Data Journalism Tools and Tips from MIT

The availability of government data has soared over the last decade — offering a huge opportunity for watchdog journalists to find stories that advance the public interest. The environmental beat is the Saudi Arabia of data (yes, that means vast, rich, accessible, and untapped reserves).

The WatchDog often features cool environmental data sets. Whatever your skill level, it is good to learn more about how to do data journalism. Now the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has assembled a handy package of tools and tips which can help you up your data journalism game.

Check out the KSJ-MIT "Data Journalism Tools" here.

It compiles and links to resources from a variety of good sources. It includes several introductions, conference opportunities, tools for working with data, lots on visualization and mapping, and lists of databases.

You might also want to look back on all the databases the WatchDog has featured over the years. Most of them are here.

Another way to get up-to-the-minute is to follow hashtags like #ddj and #dataviz on Twitter.

Of course, the WatchDog would be remiss if it failed to point out the All-Star Game of data journalism conferences is coming up March 10-13, 2016 in Denver. That is the annual meeting of the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting. Maybe it's more like March Madness. It's not too late to register. Go here.  Or just check out their site. Or if you are feeling geeky, join the listserve NICAR-L here.