Category / Innovation

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  • J-Source

    Star series highlights advances in CAR

    A new Toronto Star series shows just how far computer-assisted reporting has come. Race Matters is a follow up the monumental 2002 Race and Crime project.  Reporter Jim Rankin fought seven years to obtain several police databases and found police…
  • J-Source

    Ottawa releases pictures of data to ATI requesters

    A number of journalists filing requests for data to federal departments are finding the “data” has been converted to image files, quite literally pictures of data, prior to release. This has the potential to take access to electronic records back…
  • J-Source

    Click and the hyperlinks are gone

    Once in a while software designers do something little that makes life a lot easier.  The folks at Microsoft have done that by adding a shortcut command to remove hyperlinks from cells in Excel 2010. I’ve been testing the beta…
  • J-Source

    New Excel feature takes data analysis to new levels

    Reporters who use Microsoft Excel to crunch government data have something to cheer about with the release of the beta version of Office 2010. A new add-in to Excel brings Excel’s ease of use to the analysis of huge datasets.…
  • J-Source

    Office 2010 Beta imminent

    Love it or hate it, Microsoft Office is the king of the mountain when it comes to desktop spreadsheet and database software, and you’ll soon be able to have a close up look.…
  • J-Source

    Winnipeg Free Press probes dirty restaurants

    Check out this story from the Winnipeg Free Press on dirty restaurants. It’s a great example of how far we have come in doing this kind of probing journalism. The earliest reporters doing the restaurant story, and I was one…
  • J-Source

    CAR story wins Michener Award

    Computer-Assisted Reporting was a big part of this year’s winning Michener Award entry. The CBC and the Canadian Press teamed up to analyze Taser use by police officers across Canada, building a unique database from use-of-force reports obtained from…
  • J-Source

    Still time to sign up for the King’s Summer School in Computer-Assisted Reporting

    Reporters from across Canada are headed to Halifax for the second annual University of King’s College Summer School in Computer-Assisted Reporting.The school is sponsored by the Canadian Newspaper Association and is the only “boot camp” style CAR training available in…
  • J-Source

    Some data resources for swine flu coverage

    There are some excellent statistical resources available to those working on swine flu stories……
  • J-Source

    The struggle for electronic records

    Journalists have been asking for electronic records from Canadian governments for at least 15 years. There have been a few encouraging developments, writes Fred Vallance-Jones, but a recent FOI audit showed we have a long way to go.…