Producing distinctive, compelling journalism
In a memo to global news staff, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Sally Buzbee outlined two new assignments aimed at furthering AP’s enterprise reporting and visual storytelling:
Stay connected with the new AP News app
There’s a new offering from The Associated Press available in the App Store: AP News.
Dig into data journalism with AP
The Associated Press will be sharing expertise and learning from other data journalists from around the country at a computer-assisted reporting conference put on by NICAR and Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE). The annual event runs today through March 8 in Atlanta.
“Every year we pick up tools and techniques that become essential to our data journalism toolkit. And every year, I personally steal a few teaching ideas that help me bring the material back to the broader AP,” said AP Editor for Interactive Technology Troy Thibodeaux. “All this, and we get to compare notes and ask questions of the people in other news organizations whose work most inspires and challenges us.”
Here’s some of the hands-on training AP is providing:
THURSDAY, MARCH 5
- Grabbing data from websites without scraping
AP data journalist Michelle Minkoff co-leads a tutorial on how to get structured data from websites using a web browser with free tools and ad-ons.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6
- Bridging the developer/journalist gap
AP newsroom developer Maureen Linke shares best practices for bringing together coders and non-coders alike in newsrooms to tell great stories.
- Introducing Geomancer: Don’t let your data be lonely tonight
Thibodeaux and AP data journalist Serdar Tumgoren talk about Geomancer, a new tool created by AP and a team of developers from civic technology company DataMade, that makes it easier for journalists to add context to a data set.
SATURDAY, MARCH 7
- Getting started with SQLite
This workshop led by Thibodeaux will provide an introduction to the world of SQL (Structured Query Language), “the lingua franca of relational databases.”
- Summing and grouping in SQLite
Thibodeaux will help journalists build their SQL skills in this advanced workshop.
- Visualization for reporting
Minkoff co-leads a workshop on how to use visualizations and graphics as a powerful reporting tool.
Automated earnings stories multiply
The Associated Press, working with Automated Insights and Zacks Investment Research, is now automatically generating more than 3,000 stories about U.S. corporate earnings each quarter, a tenfold increase over what AP reporters and editors created previously. Here, Assistant Business Editor Philana Patterson, who has been overseeing the rollout of this process in the newsroom, gives an update on AP’s automation efforts that began last summer.
New AP tool helps journalists manage data
The Associated Press’ data team and developers from civic technology company DataMade have created a new tool to make it easier for journalists to add context to a data set. Here, AP Editor for Interactive Technology Troy Thibodeaux, who conceived and launched the tool called Geomancer, explains its potential: