Converting Databases into News Stories
By Brant Houston Posted Mon, Jan 22 2007
Eric Carita, a technician in the Connecticut State Police Forensics lab in Meriden, Conn., explains a marijuana DNA pattern at the lab Friday, July 18, 2003. The State Police are putting together a data base of marijuana DNA that they hope to use in tracking down growers. (AP Photo/Bob Child)
Photo Gallery
As the 21st century arrived, global journalists still viewed computer-assisted reporting as primarily a U.S.-based endeavor. They doubted whether relevant databases were available in their country or whether U.S. government databases would be useful for the stories they were working.
But how things have changed.
Last month, Nils Mulvad, a leading practitioner of data analysis in Denmark, was named European Journalist of the Year by the independent newspaper European Voice. He won the award for his data analysis on widespread flaws in the system of EU farm subsidies. (www.farmsubsidy.org).
After obtaining data through persistent use of open records laws, he and his colleagues found that wealthy farmers, politicians and big corporations were receiving the subsidies. He also found that some of the subsidies were allowing one large corporation to send highly discounted dairy products to developing countries, and that those products undercut the farm economies of those countries.
In Brazil, journalist Fernando Rodrigues, has done extensive work on the wealthiest politicians there and created with his newspaper in Sao Paulo a searchable database from paper records on the assets of those politicians. Also in Brazil, Jose Roberto de Toledo, who has been practicing data analysis for a number of years, is now teaching an online course in computer-assisted reporting (CAR) in Brazil.
Toledo previously analyzed public works projects with Brazilian data and emigration of Brazilians to the U.S. with U.S. immigration data.
In Europe, Dick van Eijk of the Netherlands has been using data analysis and mapping software for more than a decade for newspapers. Among the stories he has tackled with CAR are elections and bad neighborhoods. Like other pioneers in the field, he has gone onto teaching data analysis throughout the region.
Meanwhile, Helena Benggston of Sweden has not only done computer-assisted reporting in her home country, but now leads the computer-assisted reporting section of the Center for Public Integrity, www.publicintegrity.org, in Washington D.C.
In the Republic of Korea, journalists have started routinely using data analysis. Peter Lee, a former fellow at Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), has used mapping and social network analysis software to track where people were moving within the area of Busan City. He used the 2005 national census database and conducted a survey of 120 real estate agents around Busan City to reveal the patterns.
Also in Asia, Chinese news organizations and universities have invited U.S. journalists who are experts in data analysis to demonstrate the potential uses of CAR in that country from tracking populations trends to mapping geographic data such as the occurrences of earthquakes in populated areas.
In North America, Canada and Mexico have joined the U.S. in using data analysis. Canada, in particular, has used CAR for many kinds of stories, and two journalists in Denmark recently wrote a book about computer-assisted reporting.
All of this is possible because of the increasing number of databases for every country available on the Web and because of the training provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism.
Over the past decade, IRE and NICAR have trained journalists and trainers in more than 30 countries, who then form educational organizations or do individual instruction. Hands-on training in data analysis has been conducted most recently in Brazil, Argentina, China, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom.
In addition, former international graduate students who were research assistants at IRE and NICAR have returned to their countries with knowledge of the power of data analysis, and they want to apply that knowledge. In fact, many have gone on to work at news organizations around the world.
For example, two former research assistants, Noemi Ramirez and Sofia Basso, returned to Europe to work for news organizations there and have spoken at journalism conferences about the databases available to global journalists.
In their talks, they have noted that credible data on nearly every topic can be found on many Web sites. Among the sites they pointed to:
• A list of links at the United Nations to national statistic centers around the world at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/sd_natstat.htm
• A list of databases maintained by the United Nations on demographics, housing, trade and other topics at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm
• A country-by-country collection of databases on diseases and other health issues at the World Health Organization at http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm
• Numerous databases on financial and trade issues at The World Bank site www.worldbank.org/data
• A collection of database on education from the U.S. but integrated with international studies and reports at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/IAED/
• The U.S. Bureau of Census international data Web pages that contain information from every kind of countries throughout the word at http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/
Many other handouts and guides for global journalists can be found at the site of the Global Investigative Journalists Network, www.globalinvestigativejournalism.org/ or at Investigative Reporters and Editors Resource Center, www.ire.org/resourcecenter
The network, of which Mulvad was a co-creator, has been a major factor in the growth in data analysis among journalists. The network, and the conferences it has held, has spawned more cooperation and sharing of data and stories over the past years.
The farm subsidy project in Europe has engaged more and more journalists from different countries to fight for access to subsidy data and to help with investigations in those countries.
In another example, Swedish journalists investigating renditions of suspected terrorists called on IRE to scan a U.S. database for information about a plane. The Swedish journalists had found that a U.S. plane was involved in transporting suspected terrorists to countries where interrogation methods were harsh. In examining the U.S. Federal Procurement database, IRE found the plane was part of an airline company that was receiving money from an agency connected to counter-terrorist activities.
That contract database can actually be used for stories throughout the world since it contains the place of performance of the contract. In the past few years, journalists from the Republic of Korea utilized the database to look for Korean companies that were relying on large amounts of money from the U.S.
But if information is not available electronically, journalists everywhere are realizing the need to build databases from paper records and the power of those databases once they are built. A database allows a journalist to quickly sift through information and see patterns and possible story tips that otherwise would be missed as Rodriques and Toledo have demonstrated in Brazil.
Though it may take time to build a database, the pay off is usually a hard-hitting exclusive story. And every journalist appreciates the opportunity to get that kind of story.