http://michelleminkoff.com/2010/04/05/data-delver-phil-meyer/ =SUM (Passion + journalism + data + technology) Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:00:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://michelleminkoff.com/2010/04/05/data-delver-phil-meyer/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Marcelo Soares Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:42:47 +0000 http://michelleminkoff.com/?p=878#comment-118 Phil Meyer is THE man. Finding a dusty, unread edition of "The New Precision Journalism" in my j-school's library changed the way I see journalism. That's 12 years ago, in the south of Brazil. You'd never guess how proud I was when he answered the first email I sent him, in 1999. Since 2003, I've been teaching some data tricks in newsrooms and journalism courses all over Brazil, and I always leave some minutes to tell about Phil Meyer's protagonism. You should see the faces of 40-something journalists who say "computers are for kids" when I show Phil was doing that when they couldn't read, feeding punched cards into refrigerator-sized mainframes. Four years ago, when I got a national journalism award with a database of profiles of Brazilian congressmen, with all kinds of public data that were available, it was with gratitude that I sent our guru a pic of the ceremony, with a frame saying "Thank you, Phil". He not only inspired my early data delvings - he also gave insight to the rough idea before I presented it to the institution that accepted to move it forward. I said before and I repeat: Phil Meyer is THE man. I didn't have the opportunity to be his student in person - but his writing is so clear that I could learn a lot from that. (Okay, Phil, I know you're reading this, so don't blush.) Phil Meyer is THE man. Finding a dusty, unread edition of “The New Precision Journalism” in my j-school’s library changed the way I see journalism. That’s 12 years ago, in the south of Brazil. You’d never guess how proud I was when he answered the first email I sent him, in 1999. Since 2003, I’ve been teaching some data tricks in newsrooms and journalism courses all over Brazil, and I always leave some minutes to tell about Phil Meyer’s protagonism. You should see the faces of 40-something journalists who say “computers are for kids” when I show Phil was doing that when they couldn’t read, feeding punched cards into refrigerator-sized mainframes. Four years ago, when I got a national journalism award with a database of profiles of Brazilian congressmen, with all kinds of public data that were available, it was with gratitude that I sent our guru a pic of the ceremony, with a frame saying “Thank you, Phil”. He not only inspired my early data delvings – he also gave insight to the rough idea before I presented it to the institution that accepted to move it forward. I said before and I repeat: Phil Meyer is THE man. I didn’t have the opportunity to be his student in person – but his writing is so clear that I could learn a lot from that. (Okay, Phil, I know you’re reading this, so don’t blush.)

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