Production studio at RJI receives facelift

The production studio at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism has received a facelift. Thanks to the upgrades, staff will now be able to deliver a product more in line with what audiences are accustomed to seeing online and on television in the 21st century, says Travis McMillen, senior … Continued

Your first web-scraping project will be easier than you think

Last week, a colleague emailed me with a data request. She was working on a story about the shifting sands of Republican congressional rhetoric on climate change and was wondering if GOP voting records had seen any corresponding shifts in recent years. She pointed out that one good measure of environmental voting comes from the … Continued

Make your reporting more diverse: Try a different network, redefine experts

In the survey of 750 journalists, editors and producers conducted by ExpertFile in conjunction with The Associated Press, journalists acknowledged that there remains a significant gap in representing a more diverse set of experts in their coverage. Despite a recognition of the need for more diverse voices in their coverage, the national survey also found … Continued

Mapping COVID-19 cases in Observable with Vega-Lite

Choropleth maps show how data varies across a geographic region, a visualization technique used often to present a wide variety of data, including economic data, election results and, more recently, the prevalence of COVID-19 cases and deaths. I recently created a choropleth map that pulls live county-level COVID-19 case data from the Missouri Department of … Continued

Unpublishing project advisory board gets rolling

The unpublishing project has gained significant momentum in the last few weeks, including an unpublishing webinar with editors RJI hosted in August. Much of the work has been behind the scenes, cementing the foundation I need to ensure the final result is valuable to newsrooms across the country. There is much work to be done in … Continued

Scrappy hacks for scrappy visual journalists

As far as I can tell, the Internet is mostly duct-taped together. And why should visual journalism be any different? In a world of flashy D3.js wrappers and React components and the like, sometimes you just need a chart—and you need it as quickly as possible. In other words, you don’t need interactivity; you need … Continued

Local news: Filling in the future gaps

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reynolds Journalism Institute or the University of Missouri. Paul Graham, the founder of tech accelerator Y Combinator, famously advises aspiring entrepreneurs to “Live in the future, then build what’s missing.” To him, the most successful … Continued

Going virtual: Tips for a rewarding remote summer internship

Replicating the everyday office interaction Since you no longer have the everyday opportunities for casual communication with your coworkers, building those relationships can be quite the challenge. Every type of communication must be self-initiated and might exist on different platforms depending on who you are aiming to work with. Slack, email, project management software, Zoom.  In … Continued

Engaging with your audience = eyes, ears and super fans

After the New York City Mayor’s office announced a $20 million donation from the Open Society Foundation to help undocumented immigrants, city officials went on live TV to show the beginning of the delivery of the funds. Many of our users heard this news and messaged us to report that the phone numbers and email addresses … Continued