Data Driven Enterprise off your Beat, a handout from the Producing Stories Effectively program at the Orlando NewsTrain May 15-16, 2015 by Ron Nixon. Ron Nixon is a Washington correspondent for The New York Times who covers the federal regulatory agencies. He is a visiting associate for journalism and media studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a former adjunct professor at Howard University.

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Data-driven enterprise off your beat
Ron Nixon, The New York Times | Nixon@nytimes.com | @nixonron
Jill Riepenhoff, The Columbus Dispatch |jriepenhoff@dispatch.com | @jriep
Getting started in data journalism
1 – Convince a buddy to teach you Excel. It’s a powerful tool that is easily
mastered.
2 – Start small. A guaranteed success will impress your editors and
readers/viewers and convince you that this is doable.
3 – Master one tool at a time. Don’t think you need to learn everything at
once. Some data journalists use only Excel, period.
4 – Use Excel often. To keep fresh, track FOIAs, your Rolodex, passwords,
recipes. It isn’t a bicycle – you will lose it if you don’t use it.
5 – Join Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). As a member ($70
annually/$25 for students), you have access to thousands of how-to tip sheets,
practice datasets, training opportunities, clean datasets and Listservs.
http://ire.org/membership/
Why you need data
1 – In this new media climate, you have to be able to do more than interview and
write a story. Data journalism is another area that sets you apart from the
pack.
2 – Find trends no one else can spot.
3 – Spot anomalies.
4 – Data is defensible. Numbers typically don’t lie and help hold the powerful
accountable.
5 – It adds depth and texture in a way that an anecdote never could. It also
makes you sometimes smarter than the government agency collecting the
data because agency officials never analyze it.
How to find it
1 – Get record-retention schedules from the agencies you cover.

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2 – Read what other journalists have written on the topic – especially look
for the how-to geek boxes.
3 – Ask the agency. How do you track ______?
4 – See below.
Data galore by beat
Slam-dunk data on any beat
 Inspection reports: nursing homes, taxi cabs, amusement-park rides,
stadium food
 Licensing: nurses, massage therapists, mortgage brokers, food trucks
 Disciplinary actions: teachers, doctors, lawyers, coaches
 Complaints
 Property records: slumlords, foreclosures
Sports
 Minor league baseball: http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/
 College athletic department salaries. See USA Today for top coaches’
salaries in football: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/
and basketball:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/ncaab/coach/
 Major NCAA infractions:
https://web1.ncaa.org/LSDBi/exec/miSearch
 Academic progress rates for college athletes:
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/academic-progress-rate-
apr
 High school participation rates:
http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/
Health
 Vaccinations
 Nursing Home Compare:
http://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare/?AspxAutoDetectCookie
Support=1
 Florida Department of Health data center:
http://www.floridacharts.com/charts/default.aspx

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Business
 Consumer complaints filed with the Florida Attorney General’s office
that resulted in pending litigation as well as final settlements and
Assurances of Voluntary Compliance (AVCs) since January 2011:
http://www.myfloridalegal.com/EC_Edoc.nsf/Enforcement
 Sheriff’s sales
 FAA wildlife strikes: http://wildlife.faa.gov/
 Data breaches: http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach
 U.S. Department of Labor violations for clothing manufacturers, retailers
and fashion-media companies: http://ogesdw.dol.gov/homePage.php
 Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s Census Data
Center: http://www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/data-
center/florida-census-data-center
 Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research:
http://edr.state.fl.us/Content/
Local government
 Housing-code violations
 Parking tickets
 Time sheets
Education
 Florida Department of Education pre-k to grade 12 public school
data publications and reports:
http://www.fldoe.org/accountability/data-sys/edu-info-accountability-
services/pk-12-public-school-data-pubs-reports/index.stml
 Florida Department of Education data on community colleges
and technical centers: http://fldoehub.org/cctcmis/Pages/default.aspx
 State University System of Florida data:
http://www.flbog.edu/resources/ditr/
 Campus crime 2001-2013: http://ope.ed.gov/Security/, or you can buy
clean data from IRE for $25 (member) or $75 (non-member):
http://www.ire.org/nicar/database-library/databases/doe-campus-crime/
Environment
 Florida Department of Environmental Protection Air
Compliance and Enforcement Search
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/enforcement.aspx
 Other Florida EPA reports: http://www.fldepportal.com/go/view-
reports/

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Cops and courts
 Jail-booking data: Stories – domestic violence, immigration, drunk
drivers
 Sex offenders
 Florida courts statistics from the Office of the State Courts
Administrator: http://www.flcourts.org/publications-reports-
stats/statistics/
The arts and nonprofits
 Guidestar for nonprofits’ IRS Form 990 or tax return (NTEE codes –
A60 performing arts): http://www.guidestar.org/
 Youth sports, booster clubs: http://www.guidestar.org/
Features
 Dog licenses: popular breeds/names, location of pitbulls
 License plates: variations of Go Bucks, banned phrases
 U.S. Census Bureau Facts for Features:
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features.html
Need more ideas?
Here are 60 from data journalists Mary Jo Webster and Jodi Upton. They put
together this presentation for the NICAR/IRE conferences in 2014. It’s rich with
ideas: http://goo.gl/9EKDfz
Tutorial: Databases of Statistical Information is a smorgasbord of links to
data on different subjects including religion, transportation, sports, housing,
migration, health, workplace injuries, fire safety, agriculture, Census and more:
http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/databases-of-statistical-
information/ Compiled by kdmcBerkeley