JRN-3V50: Data-driven Journalism
Course description
Every day someone in a position of power or influence in America says something that frames important decisions, a claim to facts that will be wrong. But too often the claims go unchallenged. Why? Because the evidence to contradict it required a journalist to do math.
Today more than ever, truth is what you can prove with data. Data journalism is a set of techniques to acquire and communicate vital truths hidden in electronic records. The inputs can be as simple as a spreadsheet or as large as a database of millions of records. The outputs are compelling statistics and narratives and deeply immersive data visualizations.
In this course, we’ll look at data journalism’s interdisciplinary roots, drawing from fields as diverse as mathematics, computer science, information design, social science and psychology. We won’t consider data journalism as a specialization, but as a basic skill set every journalist needs to work a beat in the information age.
Students will learn to wield basic statistics for good; to use software to find the story no else can; and to distill abstract data into arresting visualizations. We’ll learn to write a data story with soul, and consider data in the context of larger mechanisms like social networks and algorithms capable of biases that can disadvantage people.
Logistics
When and where
Wednesdays, 7:00 - 9:50 p.m.
Carpenter Hall, Room 221
Your teacher
Jon McClure
Data and news applications editor, The Dallas Morning News
Email: jmcclure@dallasnews.com
Phone: 913-481-2788
Twitter: @jonrmcclure
Office hours
Owing to my day job, I will not be hosting regular office hours outside of class. Instead, I will be available after any class for private consultation and will be at your beck and call on Slack, by email and via telephone.
Grades
- 40% - Class participation
- 30% - Midterm project
- 30% - Final project
Class participation
Class participation will be graded after every class on a 3-point scale:
3 points: You came to class obviously prepared, participated in that day's discussion with original insights that forwarded the conversation or proved you were proficient in an assigned data journalism technique.
2 points: You came and participated in the discussion, but mostly just reacted to what other people said rather than give your own original take. It was not entirely clear to me you read all required reading or completed all of the assignments for that day's class.
1 point: You were not an active participant in class conversation. It was clear to me you did not complete required readings or assignments before class.
In rare cases, a class participation grade will include a reading quiz. These will not be pop quizzes. More regularly, you will produce proof in class that you completed a take-home exercise as part of your participation grade.
If you're worried about your participation grade, ask me sooner rather than later how you're doing and how you can improve. If you're engaged in this class and attend, there is no reason you won't get full marks.
Midterm project
The midterm project will require you to identify a public dataset and acquire it from a public agency using open records laws.
Final project
The final project will challenge you to complete an act of journalism by analyzing a public dataset and reporting a significant finding through clear copy and data visualization, i.e., a story.
You may propose to work on a suitably large dataset in a small group, but my preference will be that everyone produces a final project independently.
Required materials
There are no required textbooks for this class. All readings will be distributed electronically.
You will need to bring your own laptop to class. If you do not own a laptop, please see me.
House rules
Attendance
This is a once-weekly class, so attendance is important. That said, I will not take attendance, per se. You will instead be graded on your participation in class.
If you miss a class, naturally, you will get zero participation points for that session.
If you have a medical, family or other emergency that kept you from class, then you can make up 1 point if you earn 3 points the next session and can demonstrate you've mastered the material you missed. You can do this at most once.
Because we have so few class sessions, if you plan on missing two or more classes, I would ask you to consider dropping the class.
Please expect each class to last the duration of the time allotted.
Classroom etiquette
Please silence your cell phones in class and refrain from checking them while other people are speaking.
You may bring food into class as long as you don't make a mess and aren't disruptive to class discussion.
How to communicate with me and with each other
We will use modern technologies to communicate in this class. Namely, Slack, which is a free team-based comms platform that we use at The Dallas Morning News.
Slack is where I will post class assignments, leave discussion questions, post cool examples of data journalism in the wild and respond to your questions outside of class during waking hours.
I will send invitations during our first class to join our class Slack team. You can then access the team either via the Slack desktop application or through the online app. The team name is our course number: JRN-3V50.
Note: In some cases, I may ask assignments or other materials be emailed to my personal email, above. Those will be exceptions to the rule and clearly communicated.
Code of conduct
We will discuss issues in journalism during this course over which reasonable people can and will disagree. I ask that you respect one another's views in class in accordance with university policies and guidelines.
Any intimidation, harassment or otherwise threatening behavior by any member of this class against any other will not be tolerated and will be reported to the university or other appropriate authority, so play nice.
Do your own work, and when working in a group, be sure you are an equal contributor on projects and assignments. Again, see attendant guidelines from the university re: plagiarism, etc.
Disability accommodations
Please let me know of any special accommodations you may need due to a disability. As usual, university policies and guidelines apply.