CCJ Tools

What does the specific story really mean about the subject?

Do you really understand the broader implications of the story?

Not all exposes, even those that are important, are symbolic of a larger dysfunction or trend.

In fulfilling their mission as public watchdogs, journalists at times find themselves in situations where they may have decide whether to do something illegal themselves, aid in someone else's illegal behavior or do things that others may consider an ethical transgression. For instance, should reporter jump a fence at a chemical plant and engage in trespassing to verify whether a corporation is dumping chemicals in a river that is polluting the water supply? Are hidden cameras justified, or masquerading as someone else?

Basic Stuff

-If you go to just one site for U.S. government data, let it be FedStats.
-Find the current time for anyplace on Earth, thanks to the U.S. Naval Observatory.
-Worry no more about how many square feet are in an acre, or how many meters are in a mile. -Convert most anything to anything else at onlineconversion.com.
-Need a scientific, currency or other financial calculator? Try calculator.com.
-How far is City A from City B? Your answer awaits here.
-Get political, satellite, historical and street maps for anywhere on Earth from National Geographic.

Margin of Error deserves better than the throw-away line it gets in the bottom of stories about polling data. Writers who don't understand margin of error, and its importance in interpreting scientific research, can easily embarrass themselves and their news organizations.

Percent changes are useful to help people understand changes in a value over time. Again, figuring this one requires nothing more than third-grade math.

This is one of the more common statistics you will see. And it\'s easy to compute. All you have to do is add up all the values in a set of data and then divide that sum by the number of values in the dataset. Here's an example.

You wouldn't buy a car or a house without asking some questions about it first. So don't go buying into someone else's data without asking questions, either.

Okay, you're saying... but with data there are no tires to kick, no doors to slam, no basement walls to check for water damage. Just numbers, graphs and other scary statistical things that are causing you to have bad flashbacks to your last income tax return. What the heck can you ask about data?

Plenty. Here are a few standard questions you should ask any human beings who slap a pile of data in front of you and ask you write about it.

Death and taxes are certainties not only in life, but also in journalism. To that unpleasant duo, you might add another certainty: More than a few reporters greet tax-related coverage as a fate worse than death.

But there is hope. Next time budget season rolls around, you can apply some simple steps to get the upper hand on the numbers-saturated documents that come with any financial cycle.

A list of essential points to gather in an accident story.