Little Columns
Making data easier for everyone (but mostly just journalists)
Making data easier for everyone (but mostly just journalists)
You need solutions that work for journalists, not rocket data scientists1
Maps cover a lot of ground — everything from annotated reference maps like the Washington Post's coverage of Parkland to complex data-driven pieces like this NYT electoral map.
Build browseable databases like the Texas Tribune's Government Salaries Explorer or ProPublica's Dollars for Docs. Amazing data collections not included
Sometimes people overlook simple charts2 and graphics like those from FiveThirtyEight and the Upshot in favor of interactives. Don't be a goofball.
Installing Python is the worst part of learning Python, I promise. And I'm not teaching you R, because, well, I don't know it. This piece from BuzzFeed was done using Python.
Everyone wants to learn D3 and work for The Pudding, although I can only help with the first half. But only if you also listen to like twelve hours of me complaining about why interactivity is a curse.
You want buzzwords? Here we go: Scraping! Python! Jupyter Notebooks! Illustrator! Machine learning! QGIS! Flask! OpenRefine! LANDSAT! Most everything people mentioned at NICAR, probably.
1 Yes, you're right, it might be fun to do some regressions or text analysis or whatever using scikit-learn, but you get the idea. Us data journos have a much wider scope than the number crunchers of the world.
2 Is that pie chart making you lose your mind? If it isn't, let's go on a journey to find out why it's so painful.
We'll let you know when we have fun new releases. Courses, tools, showtunes, furniture, etc.
Because knowledge doesn't grow on trees.
An interactive introduction to Python.
I don't like a single introductory online Python class. They're boring, they're useless, and they lack an ounce of soul. So I'm making one. It's boring and useless, sure, but it's mine.
Machine learning and statistics in pursuit of reporting!
Features tutorials, reference, and walkthroughs of award-winning stories.
Point-and-click tools so you don't need to get your hands dirty with the command line.
Little Geocoder
Easily convert US street addresses to latitude/longitude.
Take advantage of the Census Bureau's bulk geocoding service with a simple app. Includes simple cleaning and data manipulation tools so you can spend less time in Excel and more time building your maps.
Pathwinder
Easily view and update your $PATH variable on OS X.
Organize your command line without opening ~/.bash_profile ever again! (or even knowing what that heck that means)
Python Wrangler
Installing Python can be a pain. Python Wrangler can help.
Discover and organize all of the Python versions installed on your system, and get tips on how to clean house and set everything up in a nice standard way.
Time to solve the deepest darkest mystery
Oh, hi. It's actually just me, Soma. My major qualifications are that I think programming is boring.
I also run the Lede Program at Columbia's Journalism School. We do data analysis, data viz, that kind of stuff, mostly over the course of 14 weeks in the summer. Learn more here.
But really, I'd like for more than just my students to have an easy time doing this stuff, so here we are.