Data For Journalists: A Practical Guide for Computer-Assisted Reporting

Accompanying web page for the fifth edition of Brant Houston’s book on computer-assisted reporting: “Data For Journalists: A Practical Guide for Computer-Assisted Reporting.”

The book is available from the publisher, Routledge, (at the link above) or from Investigative Reporters and Editors at a discount for IRE members.

Access links to additional readings, practice exercises, data and links to relevant websites broken down by chapter.

  • Chapter 1

What Data Journalism and Computer-Assisted Reporting Is and Why Journalists Use it

  • Chapter 2

Online Resources: Researching and Finding Data on the Internet

  • Chapter 3

Gathering and Analyzing Text and Social Media

  • Chapter 4

Spreadsheets, Part 1: Basic Math for Journalists

  • Chapter 5

Spreadsheets, Part 2: More Math and Managing Data

  • Chapter 6

Database Managers, Part 1: Searching and Summarizing

  • Chapter 7

Database Managers, Part 2

  • Chapter 8

Getting Data Not on the Web: How to Find and Negotiate for Data

  • Chapter 9

Building Your Own Database: How to Develop Exclusive Sources

  • Chapter 10

Dirty Data: How to Fact Check Your Data and Clean It

  • Chapter 11

Doing the Data Journalism and Computer-Assisted Reporting Story: How to Report and Write with Data

  • Appendix A

Short Introduction to Mapping Data

  • Appendix B

Short Introduction to Social Network Analysis