish-German dual national and reporter for the socialist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), on charges of "being a member of a [terrorist] organization" and "making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization," according to  the German news agency  Deutsche Welle. In the same case, the court on April 19 arraigned an ETHA editor, Semiha Şahin, and agency reporter, Pınar Gayıp, on terrorism-related charges, their employer  reported . Authorities are holding Şahin, Gayıp, and Demirci, who was on vacation in Turkey at the time of his arrest, in government detention while they await trial, according to the  news website  Bianet . In recent developments the persons in question have been transferred from their prison holding cells to house arrest accourding to new reports from CPJ: A court on June 13 transferred two journalists from the leftist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), from prison to house arrest while they await the
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Journalism is Not Always a Protected Enterprise

Journalist in jail for insulting president On June 13, Yavuz Selim Demirağ, a columnist for the nationalist daily  Yeni  Ç ağ , started an 11-month and 20-day prison sentence for "insulting the president," according to  his column published the same day . The column featured an update from the newspaper that said that the journalist had turned himself and will be at Ayaş Prison in Ankara. Demirağ's sentence is related to a speech he gave at a conference in the western city of Nazilli four years ago,  Evrensel  reported . CPJ documented  last month how Demirağ was attacked in Ankara after appearing as a guest on a political talk show on the nationalist Türkiyem TV. Could you imagine the void in journalism for the United States if the sitting President had the power to do this to American journalists?!
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Delivering the Scoop!

In the early 1820s, when the only international news came in with the ships, several New York newspapers banded together to keep a small newsboat ready to meet incoming schooners. But in 1827, one of the papers on board, the  Journal of Commerce , withdrew from the agreement: the editors didn’t want the boaters to work on the Sabbath. The  Journal  bought its own schooner. “One of its rivals then bought an even faster boat, and things escalated from there,” Andie Tucher, a historian and journalist who directs the Communications Ph.D. program at Columbia Journalism School, says. The first scoop war was born. https://www.cjr.org/special_report/journalist-file-deadline-article.php In this day of microwave sensibilities...actually even that isn't fast enough anymore...in this age of social media the new "scoop" delivery to your audience has even outgrown google docs as a means of linking your audience to your story. Now we have to tell a story in 140 characters or less fo
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How Do We Keep Our Journalistic "Free Hand"?

JOURNALISTS DEPEND ON A FREE  and unfettered internet to deliver news in their own communities and around the world. But, increasingly, they find themselves victimized by the same freedom. In some instances, the news they produce is drowned out by a flood of misinformation, disinformation, lies, and clickbait. In others, they are harassed and threatened by armies of vicious trolls, sometimes organized by governments, intended to hound them into silence.  How on earth should journalists respond?  David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression and a law professor at the University of California at Irvine, has some suggestions. https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/social-media-harassment-journalists.php Journalist especially citizen journalists depend on the internet and the ability to navigate through the Websphere. Our tools and resources are under constant attack however the above article by David Kaye as reported by the Columbia Journalism Review gives some ideas on
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Exploring the World of Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism has become the latest wave to crash onto the shores of media. This new dynamic appears to revolve around social media and short form platforms like blogs rather than the older standard of magazines, newspapers or even newsletters at a community level. Today, anyone with a smart device can be a journalist, capturing and reporting on moments that might otherwise be missed or ignored by what is called mainstream media. Has this phenomenon destroyed the usefulness of what was once known as "tier 1" media outlets? Arguably yes, take for instance the citizen journalists who roam the street and can react and report almost instantly on happenings going on right in front of them as it happens. This information can then be passed on to other outlets who were not on site OR might be inclined to adulterate the information once they get wind of it. That's my thought for today...back soon.
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