1 Analytic Journalism and Decoding the Political Race(s) "Newspapers are a 'morning line' tip sheet. Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism Santa Fe, New Mexico “Three SF Complex” Tuesday, 30 Sept. 2008

2 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Analytic Journalism? Analytic Journalism:  Uses a variety of qualitative and quantitative tools and methods to measure the status & change of phenomena, primarily those involving people and their environment and context.  Results of measures and analysis drive creation and telling of news.

3 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Example: Bill Dedman’s “Analytic Journalism and Campaign Contributions”Analytic Journalism and Campaign Contributions  Illustrates basic “theory of AJ process”  Data In   Analysis   Information Out

4 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 IAJ Cornerstones  General Systems Theory  Complex Adaptive Systems  Statistics  Visual Statistics/Infographics  Simulation Modeling

5 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 IAJ Activities  Introducing journalists to arithmetic  Research “new” disciplines and methods for journalists to use  Research the impact of the Digital Revolution on journalism  Always work globally

6 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Candidates Use the Internet  Web site  Fund raising   Online ads  Webcasts of events  Blogs and podcasts  Take polls and surveys  Communicate with press  Television ads on the official site  Campaign web video on other sites  Participate in social networking sites  Opposition research  Manage field operations  Text messaging

7 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Data In - Interviews - Documents - Previous stories - Photos - Maps - Infographics - Quantitative Data

8 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Analysis Data In  Analysis - Make outlines - Hand-drawn flowcharts - Rough drafts - Minimal arithmetic

9 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Data Out Data In - Interviews - Documents - Previous stories - Photos - Maps - Infographics - Quantitative Data

10 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Voters Use the Internet  Find out about all candidates and issues  Contribute to candidates  Organize for and against candidates and issues  Tell their friends/family about political issues  Post their own opinions in blogs  Post video and audio related to candidates  Rate posted videos  Create their own sites  Use social network sites

11 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Objectives:  Don’t tell me what you feel, show me what you know!  Data-driven analysis and argument  Tools/skills to find the data. And then find it again.  Tools to get the data off the web page and into…  Analytic tools to help make sense of the data.

12 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Objectives:  1 st Tuesday, 30 Sept "Newspapers are a 'morning line' tip sheet.”  Holistic journalism. No, it’s not “All about story.”  DATA, not opinions. Online sites with demographic & political data.  Where do good DATA-driven stories come from?  Sophisticated bookmarks

13 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Objectives:  2 nd Tuesday, 7 Oct "How to track the data's flow upstream.“  Who’s behind those sites, anyway?  What’s in online data bases and how did that data get there?  How good, i.e. clean, is the data?  1 st Tuesday, 30 Sept "Newspapers are a 'morning line' tip sheet.”

14 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Objectives:  1 st Tuesday, 30 Sept "Newspapers are a 'morning line' tip sheet.”  2 nd Tuesday, 7 Oct "How to track the data's flow upstream.“  3 nd Tuesday, 7 Oct “How to make sense of those numbers?“  More on getting the data off the web  PDFs, CSV & importing and exporting  Simple arithmetic and simple spreadsheet tips

15 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 What we’re aiming for today  Major changes in datasphere  Open Source  Web 2.0 (aka “Cloud Computing”)  Effective search-and-keep tools  Refining and refined search engines (Hot Tip: Google ain’t the answer.)  Look at some non-text-only web sites  Enrich your research  Bring new levels of truth, detail, verisimilitude to your writing

16 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 What’s going on in the “datasphere”?  Open Source  People writing applications, add-ons, widgets for FREE  Web 2.0  Applications moving from your computer hard drive to cyberspace  Places more “intellectual” demands on the browser and browser extensions/add-ons  Broadband demand loads  Be careful in cyberspace!

17 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 What all this means to writers  Datasphere is constantly changing  Need tools to navigate constantly changing datasphere  We can be better at what we do if we constantly adapt to those changes  Data In  Analysis  Info Out

18 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 How to navigate cyberspace?  #1 tool set: pencil and paper  Current - and updated - browsers  On how many of your computers?  Do you need portability? (USB drives)  Bookmark and note-keeping apps  Sophisticated, flexible search engines  “Invisible web” resources  What’s behind the closed digital doors?

19 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Alternative Web Browsers  Major Browsers: Firefox, Opera, Safari Major Browsers  More Cross-Platform Browsers: Mozilla and Flock More Cross-Platform Browsers  Windows Browsers: K-Meleon Windows Browsers  Macintosh Browsers: Camino, OmniWeb and iCab Macintosh Browsers  Linux Browsers: Konqueror, Galeon and Epiphany Linux Browsers

20 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 All of these ALT browsers feature:  Tabbed browsing; automatic updates  Modern web pages with HTML, CSS, SSL, and JavaScript  Cookies and cookie management  Plugins and Java  Ad blocking and/or pop-up blocking  Download Managers  Integrated Search  Favorites/Bookmarks and import (and export)

21 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Effective search-and-keep tools Establish your criteria  Are tools browser specific or generic?  Bookmarks on YOUR hard drive and/or in the digital cloud  Degree of control  Make folders and sub-folders  Annotate  Add tag words  Import/export entries  full or partial set of bookmarks

22 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Finding bookmark utilities  Google Search words: [+free +bookmark +programs] Google  Surfpack Surfpack  (scroll down to see list)  Tucows (keyword: "bookmark") Tucows  Windows has 235 hits. Mac has 26

23 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Evaluation sites and tools  Search Engine Directory  Social Bookmarking Social Bookmarking  Social Bookmarking Faceoff -- aceoff.php Social Bookmarking Faceoff aceoff.php

24 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Some major Bookmark tools  FireFox’s Bookmarks FireFox  Only fair in capture (i.e. difficult to annotate). Good organization after capture: “Organize Bookmarks” Good export. Install “FoxMarks” extension to synch multiple computers.FoxMarks  Scrapbook (Firefox add-on) Scrapbook  Pros: Save Web pages or parts of. Major features are: Save Web site hotlinks and other file format documents (i.e. PDF); Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks; Full text search and quick filtering search of the collection. Good highlight and annotation tools. Cons: can’t synch to online or other computers. Difficult to tag and save in multi-folders.

25 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Some major Bookmark tools  Furl.net Furl.net  Opens Java window sometimes slowly. Good annotation and tagging. Private or shared links. “Save and ” feature.  del.icio.us del.icio.us  Allows access to the same bookmarks from any computer; add bookmarks from anywhere. Use tags (i.e. keywords) to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders. [Well, maybe.]

26 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Some major Bookmark tools  Diigo.com TJ’s current favorite Diigo.com  Zotero.org Strong tool for building bibliographies. Only works with Firefox. Zotero.org

27 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Note-taking tools Criteria?  Just one desktop or multiple?  Browser accessible?  Synchronization?  Export to ????  Backup storage flashdrive, HD or web “locker”?  to yourself or others?  Receive notes sent via phone - text or pics?  “Search within” functions?

28 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Social bookmarks jumpstation  3spots blog that-can-bookmark.html - annotation that-can-bookmark.html - annotation  Here are over 200 social bookmarking services! Then see here to see over 300 digg clones!here  Digg tools = Social web applications with an UP-YES or UP/DOWN-YES/NO voting system.voting system

29 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Major note-taking tools  Google Notebook for Firefox/IE Google Notebook  Web-based  Organize your notes. Keep notes organized by creating multiple notebooks or divide a single notebook into sections. Rearrange notes by dragging-and-dropping from one section or notebook to another.  Add your own thoughts. Click the "New note" button; start typing to add text notes to your notebook, or click the "Add comment" link within a note to add comments to clippings you've collected.  Search the full text of your notebooks. Easily find any information in your notebooks using the search box at the top of the page.

30 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Major note-taking tools  Jot+Notes  Many rich and customizable features, but only on YOUR desktop. (Has good export tools.)  Has a plugin for Google Desktop Search which will include Jot+ Notes notefiles in your search results.plugin Google Desktop Search  Evernote  Check it out, but it’s just in “beta” Let me know if you want an invitation. Looks promising, but we’ll see.

31 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 First lesson of online research!  Have a web-search strategy  UCB “Five-Step Search Strategy” /Internet/Strategies.html /Internet/Strategies.html  Understand how the search engine(s) work  Google: Always begin at “Advanced Search” and “Advanced Search Tips”Advanced SearchAdvanced Search Tips  Yahoo  More  ”All Search Services”All Search Services  Ask.com Advanced Search Tips Ask.com Advanced Search Tips

32 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Smart searching  Always begin by reading Search Engine Tips/Help/Advanced…  Google.com Google.com

33 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 The Deep - “Invisible” - Web #1  Deep Web Research Marcus P. Zillman: “The Deep Web covers [approx.] 900 billion pages of information located through the world wide web in various files and formats that the current search engines on the Internet either cannot find or have difficulty accessing. Search engines currently locate approximately 20 billion pages. “This article and guide is designed to give you the resources you need to better understand the history of the deep web research, as well as various classified resources that allow you to search through the currently available web to find those key sources of information nuggets only found by understanding how to search the "deep web".

34 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Navigating the “InvisibleWeb”  Start with reference librarians  UC Berkeley Library’s excellent site et/InvisibleWeb.html et/InvisibleWeb.html  Note search examples for Google and Yahoo keywords

35 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Prime sites for text research  The New York Times Archive (1851- The New York Times Archive  Story on Mokelumne HillMokelumne Hill  “A California Story” “A California Story”  Historical Newspaper and Magazine databases Historical Newspaper and Magazine databases  Internet library of Early Journals  Nineteenth Century in Print me.html me.html

36 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Prime sites for text research  U.S. News Archives on the Web  International News Archives on the Web  British Library Newspapers  Newspapers Around the World on the Internet

37 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Newspaper Archives  NewspaperArchive.com $$$  PaperOfRecord.com Global pioneer of searchable newspaper image documents presented in their original published form.  ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers ICON  Wikipedia: List of online newspaper archives online online

38 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Book: “Newspaper Archive Resources”

39 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Prime sites for image research  Library of Congress “American Memory”  LoC maps and bird’s eye views

40 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Teasing meaning from images  Timeline of Art History Photos of Édouard Baldus o_ htm# o_ htm#  San Francisco c

41 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Online geography  Google Maps  Street map, street level photos of some cities, aerial photo, topography  Google Earth  Fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. Need to download program.  Maplandia

42 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Online Geography “Amateur" historians  Santa Fe Trail Research  Aerial photo links for most of the major sites and trail ruts on the Santa Fe Trail ur-space-link-page.html ur-space-link-page.html

43 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Quick summary  Major changes in datasphere  Open Source  Web 2.0 (aka “Cloud Computing”)  Effective search-and-keep tools  Refining and refined search engines (Hot Tip: Google ain’t the answer.)  Look at some text and non-text web sites  Enrich your research  Bring new levels of truth, detail, verisimilitude to your writing

Gold Rush Writer's Conference Mokelumne Hill, Calif. May 2-4, 2008 Discovering The World From Your Laptop Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism Santa Fe, New Mexico

45 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Go2Web20.net

46 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Search Engine Guide

47 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Search Engine Guide #2- News/Media Search Engines

48 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Google Earth – San Francisco

49 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Google Earth – 1495 Sutter St

50 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 Review  Data In  Analysis  Info Out  Think about process & forms of data plus methods  Need for new tools  Browsing  Book-marking  Note-taking  Smart search strategies

51 AJ and Decoding the Political Race(s) © J.T.Johnson 2008 _________________________ Fall 2008 For next week – 7 Oct.  Go to workshop wiki  “Interrogate” the sub-pages, their links and the data in those links.  List 5 story ideas - based on the data – that could be done  Find 5 “vested interested” sites that have data pertaining to political campaigns.