Michelle Minkoff

Tomorrow, Jan. 4, means the beginning of an end to my formal graduate education. It’s the first day of my final quarter at Medill.

I’ll be returning to the Evanston campus for the first time since June 2009, primarily for an independent study on data visualization with Medill professor Rich Gordon. I’ll also be taking an introductory course in statistics, which I’ve already seen to be essential in the world of data viz. A quick glance at the syllabus (stored and locked up on the internal Blackboard site right now, so no link) yields a few things I solidly remember from high school math, some things I have fuzzy memories of (U and upside-down U means union and intersection, but I couldn’t have told you that without a quick Google search) and some concepts I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before. I’ll also be taking Arts Reporting, to indulge my theater and fine arts passions. But as one professor pointed out to me, even the arts are ripe for data analysis, with tools like the New York Times’ Movie Review API available. Reviews of movies, and the trends they reveal, provide actual facts that can back up some powerful pop culture analysis.  I’m hoping to do one project with this data, whether big or small, for class or just experimenting. Read more…

Traveling is something we often take for granted nowadays — at least, I know I do.  And as situations in my life have changed, I’ve been thinking about all the different types of transportation I use.  I’m a bit more reliant on my car in the Chicago suburbs, and while I griped about the Metro while in D.C., I miss its reliability.  I took buses more in DC than I ever did in Chicago, and my acquaintance with commuter trains grew while I went to undergrad in the Boston suburbs.

It’s a large part of people’s lives, and deserves further study.  That’s the motivation behind this interactive graph I cooked up using data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.  It’s interesting to see just how much more people are using cars to cross over from the United States to Canada or Mexico, and how that compares to traffic from buses, trains and pedestrians.  I was actually quite surprised to see just how prevalent walking is in some states, second most in overall traffic to passenger vehicles.

Here, we have an visual exploration of how total traffic across the U.S. border has changed since 1996, in terms of how much each state and each mode of transportation contributes to the overall amount of those coming in and out of the U.S. on land.  Air travel was not included in the dataset, and rightfully so, do you count the planes that are passing over the border, or just ones that land in Canada or Mexico?  It seems as if it adds a lot of unnecessary issues.

Also, the data only goes up through July 2009, so when it looks like there is a drop from the previous year, it may be because a full 12 months aren’t recorded.  This seems to be a common issue in data analysis that I’ve come across in other projects too.  I don’t think you should leave it out, because that’s denying the user information, but it does merit an explanation.  I welcome feedback on this, one of my more ambitious projects to date.  (More analysis and personal reflections after the jump.)

Read more…

We’ve been data crunching a substantial database this week.  The fact that I’m not sick of looking at cells and formulas means something, either this type of work is really a good fit for me, or I’m insane.  Maybe both?

My anguished cries over my dislike for Access have been heard ’round the newsroom loud and clear for the past three days.  It all comes back to my love for open standards, and, um, not love for all things Microsoft.  But it’s just as when I tried using OpenOffice with English professors back at Brandeis – yes, it’s open, but there are reasons commercial tools are so ubiquitous.  Not reasons I agree with, but still, good reasons.

What I learned in the past few days: Access has its strong points.  For anyone jumping into Access/SQL data analysis, some things we learned this week:

-Excel counts blank cells when you group by a column, SQL doesn’t.

- Access is not case-sensitive, SQL is.  Thus, my SQL statement yielded separate counts for “Michael Smith” and “MichaEl Smith.”  Point to SQL for catching typos, point to Access for getting what I meant.

- Access ignores leading and trailing cases spaces (I need to learn to spell, but I also believe in openness of corrections as well,) SQL doesn’t.  My perception of data work as fun was called into question when searching for which of 20 rows in a column was the cell with the trailing space.  Not a fan of Excel formulas, but the trim function was my friend today.  We decided to just run trims on the whole database, for safety.  Perhaps this is a life lesson: it’s tough to locate the invisible.

Bottom line: SQL is a better copyeditor, Access is better at speaking human language.  I still prefer writing statements to putting categories on different lines to demonstrate and/or.  Humans should be able to make it so the computer naturally works as they want, and Access seems to restrict humans to think the way the computer wants us to.  I love technology, but I like my machinery subservient to my whims, not the other way around, thank you very much.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

I am, for the second time in two days, going to bring up Derek Willis, member of the Interactive News Technology Group at the New York Times and one of my current professors. Corny as this sounds, that class has literally changed my life, as I have reaffirmed my desire to become one of that sadly rare breed of journalists with programming skills.  We call his class “Digital Frameworks for Reporting,” but less formally, it’s data class, CAR (Computer Assisted Reporting) class or techy class.  Each three-hour session is something I look forward to every Thursday evening.  And I’m not just saying that, as anyone in the newsroom will tell you. It’s a place where I am reassured that my philosophies have a place in the new journalism world.

I’ve spent far too long just calling myself an online, or interactive, journalist — and not knowing enough to specify exactly where I fit.  Data and programming journalistic gurus, there are students and young professionals out there depending on you to share your knowledge.  I didn’t even know that’s what I needed until Derek came to Chicago to speak to our class at Medill. From the first second, I was hooked, and knew that the intersection of journalism and technology is what I was about. Knowing I would get a quarter of that was one of the top reasons I came to Washington. Read more…

Oh, why can’t we just get along?  There’s been a lot of talk recently about the cuts at the Washington Post of workers in the separate print and online departments.  There’s been an outpouring of comments on the nature of the news business due to this issue.  Some say the web is all about presentation, and without print journalists, there won’t be anything to post.  The web workers say that content just won’t be seen if it isnt’ presented properly.  Stories of the lack of understanding between the two, such as this of former WaPo print-turned-online staffer (and my current Medill professor) Derek Willis are harrowing.  As a student, I thought if I could just get the skills down, my journo-tech obsession would have a place in this world.  Turns out, there’s a lot to be concerned about.

It’s not surprising though.  My own, admittedly minimal, media experiences show a deep rift between print and online workers. The Washington Post separated its print and online headquarters across a river. Sure, that’s a very literal example of the problem, but it’s no better than many of the organizations I’m familiar with.  In my role as web content intern at WTTW last summer, people on both the web and editorial side worked with me, but they were on opposite sides of the building.  At one point, there was talk of me having two desks!  Same at the Boston Phoenix about three years ago.  The notion that the “web people” is separate from editorial is a big part of the problem.  Web workers are not just about presentation, they are content creators too.  The Web is best used when it is considered from concept to final product. That means people with diverse backgrounds should be involved in conceiving new ideas. We must all consider the possibilities technology brings to journalism.

Listen up, media folks.  All journalism projects are web projects. I don’t care if you’re a newspaper, tv program or blog.  The notion of a completely platform-based journalism is laughable.  It’s no longer about how it’s presented, because any piece is likely to be (and should be) distributed in multiple platforms.  This isn’t a radically different concept from the common admonition that we should diversify newsrooms by bringing together people from different racial and economic backgrounds, as it helps to inform the newspaper’s overall judgment.  It’s not a war, but a question of coming together.  Kumbayah, indeed.

We can start in the journalism schools.  I consider many different tasks part of my daily reporting class. It’s not just about asking people questions and writing stories. It’s not even just about photos and video.  Figuring out how to query databases and display thousands of records at once on an interactive map, and even design questions such as how to layout a story on a page in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly, it’s all essential.

I continue to be devastated every time a professor starts to discuss any type of code — it doesn’t matter if it’s HTML or Python — and makes a joke that”This is a warning, we’re going to code.”  Why are we warning people? There’s no warning before we talk about photos or videos, it’s just another tool.  And as we presumptuously try to “save journalism,” (and you know, find gainful employment) we can use as many tools as we can get.

So when one thinks about learning all this, it’s pretty scary.  After a year in j-school, there’s so much more to learn. And it’s completely intimidating.  And if there’s talk of great videographers like Travis Fox being in danger, because their work isn’t applicable in print, what about those of us just finding our footing in the digital world?

The answer, perhaps, is that we keep dreaming, keep innovating and never stop learning.  As journalists, I thought that was part of our commonality – -we love to learn anything and everything, each day is an education. Let’s make it so that’s not just a description of our approach to subject matter, but to techniques that allow us to give people the info they need. The more tools available, the better.

And most importantly of all, let’s remember to appreciate the journey — because if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty exciting and fun way for us to spend our days!

In mid-March, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a study on the state of healthcare journalism in the U.S.  As a budding journalist with a relatively new interest in the field, my self-recognized lack of years of experience is temepred by a completely unbridled passion and enthusiasm.  So delving into the pages I go, to figure out what can be done differently.  What is it that journalists aren’t doing?

The study says that the greatest issue journalists have is a lack of time.  Study stories replace the issues, as editors push for quick turnarounds.  This prevents journalists from doing in-depth analysis and taking the time to contextualize the story.  And it’s all very easy to sit in a classroom, or typing at a keyboard, and say that journalists should go more in-depth, but as we push for faster news, how do we get this done?

I would imagine magazine writers have more time than newspaper writers.  But for the next ten weeks, I have been given more time than any of that.  In one of my classes this quarter, the whole point is to do in-depth stories, tell the untold — health and science information that people need.  I hadn’t realized what a true gift this course was, until I recognized that it is, in its essence, what the majority of journalists cite as a serious problem in their work environment today.  And then, after the ten weeks, on to the normal journalism schedule.  I may not have time to do these type of stories again, but I’ll have the skills.  Couple with that a smattering of passion, and obsessive dedication with some of us youngsters, and maybe we can make up for in gumption what we don’t have in experience.

My main challenge for this quarter is to convey these stories in not only comprehensible ways, but interesting ways.  I plan on using animations, videos, charts, to make that happen.  And lots of buttons for people to press, I know I’m always more likely to click through something when I do at my rate.

I recently returned from my spring break trip to Paris. Besides my obligatory Eiffel Tower at sunset trips, eating copious amounts of escargots and pain au chocolat — not together, obviously — the other reason I was there was for an international media seminar trip with Northwestern. Meeting with foreign correspondents, online journalists, authors and marketers, we also had the opportunity to visit several media organizations — newspapers and tv stations.

One of the sites we went to was the International Herald Tribune, mere days before iht.com was folded into nytimes.com, where as we all now know, users can pick the international or U.S.-based edition. Have more people chosen to view their news through a global lens when it’s as easy as a click? I certainly know I’ve been reading more international news when it’s that close. Or maybe I just miss the crepes filled with nutella and banana.