Week 1, September 25: Data — Introduction

Pre-class reading

• The Myth of the Machine, by Michael J. Berens, pp. 14-15 of When Nerds and Words Collide: Reflections on the Development of Computer Assisted Reporting, 1999
• A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change, by Adrian Holovaty, 2006
• Finding Stories in the Structure of Data, by Matt Waite, 2013
• The Rhetoric of Data, by Nicholas Diakopoulos, 2013

What we’ll cover

• How to think about data as a journalist, and as a programmer.
• Getting comfortable with the most common “structured” data formats: CSV, XML, and JSON.
• Sourcing data.

Post-class assignments

• Read the pre-class reading if you joined the class last-minute.
• Find a dataset and interview it. First, jot down 10 specific things you notice about the data. Then, in 1-3 paragraphs, write an introduction to your dataset, aimed at someone who’s never seen it before.
• CodeCademy Web Fundamentals: HTML Basics