Note to self: Real world journo-coding lessons

Posted by on May 3, 2010 in Blog, data visualizations, django, theory | No Comments

Notice how your Google reader got a bit emptier than usual?  Didn’t think so.  But it recently occured to me that I haven’t posted in eons.  Why is that? Part of it has been the chaos of moving, spending time exploring LA.  The other part is that I’m finally walking the walk every day.  I ...

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Data Delver: Paul Monies, The Oklahoman

Posted by on Apr 11, 2010 in Blog, CAR, data delvers | One Comment

In journalism, we talk a lot about the concept of the “one-man band.” The idea often refers to multi-platform journalism — it means being able to deliver a story in print, video, audio or online format. You must be able to do it all, and do it all well. But in the CAR world, plenty ...

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Self-teaching data and programming skills

Posted by on Mar 25, 2010 in Blog, CAR, django, programming, theory | 7 Comments

So, you think data journalism and programming are some valuable skills you’d like to learn.  Unfortunately, your school doesn’t offer this as a track, or maybe you’re not even in school anymore.  You know people will help you, and you think it all seems cool, but it can be difficult knowing just where to start.  ...

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My next move: LA Times!

Posted by on Mar 18, 2010 in Blog, CAR, data visualizations, django, programming, theory | 8 Comments

“You’re going into journalism?  Now?”  “they” asked.  “What can you do with that?” I’ve always answered that I’ll figure something out, that the Web is to journalism’s benefit, not its detriment.  That there’s got to be something to this programming journalism thing I enjoy so much. I finished my last final today.  Counting down to ...

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Django app #2: Conquering forms and Google Maps API

Posted by on Feb 28, 2010 in Blog, class, data visualizations, django, programming | One Comment

It’s been a busy week for the programming journalists — as I’m sure you’ve seen. Congrats to all, especially the dev team at The New York Times, who just released the newest version of the Congress API, with plenty more robust features to play with, as well as my recent Data Delver interviewee Andy Boyle ...

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“Demos, not memos”: My first Django app

Posted by on Feb 22, 2010 in Blog, data visualizations, django, programming | 2 Comments

UPDATE:  GitHub repo with code for the app can be found here: http://github.com/michelleminkoff/oscars Thanks to Dave Stanton for a marvelous tutorial linked in the comments. “Demos, not memos.”  It’s my new mantra.  A phrase well known in the CAR community, especially after this blog post from Matt Waite, I subscribe to the idea for two ...

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Exploring Drupal — open source tool of the day

Posted by on Feb 12, 2010 in Blog, programming, web | No Comments

As part of an ongoing quest to learn as much about programming and technical tools as I strive to learn about the beats I cover, I jumped at the opportunity to attend a Drupal training this evening. I didn’t know this before today, but there is a robust Drupal user group here in Chicago, appropriately ...

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Data Delver: Matt Waite, St. Petersburg Times

Posted by on Jan 31, 2010 in Blog, CAR, data delvers | 2 Comments

Journalism in the modern era. What is it? I’ve got some ideas, and a lot of questions, but I certainly don’t know the answer. It necessitates more than a story, more than an article, more than a photo, more than a Web page. I’m pretty certain of one thing, though: It’s got to do with ...

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