2010 CAR conference shows off best of the year

By Robin J Phillips on Mar 11, 2010 in Basics, IRE, IRE Blog, TrendingTopic

Doug Haddix and Mark Horvit kicked off an early morning session with a slideshow of best practices that reminded me of some of the best journalism awards shows I’ve been to.

While the ‘Mining the Web for data and stories’ session next door was stuff with journalistic brainiacs looking for tips, I fell into a great story tip sheet.

In the ‘Overview of the year,’ Haddix and Horvit walked us through examples of great journalism driven by numbers. Haddix promises to share his slideshow and I’ll put that up as soon as I get it.

In the meantime, here’s a taste:

Where the money went story from the Buffalo News:

BERC has long had a rocky history

Simple story to get started reading readily available data:

Accidents in non-motorized boats often deadly

Using Guidestar.org to dig into IRS 990s:

For too many nonprofits, charity starts at the top

One walkaway line from this morning’s session:

“There is almost never a smoking gun,” Haddix said. “What it takes is to overlay data, to build a story that’s never been done before.”

Haddix and Horvit are both with IRE and NICAR. Haddix joined IRE as training director in September 2008.

About the Author

I am digital director at the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism, which I joined in 2009. Before that I was Online Community Manager for azcentral, the online site for The Arizona Republic. Before arriving in Arizona, I worked at Newsday where I was Deputy Business Editor. I was the small business editor at BusinessWeek Online. I teach journalists to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools to expand and manage their networks. And I am a cofounder of #wjchat, a weekly Twitter chat about web journalism. You can reach me at Email: Robin.Phillips@BusinessJournalism.org OR RobinJPhillips.com OR @RobinJP