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David McKie
Office phone 288-6523; cell phone 290-7380;
e-mail address: david_mckie@cbc.ca
web site: http://ca.oocities.com/davidcmckie@rogers.com/
alternate web site: http://http-server.carleton.ca/~dmckie/
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Computer-assisted reporting (CAR) is one segment of the course,
News and Analytical Reporting.
This segment will help you develop and strengthen your skills in
using the Internet as a reporting tool to find sources and information
for stories. You'll also be introduced to two pieces of software:
a spreadsheet program called Excel; and a database manager called
Access.
WHAT IS CAR?
An increasing number of journalists in Canada, the United States
and Europe are using computer-assisting reporting to tell award-winning
stories. In its simplist terms, CAR allows journalists to hunt down
hard-to-find contacts, dig up crucial background information and
find under-reported stories. CAR is now a staple of major U.S. media
outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington
Post. In Canada, it is gaining currency with newspapers such
as The Toronto Star and The Hamilton Spectator.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation now has an ongoing commitment
to CAR.
COURSE OBJECTIVES [Top]
With only four weeks devoted to CAR, our class can only skim the
surface. So you're best to regard this four-week section as an introductory
workshop that will hopefully jar the door open to a new world filled
with great story ideas. Students who successfully complete this
four-week workshop should be able to:
* Use listservs, other mailing lists and social networking sites
such as Facebook to find sources, information and story ideas
* Use discussion groups to monitor cyberspace conversations and
locate people who can become characters in your stories
* Use research tools such as search engines to find people, phone
numbers and background information on deadline
* Critically assess the credibility of search engines, listservs,
discussion groups and web sites
*Develop a comfort level with numbers
* Use the spreadsheet, Excel, and the database manager, Access,
to spot trends and find the stories
CANADIAN EXAMPLES OF CAR [Top]
Before you review this course outline, please take a moment to
read a real-life, Canadian example of CAR at work. It's hard to
become excited about CAR unless you develop an appreciation for
the great stories that journalists using these methods routinely
tell. The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) gives an annual
award for the best CAR story. The Toronto Star, a frequent
victor in this category, won the 2003 award for a series
of stories about the poor treatment of seniors in Ontario nursing
homes. Bitter
End told a number of gripping tales and forced the Ontario
government to take action.
'For an explanation of how the reporters got the story, please
click here.
The CBC won the 2004 CAR award for a series entitled Faint Warning.
It chronicled the lives of children who had suffered from adverse
drug reactions, in large part because they were given drugs never
tested in anyone under the age of 18. To help tell the story, the
CBC obtained Health Canada's adverse drug reaction database. After
analysing it, the broadcaster was able to determine that the number
of children suffering from adverse reactions being reported to Health
Canada had tripled since 1997. And given that only between one and
10 per cent of adverse reactions are ever reported to the department,
the number of young people suffering from dangerous side effects
of drugs is probably much higher than the figures that show up in
the adverse drug reaction database. Not only did the broadcaster
tell the stories (http://www.cbc.ca/news/adr/),
but it also put a searchable version of the database online, forcing
Health Canada to follow suit.
For an explanation of how they got the story, please click here.
The CBC also won the 2005 CAR award for a series called
Prescribed to Death, which was a follow-up to Faint Warning.
It used a more sophisicated methodology
to arrive at some startling conclusions about the ways in which
prescription drugs are prescribed to unsuspecting seniors.
Workplace safety has also been the subject of CBC CAR-based investigations
that resulted from analysis done on databases obtained from provincial
workplace safety insurance boards and ministries of labour. The
award-winning Dying
for a Job and Out
of Sync were the two series that resulted from that effort.
In its bid to tell Canadians about some of the dangers of flying,
the The Hamilton Spectator, The Toronto Star and The
Kitchener-Waterloo Record combined forces to analyse Transport
Canada's airline safety database for its series entitled Collision
Course. The series won the CAJ's 2007 CAR award and the overall
award for best investigative, making it the third year in a row
that a series with a major CAR element won the overall prize. Collision
Course was a Michener nominee.
The point of detailing many of these achievements is to illustrate
the kind of impact CAR can have on your journalism.
COURSE METHODS [Top]
Each week we will meet in the computer lab (347) for a three-hour
class that will be part lecture, part hands-on workshop. We will
discuss the ways in which journalists use computers to enhance their
reporting. You will learn how to use several tools in the lab and
through follow-up assignments, which are to be emailed to me at
the address that I've posted at the top of this syllabus. I do not
accept paper. Email will do just fine, thanks.
TEXTBOOK [Top]
For investigative journalism, there is now a new resource, a Canadian
textbook called Digging
Deeper, which I wrote with three of the best journalists in
Canada who also teach journalism at Ryerson in Toronto and King's
College in Halifax. Digging Deeper covers everything from
uncovering hard-to-find documents to conducting more effective interviews
and is a resource that every journalist should have.
There are also excellent resources that help journalists use the
Internet more effectively. One such book is The Internet Handbook
for Writers, Researchers and Journalists:2002-2003 edition,
by Mary McGuire, Linda Stilborne, Melinda McAdams and Laurel Hyatt.
For more information please go to: http://www.sentex.net/~mmcadams/book/handbook.html.
You can check to see if copies are available in the bookstore.
GRADES [Top]
Journalism 3205 is composed of four parts - news reporting, analytical
reporting, computer-assisted reporting and ethics. The passing grade
for the full course is a C. Your final grade in 3205 will be equal,
at least, to the average of the numeric grades earned in each section,
except that: A grade of C or better must be obtained in at least
three of the four parts of the course in order to proceed to the
next level of reporting courses. If this condition is met, news
and analytical reporting will each be weighted as one third of the
final grade and the ethics and computer-assisted reporting segments
will each be weighted one sixth. If a student receives a grade less
than C (D-minus to C-minus) in more than one of the parts, the final
overall grade will not be higher than a C-minus. A grade of F in
any part of the course will result in an automatic overall grade
of F.
Learning Accommodation: Students with disabilities requiring academic
accommodations in this course must contact a co-ordinator at the
Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities to complete the
necessary letters of accommodation. After registering with the PMC,
make an appointment to meet and discuss your needs with me in order
to make the necessary arrangements as early in the term as possible.
Please note the deadline for submitting completed forms to the Paul
Menton Centre is Nov. 9, 2007, for fall and fall/winter term courses.
Other Academic Accommodation: You may need special arrangements
to meet your academic obligations during the term because of disability,
pregnancy or religious obligations. Please review the course outline
promptly and write to me with any requests for academic accommodation
during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after
the need for accommodation is known to exist.
It takes time to review and consider each request individually,
and to arrange for accommodations where appropriate. Please make
sure you respect these timelines, particularly for in-class tests
and due dates.
You can visit the Equity Services website to view the policies and
to obtain more detailed information on academic accommodation at
http://carleton.ca/equity/accommodation
GRADING PROCEDURES [Top]
This is a professional school and students will be held to professional
standards in both assignments and conduct. That means being on time
for class and proof-reading your assignments before handing them
in.
Numeric grades will be awarded to each assignment within the following
range:
An 10-12 (A-A+) range grade will be awarded for excellent work,
which means assignments must be thorough, clear, thoughtful, well-written,
free of grammatical errors and typos and well-organized. As well,
I'm looking for considerable initiative and analytical skills based
on a solid story idea.
Lower grades will be awarded to students handing in assignments
that are missing one or more of the elements listed above.
A failing mark will be given to students who hand in assignments
that are late, contain significant errors of fact, fail to meet
a majority of the requirements of the assignment, or seriously violate
the School's Ethics and Professional Standards.
All the assignments for the CAR sectionm will be graded equally.
Standing in a course is determined by the course instructor subject
to the approval of the Faculty Dean. This means that grades submitted
by an instructor may be subject to revision. No grades are final
until they have been approved by the Dean.
Students who fake their stories, plagiarize anyone else's work,
or otherwise cheat on their assignments will get more than just
a failing grade. Instead, they will be dealt with according to the
University rules for "Instructional Offences."
COURSE SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNMENTS
WEEK ONE [Top]
Course Introduction
Finding and meeting people on the Net
A critical assessment of the value and drawbacks of e-mail, listservs,
blogs, discussion groups and web sites, news alerts and social networking
sites
Finding expert and non-expert sources on the Net
Finding out about people and their behaviour on the Net
Assignment # 1 Nov. 12
You'll be required to provide a critical assessement of one web
site, a blog and a listserv to which you must subscribe. You are
to e-mail your assignment by eight o'clock on the evening of Nov.
12. If you're late, you'll be docked marks.On Wednesday, Nov. 14,
some of you willl be expected to give a five-minute presentation
on your findings. For instance, for web sites, I'll want to know
what kind of useful documents are available and how they can be
used by journalists. You'll be graded on the effort based on the
criteria discussed briefly on this syllabus and covered in greater
detail in class.
What is required
1) Assessment of a website. Choose anyone you wish. Assess how
you would use the website as a journalist. Is it a reliable source
for research? Does it have a good archive section? Does it contain
minutes of meetings? Does it have a discussion group that you can
join?
2) Subscribe to a listserv (even if you don't end up analysing
the listserv, you will still be required to indicate which one you
signed up for. Failure to sign up for one of them will cost you
half a mark.) You'll need to do this immediately to ensure that
you have enough time to monitor the listserv's discussion.
3) Critical assessment of a blog in point form if you wish. Again,
this can be any blog.
4) Critical assessment of a listserv or a discussion group or a
social network site such as Facebook in point form if you wish.
Just choose one of the three to assess. DO NOT DO ALL THREE OF THEM!
Note: No longer than 500 words for the entire assignment. Keep
it brief!!
Resources
Blogs
Example of CBC blogs:
http://www.cbcunlocked.com/artman/publish/cat_index_news.shtml
http://insidethecbc.com/
Blogs in the news:
Dawson College (1)
Dawson College (2)
Lonleygirl
Further resource
material on blogs.
Because it's still an emerging form, there is a scarcity of academic
material that analyzes the phenomenon of blogs. That being said,
articles have appeared in publications such as the American
Journalism Review and The
New York Times Magazine that are worth reading to get sense
of some of the issues we must consider when using blogs as sources
of information.
Social networking sites
Facebook
"Considering the growth of social networking,
whether it is happening on Facebook, or MySpace, or Friendster,
or LinkedIn, or Pownce, it seems clear that there's at least one
thing journalists cannot do -- and that's ignore it."
-excerpt
from Facebook: What's In It For Journalists?
Facebook: What's In It For Journalists is an
excellent piece that was recommended to me by one of my former students.
The piece outlines how journalists are begining to use Facebook
as a reporting tool. The article is hosted on the Poynter Institute
at: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=127211.
Listservs
To learn more about listservs, please go to: http://web.syr.edu/~bcfought/
CAJ-L can be one of the listservs to which you subscribe.
It is run by the Canadian Association of Journalsts.
Other journalism lists include CARR-L, JOURNET-L, NICAR-L, IRE-L,
ONLINE-NEWS, ONLINE WRITING, NEWSLIB and CANADIAN FREELANCE NEWS.
Some lists generate very little traffic, while others can produce
50 or more messages a day. So please be warned that signing up to
a useful listserv can be a tricky exercise that requires patience.
You may have to subscribe more than once, and you may receive error
messages. The best tactic is to subscribe to several listservs at
once. That way you're assured of having something to monitor for
the three required days.
Note: If you have any questions, don't hesitiate to contact
me. Be sure to give yourself enough time to monitor the listservs,
blogs and your web site. That way there'll be plenty of time left
over to do the assignment properly. You won't benefit as much from
the assignment if you leave everything to the last minute.
The idea behind this course is the development of your critical
faculties. That means critically assessing the pros and cons
of tools including search engines, discussion groups, social networking
sites, web sites and blogs. Such an assessment constitutes more
than simply providing lists of functions these search tools can
perform. You are expected to put some thought in determining how
these tools can be of use to journalists.
When evaluating a web site for instance, you are required to explain
the ease with which you can find names, phone numbers and e-mail
addresses of people who sit on the organization's board of directors
or advisory board. In assessing the site's credibility, you must
evaluate the biases of the person, group or organization that has
produced the site. For instance, is it a given that a federal site
such as Health Canada, Transport Canada or Correctional Service
of Canada is credible? No, this is not a trick question. Government
departments have their biases and use their web pages to promote
those biases in news releases and reports that can masquerade as
objective information. This is not to say that you should refrain
from using the information on a government site. Rather, you must
understand the context within which the material should be woven
into your story. For a specific checklist of points to take into
consideration when evaluating web sites, please click here.
You'll also find this link farther down in this syllabus under the
heading "Helpful Links."
Specifically, you are required to monitor one listserv,
one blog or social network site, and one web site for at least three
days, using the assessment criteria I have already discussed. Please
just dont't tell me that something was of little
use, explain why this was so. I'm looking for the
analysis you employ when choosing to use these tools on the Net.
So please take good notes during our in-class discussions.
Note: When it comes to your listserv, don't equate the volume
of people posting messages with the quality of the discussion
itself. In past classes, students have concluded that listservs
that generate little discussion should be ignored. If this were
true, then the reverse would be true; that is, a site inundated
with messages should be closely monitored.
WEEK TWO [Top]
What you will learn
1)How to find tables that can be downloaded from web sites
2)Downloading the tables by doing a simple export, copying the
URL and pasting it into a "new web query" in Excel, and
copying-and-pasting smaller tables in the addendum sections
3)Organizing the worksheets in Excel so they flow logically just
like pages in a book
4)Filtering the table
5)Copying the filtered table and pasting it into a new worksheet
6)Sorting the salaries in the filtered table in ascending or descending
order
7)Learning how to use the "insert comment" boxes in order
to explain what you've done and why
8) Adding an extra column for the year of the salary disclosure
The exercise in class
We will briefly look at an Ottawa
Citizen story on paramedic service, and walk through how the
paper obtained the numbers. The material we learned from the first
class about judging web sites will come in handy for this exercise.
We will then be working with data from the so-called Sunshine list,
a database of salary disclosures on the Ontario ministry of finance's
web site. The list (click here
to find it), is a veritable who's who of public servants with big-time
salaries. As a way to promote transparency, the government updates
this list every spring, which inevitably leads to a spate of stories
about who earns the most. Please click
here for an example.
There is a lag time of a year. So the 2007 results are the disclosures
for 2006; 2006 for disclosures from 2005, and so on. We will be
learning how to export data from this list into Excel for the purposes
of analysis.
The assignment
The assignment will be to export data for a particular employer
-- school boards, for instance -- for a four-year period beginning
in the 2000. The ultimatre purpose will be to see which employees
have been earning the biggest paychecks and receiving the largest
wages compared to their colleagues. In class, we will be focusing
on Carleton University professors. For the assignment you'll have
to pick another group of employees in one of the 11 categories that
contain salary disclosures. In each worksheet, you'll use an "insert
comment" box to indicate what you have done with the data in
the table.
Tips: Take good notes, detailing all the steps. The notes
will make it easier when attempting to duplicate what you did in
class. Have an idea of the employer you want to focus on as early
as possible, meaning that this is not to be left to the last
minute. After doing the assignment the first time, let the spreadsheet
sit for a day or two, and then review your work to ensure that you
haven't made any mistakes. Make sure that you have downloaded the
data for the correct year.
The Excel spreadsheet is to be emailed no later than eight o'clock
on Nov. 20. Anything after that time will be docked half a mark.
Suggested reference material:
A Canadian source for general investigative reporting techniques,
including CAR, is Digging
Deeper.
WEEK THREE [Top]
What you will learn
1) Following up on last week's paramedic story. Please read the
latest paramedic story by clicking here
2) How to negotiate for data that resides on a website
3) How to perform basic functions such as AVERAGE
4) How to create charts
5) How to understand the city of Ottawa budget figures for the
past seven years
There will be no assignment. Rather, you'll be encouraged to continue
perusing the city of Ottawa budget so you'll be better prepared
for the final assignment, which will be the most challenging one
to date. The more you review the city of Ottawa data after this
class and before the next one, the better prepared you'll be.
SPECIAL NOTE: With the last CAR group, I had problems returning
assignments to the "connect" accounts. Turns out the problem
was some of the accounts were full. Please free up enough space
to allow large files to be returned. This will save all of us a
lot of time. Thanks.
WEEK FOUR [Top]
What you will learn
1) How to negotiate for and obtain budget data
2) How to interpret the city of Ottawa's key budget data
3) How to perform percentage increases
4) How to display those percentage increases in chart form
The exercise in class
We'll be working with the city of Ottawa budget. It has been said
that a budget is one of the most political documents that governments
produce, in large part because politicians are able to spin the
numbers any way they want. For instance, a city can paint itself
as a responsible spender by playing up the fact that it is freezing
taxes. But that fact may hide more important and newsworthy details,
such as the fact that the city has been quietly raising user fees
to compensate, or disproportionately cutting back in one particular
service.
The problem is, unless the city performs these calculations for
you, there is no way to find out what's really going on. Cities
usually make their budget documents available in two formats: pdfs
and paper. Neither form is good enough for the kind of work we want
to do. So the first step is to ask for the budget in a spreadsheet,
like the one we'll be using in class. The general rule of thumb
is, if you see a table displayed in a pdf or on paper, that table
comes from a spreadsheet, which can be obtained for the asking.
Once we understand these concepts, we will begin to peruse the
data and analyze the numbers for the 2006 and 2007 "Community
and Protective Services."
The assignment
Following up on what we've learned in class, you will be required
to perform two calculations in separate worksheets. For instance,
you can chart the increase in spending in certain areas such as
the library. We're looking for trends. So you'll be required to
chart the percentage increase in spending for at least three
years.
Each calculation and chart will be in separately, labelled worksheets.
This means there will be four worksheets. And, as was the case for
the salaries assignment, you'll be required to explain what you
did in the insert boxes.
Tip: With the long weekend coming up, I would suggest that
you get this assignment out of the way before Friday, especially
if you want to use me as a resource for any problems you may be
encountering. If you run into problems, I will be available to get
you back on the right track. Good luck!
You'll be require to hand in the assignment by 8:00 p.m. on Dec.
3 . Late assignments will be docked half a mark.
DATABASES [Top]
Basics about math
Sunshine
list
Latest
Statscan samesex data
Statscan2006 detailed
samesex data
Statscan 2001 detailed samesex data
Proactive
Disclosure
DND
proactive dislosure
City of Ottawa budget
COURSE POLICIES
Deadlines:
They must be met. They are a fact of life in all sorts of media
work. If you miss them as a professional journalist you will disappoint
your listeners, viewers and readers, hurt your employer's credibility,
embarrass yourself, and maybe even lose your job!
Extensions/Exemptions:
Extensions will not generally be given, except when there are major
computer breakdowns in the lab. In the case of a genuine and serious
personal or family emergency, you may be exempted from an assignment,
but you must notify me before the deadline unless absolutely impossible.
You may be asked to provide documented evidence of the emergency.
If you are ill or injured, please see a doctor. You must present
a medical certificate in cases where an illness or injury prevents
the completion of an assignment.
Attendance:
Again, this is a professional school. Skipping class is like skipping
a day of work. It is unprofessional behaviour. If you must miss
a class for some compelling reason, you should let me know, just
as you would give your employer the heads-up. It is your responsibility,
however, to find out what material was covered and submit all assignments
on time. Punctuality is a must. Be present for 8:30, sharp! And
while I realize that you are juggling this class with other journalism
assignments, I won't allow you to be absent due to work that is
to be done for another class. We only have three hours, which is
barely enough time to cover a wealth of material. So please manage
your time so that you're present for our entire session.
Etiquette:
I know that cell phones are a fact of life. Increasingly, this
is also becoming the case with blackberries. However, these devices
cause interruptions, which are unfair to the other students and
impede your ability to concentrate. So I will be asking that we
declare our class a cell phone-free zone. The devices are to be
turned off. The same rule goes for your instructor. We can
all check messages during the break. And I would also ask that you
refrain from checking email correpondence during class. Again, this
is just common courtesy, and maximizes our learning environment
that you'll hopefully find stimulating..
Apprenticeships:
If you are going on an approved apprenticeship during this segment
of the course, you must provide me with notice in writing in advance
of your apprenticeship, telling me when you will be away. You must
also make arrangements with me about any assignments that will be
missed.
Quality of work:
Although I'm not asking for writing assignments, per se, I expect
that your material will be reviewed, well-written and spell-checked.
If your assignments contain sloppy mistakes, you will be penalized.
ABOUT ME [Top]
I'm an award-winning, Ottawa-based investigative reporter and producer
with the CBC's Investigative
Unit. I've been with the corporation for 17 years and have become
increasingly dependent on computer-assisted reporting techniques,
using the Internet to find sources, background material, and using
spreadsheets and database managers to organize my information to
produce stories for radio, television and cbc.ca.
I have attempted to go beyond press-release journalism by using
access-to-information and databases to tell stories that shed light
on how well departments such as Health Canada, Transport Canada
and the Correctional Service of Canada are doing their jobs. To
get an idea of the stories that I have done, please go to the following
links: and A
Matter of Trust; Faint
Warning; and Prescribed
to Death.
I co-authored Digging Deeper, the new Canadian textbook
on investigative journalism techniques. And I am completing a second
book entitled Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Comprehensive Primer.
I also edit a magazine for the Canadian Association of Journalists
called Media, which you can find at: Media
magazine
I obtained a Master of Journalism degree from Carleton in the summer
of 2001. One of the areas I researched was the evolution of computer-assisted
reporting in Canada and the United States.
If you have any questions about the course, or suggestions for
topics that should be included, or helpful web addresses that can
be posted on this syllabus please drop me a line at david_mckie@cbc.ca
Mandatory link[Top]
As you'll discover in class, Julian Sher's home page is an excellent
source of information on a wealth of topics, especially finding
people on the Net. Sher, an award-winning journalist and author
who used to be a producer with CBC Television's the fifth estate,
is now a consultant who trains journalists around the world on using
the Internet. He's also a columnist for Media magazine. His
web site, which is constantly updated, can be located at http://www.journalismnet.com.
Mary McGuire's web site, listed above under the heading "textbook,"
is also full of indispensable information for journalists. Besides
being an author, Mary teaches broadcast and online journalism at
Carleton. You can find her web page at: http://www.carleton.ca/~mmcguire
Helpful links[Top]
This web site is one that you'll find useful when researching a
number of topics. It's located at: http://www.resourceshelf.com.
Evaluating Web pages: We will place a lot of emphasis on
ensuring that the web site you use when researching a story is trustworthy.
In order to determine credibility, it's necessary to have a checklist
of key criteria that the site must meet. Here's but one site that
will help reinforce and add to what you've already learned: http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webeval.html;
what also helps is to know who is behind the Web page. The following
links will help you determine who is behind the commercial site
that has peaked your interest: http://www.geektools.com/whois.php
and http://www.betterwhois.com/
and http://www.register.com/
When plugging in the Web site you're researching, be sure to exclude
the "www." The first site on the list, "geektools,"
contains the easiest interface of the three. The ultimate choice
is yours.
CAR stories: Time permitting, I will introduce you to the
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post story about children
who are neglected by an inadequate social services system. For inspiration,
you can read the stories at:
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2002/investigative-reporting/works/story1.html
Finding people: There are times when you want to know eactly
where a person lives. Plugging in the person's address into: http://www.mapblast.com
will produce a map of the neighborhood you might want to visit,
either online, or in person.
Tips on getting started in your search ( courtesy of the University
of California)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html
Mining web sites of news outlets:
As good as Google may be, it can't find everything. This is why
it's important to vary your searches beyond the popular search engine.
The web sites of news outlets including The New York Times,
The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, the CBC and
the BBC have excellent in-depth sections. Non-partisan policy groups
also produce excellent sites. They can become invaluable sources
for journalists searching for background information on a range
of topics. Here are some examples:
The CBC: Indepth
The BBC: Indepth
The Toronto Star: Investigations
The Center for Responsive Politics: Open
Secrets
The Centre for Public Integrity: Windfalls
of War: U.S. Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan
Another search engine: While Google is still the search
engine of choice because of, among other things, its precision,
Vivisimo does have its fans. This search engine allows you to group
your searches thematically. You'll find Vivisimo by visiting http://vivisimo.com/
If you have any other links that you've found
useful when completing your assignments, please pass them on and
I can post them on this section of the syllabus.
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