Alfredo Covaleda,
Bogota, Colombia
Stephen Guerin,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
James A. Trostle,
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Friend Barbara Semonche, queen of the news research kingdom (queendom?) at the Univ. of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications, posts these always-pertinent observations today on the NewsLib listserv: “Journalism/mass comm students will be returning to colleges and universities within the next week or two. Time to get fresh examples for these emerging journalists about just what news researchers are capable of doing for and with them. Here is what I'm seeking for our beginning and advanced reporting students. Current (within the last couple of years or so) examples/strategies of the research methods and sources news librarians used for both investigative projects and breaking stories. Here is what I have now: 1. Kathy Hansen's and Nora Paul's recent book, “Behind the Message: Information strategies for Communicators,” has a classic example of a 1994 Minneapolis Star-Tribune story by reporter Tony Kennedy which was enhanced by not only his investigative research, but supplemented by the efforts of the Star-Tribune's news research team. The case study in the book reprinted Kennedy's article on the privately-held Schwan Company and then detailed each fact with what resources were discovered and used. Interesting note: the local public library and librarian proved to be a gold mine of information for Kennedy as did local interviews with former Schwan employees. 2. Alison Head's (former head of research at The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California) handout on the news research involved with a breaking crime story. She took the text of reporter Tom Chorneau's 1995 article and then highlighted all the resources used to get the data for the story. A sort of “Anatomy of Crime Research.” [Note: please check this URL: http://parklibrary.jomc.unc.edu/head2.html ] 3. John Martin's (St. Pete Times' researcher) 1998 description of how he worked with a reporter on retrieving information on an alledged murderer's identity on deadline. [Note: please check this URL: http://parklibrary.jomc.unc.edu/stpete.html
The good folks at Directions Magazine today tipped us off that Geodata.gov is open for business. Geodata.gov was spawned by the “Geospatial One-stop” program.
Geodata.gov doesn't have everything about everywhere (yet), but it's a solid — and very rich — data resource that should be high on a reporter's list of “data sites to check early in the reporting process.”
We're pleased that the PBS program “Frontline” is keeping up the good fight to produce important journalism. And thanks to the Librarian's Index to the Internet for pointing us to: Private Warriors
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/ Subjects: Government contractors — United States | Public contracts — United States | Private security services | United States — Armed Forces — Management | New this week Created by je – last updated Jul 6, 2005
Be sure to drill down to the section, “Does Privatization Save Money.” A nice example of a reporter asking the right questions.
Kudos to Dan Eggen, Julie Tate and Derek Willis for asking the basic question this week: “What do we know and how do we know it?” When that process is applied to White House claims about the value of the Patriot Act in fighting terrorists, the WH looks a little gray. And all it took was some digging of the data, followed by counting, to help set the record state. See: U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges:Statistics Often Count Lesser Crimes“
James Fallows column in Sunday's NYT discusses some of the frustration with keyword searching and the El Dorado of having search engines “just answer my question.” Fallows points specifically to work to develop Aquaint. The CIA, NSA and similar federal organizations are apparently quite interested in the approach initially developed at Stanford University's Knowledge Systems Lab. Of deeper interest to serious researchers (or search-tool forecasters) than Fallows' column might be the lab's research papers.
There were multiple sessions at last week's IRE convention related to online research methods and tools, reflecting the constantly dynamic nature of that activity for journos.
We recently were referred to RDN's “Virtual Training Site.” It's mission: “The Internet is a rich source of information for students, lecturers and researchers. The RDN Virtual Training Suite tutorials teach the key information skills for the Internet environment. Learn how to use the Internet to help with your coursework, literature searching, teaching and research.“ The site's organization is uncommonly arranged by topic and academic discipline instead of search engines. While there is no category for journalism, per se, many of the disciplines we utilize are there and worth a look. There are some fine tools here for educators, both in the classroom and the newsroom.
It's good to see the word “taxonomy” creeping into the newsroom. And the AP is looking for someone who can make them. Here's the job posting: TAXONOMY DEVELOPER The Associated Press New York, NY
In a rapidly evolving technological environment, the Taxonomy Developer will collaborate with journalists, technologists, product specialists and news librarians to coordinate taxonomy creation, development and maintenance across media types and products, with the goal of aiding in the efficient retrieval and distribution of information.
The Taxonomy Developer for the Associated Press will develop taxonomies as well as create the taxonomy management and implementation strategy for AP's content delivery.
Responsibilities The taxonomy developer will help define overall AP Taxonomy Integration Strategy for content classification, delivery and user experience; work with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on editorial, technical and product teams to develop taxonomy implementation, process and management strategy; and help evaluate and work with appropriate tools for taxonomy management, data collection/analysis and surfacing of new terminology.
In addition, duties will include selection and prioritization of appropriate taxonomy domains. This includes developing taxonomies for new and existing products; selecting allowed values lists for proper names, products and companies; creating extensions and qualifiers to integrate AP's taxonomic scheme to external standards (ISO, SIC/NAICS, etc.); and working with and extending NewsML, IPTC News Codes and NITF. This person will work closely with the editorial, technical and product teams ensuring the taxonomies are usable and will develop and manage automated, semi-automated and manual processes for gathering taxonomy data, including adding terms, synonyms, aliases and new relation types as needed.
The Taxonomy Developer will work as part of a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team that is creating multimedia news and information products for AP and bringing them to market.
Qualifications include: 1) familiarity with industry standards groups, such as ISO, SIC/NAIC, 2) understanding structural metadata standards for content classes and entity extraction, 3) ability to validate usability of taxonomies with internal user groups (editorial teams) as well as external audiences, 4) expertise with taxonomy management and data collection/analysis, 5) surfacing of new terminology, 6) familiarity with Search and Auto Classification tools (Autonomy http://www.autonomy.com/content/home/ and Teragram http://www.teragram.com/); Text extraction tools (InXight http://www.inxight.com/); Taxonomy/Ontology maintenance tools (SchemaLogic http://www.schemalogic.com/ and Teragram http://www.teragram.com/)
MLIS degree or 3 years experience preferred.
For consideration, please send cover letters and resumes to taxonomy@apjobs.org
The Associated Press is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
Interesting article on The Virtual Chase, a web site dedicated to “teaching legal professionals how to do research.” For the details, see “”How To Conduct a Background Check.”
Nils Mulvad, one of the early champions of analytic journalism in Europe and founder of the Danish Institute for Analytic Reporting, demo-ed a fast web-scrapping tool at the IRE conference this week. Web-scrapping? It’s a way to get just the data you need from a web site that has a dynamic search engine. The FECinfo site is an example: the user enters the search terms and the site’s server returns the desired results.
As a one-off, that works OK. But what if you need all the data on the server? Turn to “RoboSuite.” It’s a point-and-shoot, build-your-own-script application. A good PERL coder can do the same thing, of course, but if you can afford it, RoboSuite is a fast solution to data harvesting.
Paul Walmsley, a programming wiz at IRE, has developed a neat PERL script for doing a bit of Social Network Analysis online at the IRE site.
“JustLooking” is a members-only tool that has been up for a year, Walmsley said, but lacking publicity, it’s been pretty much backstage. The app is a relatively basic, yet impressive tool whose results are designed to be integrated/imported into UCInet, an early SNA tool.
“JustLooking” comes, so far, with two network templates to save time in common situations. * Campaign Finance: for tracking campaign dollars * Rolodex: for entering basic networks of people and organizations
Dig out your IRE membership number and check it out.
