Data Tools and Tipsheets
Data Tools and Tipsheets
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Big Local News
A program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and collects local data to discover the regional or national patterns that will yield stories with impact. Big Local News also works with newsrooms to process, analyze and archive the data they collect. This platform allows journalists – whether freelancers, reporters from one company or collaborations across multiple news organizations – to share data and work together as they report out stories. The platform has dozens of data related to COVID and has published a COVID Case map that can be embedded with a local view to make it easy for local news organizations to track the impact in their community.
COVID Data Dispatch: Featured Sources
A repository of more than 80 COVID-19 data sources.
How to Learn SQL: A US News Guide
Learn the basics from freelance journalist Samantha Sunne.
GIJN: Best Data Journalism of 2020
GIJN: Alberto Cairo: My Favorite Tools
AwesomeTable
Build searchable databases and embedded tables.
Stacker
Build searchable databases and embedded tables.
JotForm Tables
A no-code spreadsheet that acts like a database, allowing users to organize form submission data, imported data, and manually entered data into one feature-rich interface.
Sourceful: Data Journalism Tools and Other Journalism Resources
TOOLS, TIPSHEETS TRAINING, DATASETS AND READINGS
Data Journalism Academy
This site, created by Minneapolis Star-Tribune data journalist MaryJo Webster, contains materials that she uses to teach basic data journalism concepts to reporters, and occasionally editors. There’s a mix of videos, exercises, tipsheets and reading materials to introduce you to both how to work with data, but also some of the bigger concepts you also need to learn.
The Functional Art
Alberto Cairo’s blog about data viz.
ProgrammableWeb: API Directory
Search the largest API directory on the web.
Data Journalism/Visualization Resource List
Journalist Gurman Bhatia compiled a great list of readings, tools, newsletters and more.
Video: How to Spot a Misleading Graphic
Better Data Portals
Keyword search across data sets for Socrata data portals
Teaching Resources for Google News Initiative Tools
Training videos, exercises, tipsheets and more.
GIJN: Data Journalism Resource Center
Tools, primers and other resources galore for investigative journalists using data.
Statista
Portal of studies and research for data viz.
The New Precision Journalism
Online version of the Philip Meyer book.
Google News Initiative Data Journalism Course
This course will help you unlock the powerful world of data journalism to tell deep, insightful stories. You’ll learn to find, analyze, interpret and visualize data in compelling new ways. Tools used: Google Trends, Google Public Data Explorer, Google Consumer Surveys, Google Crisis Map.
GIJN: Best Data Journalism of 2020
Paul Bradshaw: Angles for Your Next Data Story
OurWorldinData
Great site for finding datasets on all types of global topics.
My Favorite Data Viz Tools: Malachy Brown of NY Times
NY Times investigative journalist talks with GIJN about his favorite data viz tools. Some real gems in here.
Civic: Politico Elections Data Management Tools
A great suite of open source data creation tools for covering the elections.
DB Browser for SQLite
Download this tool to use Structured Query Language
SQLite Studio
Create, edit and browse SQLite databases.
COVID Data Dispatch: Featured Sources
A repository of more than 80 COVID-19 data sources.
ProPublica Guide to Data Collaborations
GIJN: Alberto Cairo: My Favorite Tools
Numlock News Newsletter
Covers all things data journalism.
Tools for Reporters Newsletter
Tech tools advice from freelancer and data journalist Samantha Sunne.
Pew Research: What Data Says About Gun Deaths in the U.S.
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Database
Free database to research tax-exempt organizations. You can search full text of nonprofit tax forms.
How to Learn SQL: A US News Guide
Learn the basics from freelance journalist Samantha Sunne.
HiGeorge
HiGeorge is a UC Berkeley-backed data journalism platform that provides data-as-a-service for newsrooms. We create ready-to-use, interactive data visualizations so that all news publishers can better leverage the world’s data. We recently launched our daily COVID-19 dashboard, which automatically updates every day, can be localized to any community/region and can be customized to meet each publisher’s specific requirements. It is one of many tools dedicated to helping newsrooms supplement their existing reporting and further reader understanding. Our COVID-19 dashboard can be found in San Francisco’s Mission Local and Brooklyn’s BKReader, among other publishers.
LinkFacts
A mind-mapping tool, free within certain limits, that is particularly efficient in documenting journalistic research. The sources, references and resources can be linked in an easy to build graph and this valuable information, unlike footnotes will become alive as the readers can click through, access the resources directly and like, comment, share and even suggest extensions to the maintainer.
The Guardian Data Blog: Top 100 Pieces of Online Content
Google Cloud Datalab
Links galore and some great primers.
Introduction to Data Journalism
Good summary from first week of a Data J MOOC.
Nieman Lab: Making Data Viz Work on Mobile
60 Data-Driven Ideas in 60 Minutes
The Upshot: NY Times Data Viz Blog
Great resources and examples.
Big Local News
A program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and collects local data to discover the regional or national patterns that will yield stories with impact. Big Local News also works with newsrooms to process, analyze and archive the data they collect. This platform allows journalists – whether freelancers, reporters from one company or collaborations across multiple news organizations – to share data and work together as they report out stories. The platform has dozens of data related to COVID and has published a COVID Case map that can be embedded with a local view to make it easy for local news organizations to track the impact in their community.
Google Fusion Tables Turn Down
Google announced Fusion Tables is turning down in 2019. This post details what happens to projects you built with Fusion Tables.
Data Science Central
Data Science Central is the industry’s online resource for data practitioners. From Statistics to Analytics to Machine Learning to AI, Data Science Central provides a community experience that includes a rich editorial platform, social interaction, forum-based support, plus the latest information on technology, tools, trends, and careers.
Ken Blake: A Three-Part Intro to Data Journalism
Ken Blake: Data Sources and Links
Tuesday Tech Tools: Data Viz and Infographics
Links to dozens of tools and resources.
EthicalGeo: Ethical Mapping — How Not to Map
TedEd: How to Spot a Misleading Graphic
PushShift.io
Various articles relating to big data, social media ingest and analysis and general technology trends.
17 Data Viz Resources You Should Bookmark
AwesomeTable
Build searchable databases and embedded tables.
Stacker
Build searchable databases and embedded tables.
A Data Journalism Expert’s Personal Toolkit
First Graphics App Course
A step-by-step guide to publishing a standalone story from a dataset. This tutorial will show you how journalists at America’s top news organizations escape rigid content-management systems to publish custom interactive graphics on deadline. You will get hands-on experience in every stage of the development process, writing JavaScript, HTML and CSS within a Node.js framework. You won’t stop until you’ve deployed a working application on the World Wide Web.
MediaShift: Beyond Delegates and Polls: Using Data to Tell Election Stories
Sourceful: Data Journalism Tools and Other Journalism Resources
Dark Money: The Rise of Dark Money in U.S. Elections
Links, data, tools and other resources for investigating dark money.
RJI: Infographics Tips and Tricks
Getting Started in Data Journalism
A guide to help students and professional journalists get into data journalism.
Tweet ID Datasets
Twitter’s terms of service don’t allow tweet datasets to be published on the web, but they do allow tweet identifier datasets to be shared. This site is a catalog of datasets that are publicly available on the web.
Google: How to Use Data GIF Maker
Lena Groeger: Building GIFS
Github page from ProPulbica data visualist on how to make GIFs with Photoshop, Premiere, etc. Great tips and exercises.
2015 Digital Reporting Toolkit
Great list of resources from Yuri Victor on medium.
Bureau Local Collaborative Investigative Journalism Tools
Solo Data Journalist Tools and Resources
Great list of resources.
Nine Essential Tools from ICIJ’s Data Journalists and Programmers
LinkedIn: Resources for Creating Infographics
The Curious Journalist’s Guide to Data
D3: Data Drive Documents
Javascript library for building data viz.
Awesome OSINT
A curated list of amazingly awesome open source intelligence tools and resources.
WTFViz
A fun site that shares data visualizations that make no sense. Great to show in trainings of what NOT to do.
30 Newsroom Infographic Galleries
Links to several data desks around the web.
Data Journalism Tools
Dozens of tools and tips.
Journalism2ls: How They Did It: Newsroom Tool Examples
Creative Bloq: 10 Free Infographic Tools
Search by employment past/present, relationship status, etc.
WebFlow
Write interactions on your website without code. No jQuery.
How to Make Infographics: A Beginner’s Guide to Data Visualization
Data Journalism Syllabus: From Numeracy to Visualization and Beyond
From Journalist’s Resource at Harvard.
Juice Analytics: Data Viz Design Principles
30 Days to Data Storytelling
A mini-MOOC that guides you through readings, video, lessons on how to do data.
Tools for Interactive Storytelling
Venngage: Cutting Through the Clutter with Data Viz
LocationIQ
Fast geocoding and reverse geocoding tool.
List of Graphics People in Newsrooms
Visual journalists, graphics reporters or however they call themselves are doing an amazing job in creating compelling visual storytelling around the world. This list focuses not on their projects but on the people: How do they work? Who works in which newsroom?
The Dataviz Catalogue
Not sure what kind of graph to use? Here’s a very handy tool.
Five Tools to Help Beginners Rock Charts, Infographics
Daily Infographic
A new data visualization sample each day. Great way to get ideas.
Data.World
Free, downloadable data sets.
Video: The Age of Insight: Telling Stories with Data
Advice from experts at The Upshot, Fivethirtyeight and ProPublica.
PBS MediaShift: Seven Different Types of Data Stories
Quick Guide to Free and Interactive Web Tools
An open source model for non-programmers to produce interactives which can then be integrated into any website.
ONA 2016 Session Notes and Materials
VisualLoop: Top 100 Interactive Visualizations of 2015
VisualLoop: 25 Interesting Maps of 2015
How to Make a VR Data Visualization
12 Tips for Getting Started with Data Journalism
CUNY J-School Data on Github
A repository of data used by the school’s reporters on various projects.
Silk: Data Journalism Resources
Dozens of tools and resources.
Dataviz.tools
List of hundreds of various tools.
The Guardian: A Beginner’s Guide to Data Visualization
Free Data Visualization Tools
List/spreadsheet from Hofstra’s Kelly Fincham.
StoryBench: How to Organize Your Data for Various Graphs and Charts
Movie Budget and Revenue Data
Studio financials database.
The Movie Database
Data on top-rated movies and TV shows.
The Next Web: 14 Great Data Viz Tools
Easy Guide to Mobile Data Collection
Data viz, social media, verification and more.
Learno: Online Courses for Media Professionals
Data viz, social media, verification and more.
Source: What Data Journalism Told Us About Ferguson
Great examples.
Eyetracking 101: How Your Eyes Move on an Infographic
DataMonkey
Online classes to learn data.
The Atlas by Quartz
Make your own charts or search for ones that others have built.</p
10 Free Infographic Tools
Infogr.am, Piktochart and others.
Journalism2Ls: Infographic and Data Viz Tools
Data Visualization with Javascript Guide
What Data Told Us About Ferguson
Infographic from Simon Rogers.
Foam Tree Hierarchial Research
A tree map visualization tool.
Spreadsheet Booster
Import external data directly into your spreadsheets to increase productivity.
PANDA Project: Manage Data Projects
Built by Brian Boyer and friends, this site helps manage data and data viz projects.
Plot.ly
A news feed for graphing.
Data Hero
Quickly get answers to your data questions.
Open Data Tools
Tools to explore, publish and share public datasets.
Creative Bloq: How to Design Better Data Visualizations
Data Viz Done Right
Highlights the best data viz projects from around the web.
Developing Data Visualization in the Developing World
CIR: Who Gets Paid What in Your City/County/State?
Public employee pay database from Center for Investigative Reporting.
FiveThirtyEight: Best Data Journalism of 2014
Tools and Resources for Teaching Data Viz
From MulinBlog, page offers good blog posts, resources, good/bad examples of data viz and more.
Pew Research Center: Free and Easy Data Visualization Tools
Internet Movie Database Datasets Page
Pew Center: Polling Datasets
Raw data galore on a variety of topics.
Free Data Visualization Resources
Links galore.
What I Learned Recreating One Chart with 24 Tools
The Guardian: A Beginner’s Guide to Data Visualization
MediaShift: 5 Tips for Best Hyperlocal Data Journalism
The Art and Science of Data-Driven Journalism
StoryPoints: How to Build a Narrative With Data
Data Journalism Needs to Go Mobile and Who Does it Well
MediaShift: Take an Interviewing Approach to Find Stories in Data
Great approach from NYT’s Derek Willis.
MediaShift: 7 Ways to Incorporate Data into Your Classes
Mike Reilley offers tips on how he’s done it with RedLineProject.org.
Simon Rodgers Data Journalism Blog
A must-bookmark.
Data Viz Training Videos
This is a conference site but scroll down and you’ll find some great training videos.
Global Data Journalists Directory
List yourself and search for others.
Data to Display Blog
A collection of tools, demonstrations and great examples of data visualizations.
Journalism.co.uk: How to Build a Pivot Table to Find Data Stories
Palladio
“The Humanities Thinking About Data Visualization. Developed a Stanford, it is a web-based platform for the visualization of complex, multi-dimensional data.
Five Easy Steps to Get Started in Data Journalism
Hubspot: Data Visualization 101
How to build charts and graphs guide, a 24-page .PDF.
dc.js – Dimensional Charting Javascript Library
Great organizing, analysis tool for data viz/data journalists. Performs semantic analysis of documents, detects entities and allows the comparison of lists. (Translate the text on the page with a language translator).
Data Visualization: Growth of Newspapers Westward
Project from Stanford University.
Washington Post: 2012 Election Infographics and Data Visualization
Broker
A ridiculously fast data visualization program.
Data Journalism for Small Newsrooms
Article with great tips, examples.
Data Visualization Checklist
Follow these steps to create better graphics.
Source: Six Ways to Distrust Your Data
Tips for Making Shareable Infographics
Harvard Business Review: Quick and Dirty on Data Viz
A ridiculously fast data visualization program.
Wolfram Data Visualization Quick Start
Dozens of training videos and primers.
E-Book: getting Started with Data Journalism
Data on a Shoestring Budget: Five Easy Steps
Raw data galore on a variety of topics.
Five Best Libraries for Building Data Visualizations
Adding Standard Deviation to Data Visualization
Journalism.co.uk: 20 tools and resources every journalist should experiment with
Paul Bradshaw: Finding Stories in Spreadsheets
Data Visualization Tutorial
Examples, steps and video of how to create data visualizations
Tableau Free Data Visualization Tool
Create data visualizations with this free, downloadable tool.
DataRemixed
Blog about data visualizations by Ben Jones, an engineer in LA.
Information is Beautiful Data Visualization
30 Best Tools for Data Visualization
Treasure trove of tools.
30 Free Data Visualization Tools
Baby Steps in Data Journalism
A Tumblr with primers, training videos and more on getting started in data journalism.
Alberto Cairo: Annotation, narrative, and storytelling in infographics and visualization
Harvard Business Review: The quick and dirty on data visualization
Digital Story Tools
Multimedia tools galore.
Primer: Baby Steps in Getting Started with Data Visualization
Tech Republic: Be the Hemingway of Data Science Storytelling
Storytelling tips to help you add dimension to your data.
Design and Redesign in Data Visualization
EmbedResponsively.com
Convert YouTube, Google Maps and other embeds into responsive embed code using only a link.
Embed Plus
Soup up your YouTube video player on Chrome browsers and WordPress.
IRE/NICAR TIPSHEETS AND RESOURCES
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE)
Tipsheets, training, resources galore for anyone doing database, data visualization or infographics.
Resources from NICAR 2020
Searchable database from Sharon Machlis.
Journalism Resources from the 2019 NICAR Conference
Links, tipsheets and more from all the trainings. Compiled by Sharon Machlis.
Using Data and Documents in Your Reporting
Great tipsheet from an IRE 19 conference panel.
Voter Data Tipsheet
Resources from NICAR 2018.
NICAR 18: Jeremy Caplan’s 30 Tools in 60 Minutes
Dozens of cool apps and tools to advance your storytelling. A great list.
NICAR 2016 Slides, Links and Tutorials
NICAR 2015 Slides and Tutorials
Work remotely on a whiteboard with anyone, anywhere.
Visual Journalism for Tiny Desks Tipsheet
Great tools list from NICAR 15 panel.
Census.IRE.org
A simpler way to access 2010 Census data so they can spend less time importing and managing the data and more time exploring and reporting the data.
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