I’m so bad. I didn’t blog about the Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting (CARR) workshop I attended to last week. I’m getting so lazy with my blogging.
The workshop lasted only two days, but it was very useful. Mark Tapscott, blogger and journalist, teaches CARR every year. The idea is to help journalists analyze data to find a good story or the real story behind the numbers. We went to various government web sites that posted Excel spreadsheets for download to figure out how they came up with the figures. Sometimes the agency doing the analyses or the journalist doing the story get the numbers wrong, and CARR training gives you the skills (and motivation) to run the numbers yourself. Excel has great functions and features, and you can sort the numbers in different ways and find a new and more interesting angle to a story.
For example, Mark pointed me to this post written by a former journalist. He ran the numbers on a feel-good story about “dramatic” increases in standardized test scores of black and Hispanic students in Wake Country, North Carlolina, and poured a bucket of cold water all over the hype. Not only were the gains miniscule, but the county hyping the “good news” has a crucial stake in the game. In other words, they were highly motivated to fudge or obscure the real numbers.
I met several folks at CARR, including Stacy Harp, a blogger who goes by the name El Oso (He’s blogging anonymously), Carrie Sheffield, sister of Ratherbiased’s Matt Sheffield, Rebecca Halik, and others. Matt and his brother developed NewsBusters.org for the Media Research Center.
Most of the attendees were wanna-be journalists and much, much younger than me. Well, except for Stacy, Mark, and Bob Cox, both of whom I met at BlogNashville, which Bob organized. Bob is also the head honcho at Media Bloggers Association. If I’m not careful, someone might get the impression that I wanna-be a journalist. 
As an aside, tonight I’m attending a DC-area blogger meet-up. I’ll finally get to meet David “Jolly Blogger” Wayne in person, as well as Charmaine Yoest, William Meisheid, and others, all Christians.
Addendum: More computer-assisted reporting in action.
Unrelated Update: I’ve been researching podcasting for some clients. There’s a whole online world out there I don’t know much about. I’m thinking of doing a podcast of my own, a weekly LBC Newsrant or Faith Chat or something.
Blogger Frank J. is podcasting, as well as many other bloggers, I’m sure. Would you want to listen to me talk about something every week? What should I talk about? I’d have to have guests, too.
{ 17 comments }
LaShawn,
Don’t stop, I enjoy your blog too much.
God willing, I’ll be around for a while, Jeff.
I took several CARR course in college. The best part was every week for homework our professor assigned little “Scavenger Hunts” where we’d have to use the internet and online databases to find certain bits of information. The most trivial information that you’d have to dig 10-layers deep to uncover. The funny thing is, sometimes we really couldn’t find the stuff until the professor showed us how to more properly execute a search.
Good deal LaShawn. I saw the story myself and critiqued it as shallow, because it seemed to be just a recycling of the old failed busing strategy for racial “balance” and school “improvement”, that yielded neither balance or improvement. I said the scores may have risen due to emphasis on actual performance rather than fads, not whether some black kids sat next to some white kids. Your link now shows the whole thing was yet another example of liberal spin. I hope the CARR course reveals methods to expose this sort of thing quickly. Of course, I will plug Thomas Sowell as the indispensable “spin” detector
Keep up the good work.
Have fun at your meet-up. May you be refreshed and inspired to keep up your excellent work.
So nice. Thanks, Evon.
La Shawn,
The CARR Hot Sheets I found inside of the Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting are helpful. Thanks for posting it today.
Maribel
LaShawn, right now I am listening to Rush Limbaugh (1:30pm east coast time) and a caller named “Eric” is doing a terrific job of outlining how Democrats have removed God from their lives by inventing evolution, etc. Rush says Eric is one of the finest callers he’s had. Hopefully there will be mention of him on Rush’s website; the guy was so straightforward and accurate about how blacks have been treated and how so many political leaders have lied to them for their own personal gain!
“Inventing evolution?” I guess those dinosaurs lived a mere 10,000 years ago, huh, Tussy? I would address your comment if it didn’t make me laugh so hard.
The podcast would be great. I am glad that many of my favorites now have podcast (MacArthur, Piper, etc.) and it would be great to add you to that list.
I’ve just recently begun listening to Podcast’s and think it’d be a great to be able to hear you and maybe other guests discuss topics… not that I don’t love reading your blog but Podcasting is little more dimensional….. and it seems to be where blogging is heading……
I’d definitely be interested in your weekly show! Go for it. Since I work from home, I love to be able to listen to thought-provoking shows while working. Keeps my brain from growing stagnant!
It was nice meeting you at the CARR boot camp La Shawn. I also blog unanonymously (new word) on Global Voices. I’d definitely be interested in checking out your podcast.
No one with a financial interest in the results of a test shoud be involved in writing, proctoring or scoring that test.
I’d definitely listen to a podcast of yours La Shawn. What I like about them is that I can store a few on my mp3 player and then have something interesting to listen to on the train during my daily commute. No talk radio reception at all on the train line, but podcasts make that irrelevant. They give me more variety in terms of topics than any talk station could hope to provide.
Call me Australopithicus but I don’t think podcasts will catch on. Just as video will not. We want to read on our computers, not listen or watch. Get a program on Sirius or XM if you want to broadcast.
I tried the video angle with a colleague and found that people really don’t want to watch interviews — live or taped while on their computers. Plus, in LaShawn’s case, she should be seen anyway. She is cute.
Just my 2 cents worth. Oh. And I don’t believe in australopithicus.
Its good to see a sista who knows what she is saying out there. One who sees beyond the barrier of colour and race that the devil is using to divide us.
I like the way you identified yourself as an American from an African descent, that way I think reduces the mentality of unneccessary segregation that comes with ‘colorism’. And most importantly we are christians……………children of one God over all.
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