Data-journalism training – CAJ, 2024

The year in data journalism

8:45 AM – 9:40 – Founder’s Room

We take you behind the scenes of some of the year’s best data-driven stories — starting with The Globe and Mail’s award-winning Secret Canada project. In this session, we’ll explain step-by-step how reporters like you found data and turned it into engaging news stories, including the tools used, the timeline, the methodology and all the surprises along the way.

Speakers

Tom Cardoso, The Globe and Mail, Investigative Reporter

David McKie, National Observer, Deputy Managing Editor

Valérie Ouellet, CBC/Radio-Canada, Senior Data Journalist

Links

CAJ finalists
https://caj.ca/canadian-association-of-journalists-announces-finalists-for-this-years-top-investigative-journalism-awards-competition/

How We Crunched the Data on Disaster Survivors
https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/04/03/How-We-Counted-Data-On-Disaster-Survivors/

IRE announces winners of the 2023 Philip Meyer Journalism Award
https://www.ire.org/2023-meyer-winners/

STATS check
https://senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats-check/

Data journalism 101: Reporting with data

Session recording
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9clqYgHJuUo

10:00 AM – 10:55 AM

The world runs on data. Governments, corporations and nonprofits all collect and publish datasets that are potential goldmines for stories. But sorting through and analyzing it can be daunting. If you’re interested in data-driven reporting, but you hated math in high school and don’t know how to start, we’re here to help. We’ll give you a crash course in where to find data, the tools you can use to analyze it and what formulas every data journalist should know. We’ll cover common mistakes and share our favorite resources so you can continue your education after the hour is up. We’ll use Google Sheets in this workshop, so bring your laptop if you want to follow along! No previous experience is needed.

Speakers: Carly Penrose, Xavi Richer Vis

Links:

CAJ 24 Data Journalism 101.pptx

CAJ 24 Data Journalism 101 – Cheat sheets, practice, tips.pdf

Clean Fire Incidents Data (EDITED).xlsx

Visualizing your data: Seeing is believing

Session recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S87UqBQdAqk

11:05 AM – 12:00 – Founder’s Room

Become a chart-making wizard! In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to make simple online charts using Datawrapper, a free tool used by many newsrooms. We’ll show you how to prepare your data for visualization, pick the perfect chart type and craft compelling titles.

Valérie Ouellet, CBC/Radio-Canada, Senior Data Journalist

Fred Vallance-Jones, University of King’s College School of Journalism, Writing & Publishing, Director of Journalism

Links

Welcome to the Datawrapper Academy!
https://academy.datawrapper.de/

IRCC study permits:

https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/90115b00-f9b8-49e8-afa3-b4cff8facaee/resource/3897ef92-a491-4bab-b9c0-eb94c8b173ad

Toronto police, neighbourhood crime rates:
https://data.torontopolice.on.ca/datasets/TorontoPS::neighbourhood-crime-rates-open-data/explore

Toronto neighbourhood (statistical) profiles:
https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/neighbourhood-profiles/

Toronto neighbourhood map:
https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/neighbourhoods/

Toronto collisions:
https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/police-annual-statistical-report-traffic-collisions/

ResourcesTrafficCollisionsByDayofWeek2014_sept2023.csv

Studypermits_yearend_bycountryofcitizenship_top10_2019_23.csv

autotheft2023_roomsperdwelling.csv

autotheft2023_mediantotalincome.csv

Statistics Canada: Getting beyond the news release

Session recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9h-QPe6EE

2:10 PM – 3:05 PM – Founder’s Room

Statistics Canada’s monthly releases produce predictable headlines. Unemployment is down. Inflation is up. The United States is still our largest trading partner. But there are much better stories buried in the agency’s tables, which are easy to download and analyze in a few easy steps.

David McKie, National Observer, Deputy Managing Editor

Xavi Richer Vis, Freelance Journalist

Links

StatCan release schedules

Statistics Canada’s data tables

Statistics Canada – Data Visualization Products
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/71-607-X#wb-auto-2

Inflation continues to cool. So is the Bank of Canada ready for rate cuts?https://globalnews.ca/news/10513857/canada-inflation-april-2024/

Consumer Price Index visualization tool
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpilg-ipcgl-eng.htm

Labour Force Survey in brief: Interactive app
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/14-20-0001/142000012018001-eng.htm

Canadian International Merchandise Trade Web Application – explainer
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/sc/video/CIMT-web-application

Canadian International Merchandise Trade Web Application
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2021004-eng.htm

How to use Statistics Canada’s Canadian International Merchandise (CIMT) web app
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/sc/video/CIMT-web-application

International merchandise trade for all countries and by Principal Trading Partners, monthly (x 1,000,000)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1210001101

Canadian international merchandise trade by industry for all countries
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1210013601

Canadian international merchandise trade by industry for all countries
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/cf26a8f3-bf96-4fd3-8fa9-e0b4089b5866

The International Trade Explorer, 2022
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2019005-eng.htm

Merchandise imports and exports, customs-based, by Harmonized commodity description and coding system (HS) section, Canada, provinces and territories, United States, states (x 1,000)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1210009901

International merchandise trade by province, commodity, and Principal Trading Partners (x 1,000)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1210011901

Trade Data Online
https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/trade-data-online/en

Income of individuals by age group, sex and income source, Canada, provinces and selected census metropolitan areashttps://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110023901

How to use Statistics Canada’s data tables
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/sc/video/howto

Unemployment rate, participation rate, and employment rate by type of student during school months, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1410002101

Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration, 2016 boundaries
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1710013501

Population and Dwelling Count Highlight Tables, 2016 Census
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table.cfm?Lang=Eng&T=1903&S=3&O=D&RPP=50

Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration, 2016 boundaries
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710013501

Calculating rates using Ontario COVID-19 case-count data and Statistics Canada’s population estimates, July 1, by census subdivision, 2016 boundaries
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1710014201

Population estimates, quarterly
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1710000901

Population estimates on July 1st, by age and sex
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501

Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, monthly, growth rates (x 1,000,000)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3610043402

Definition of the “chained dollars” reference in the GDP numbers
https://dictionary.university/Chained%20dollars

Real Gross Domestic Product definition
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/realgdp.asp

Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Canadian Forces Military Police https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510017701

Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2022
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230727/dq230727b-eng.htm

Police-reported crime in Canada, 2022
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2023041-eng.ht

Census Program Data Viewer dashboard
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/cpdv-vdpr/index-eng.cfm

A case study: Juristat Bulletin—Quick Fact

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/85-005-X

“Overall downward trend in firearm-related violent crime largely the result of fewer robberies”

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-005-x/2022001/article/00002-eng.htm

2022 Commissioner of Firearms Report

https://rcmp.ca/en/corporate-information/publications-and-manuals/2022-commissioner-firearms-report

Police are seizing a record number of firearms within Canada and at the border

https://theijf.org/police-are-seizing-a-record-number-of-firearms

Statcan’s census data, essential for per capita analysis

Census data landing page

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm

Population estimates, quarterly

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901

Demo: Filtering a Statcan population dataset

Population estimates on July 1, by age and gender

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501

Statcan is there to help!

Statistical information service

https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/1019-get-touch-statistics-canada-were-here-help

Statcan media line

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dai-quo/smr01/smr01_000-eng.htm

Clean your data like a pro: A data cleaning toolkit

Session recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9h-QPe6EE

3:15 PM – 4:10 PM – Founder’s Room

Tired of wrestling with messy datasets? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll show you how to deep clean unruly data with OpenRefine! This session will give an overview of the essential tools and techniques included in the software, so you can effortlessly clean, cluster, transform and get the most out of your datasets and your stories.

Speakers: Valérie Ouellet, Fred Vallance Jones

Links

https://tomcardoso.github.io/no-code-scraping-caj-2024/

And Carly’s are here, and also linked in my slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ebTflM7Gm8qoShEKPKQf-tysPEhyG2upeL1Y7BgA6b8/edit#slide=id.g20de6f23eec_0_81

DIRTY_TO_OUTBREAKS.csv

DIRTY_TO_OUTBREAKS (1).csv

DIRTY_TO_OUTBREAKS (2).csv

DIRTY_TO_SUBWAY2.csv

Code-free data scraping: Finding what you need wherever it resides

Session recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeVn295bmcQ

We’ve all been there: An obscure government website has all the data you need for an upcoming story, but it’s not formatted in a way that would allow you to copy and paste the goods into Excel, so you end up spending days (or weeks!) cleaning things up by hand. Other times, you want to keep tabs on a web page and be alerted whenever it changes. That’s where scraping comes in: You can build a program to automate this collection for you, saving countless hours of boring and imprecise data entry. In this session, you’ll learn how to decide on the structure for your data, pick the right scraping approach, create a scraper and systematize your data collection – all without having to know a lick of code. The class will introduce the basic concepts and strategies behind scraping, and focus on getting data off websites and offline documents (such as PDFs).

Tom Cardoso, The Globe and Mail, Investigative Reporter

Carly Penrose, Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF), Reporter