© Ben Shabad
This week we didn’t have a guest speaker, instead we learnt all about computer assisted reporting (CAR). CAR is relatively new in the UK, though in the US it is an established part of journalism and is even taught in some universities. It was originally developed from journalists using tools used by social scientists such as spreadsheets and database managers. CAR enables journalists to report with authority – they become the expert rather than asking for an expert opinion. This is all probably not making any sense for those who weren’t in the lecture… Basically, CAR helps journalists find information, evaluate and analyse it and communicate it particularly when it comes to gathering statistics and using them to generate an article.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is an extremely important tool for journalists. Sites like What Do They Know are useful as well as a new site recently opened up displaying collected data sources from the government.
Some examples of CAR stories can be found on the here where it was discovered in December 2007 that police 
misconducts cost the forces £44 million. Another example is Stephen Grey’s book Extreme Rendition – Ghost PLan: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program where he revealed the CIA was using British air bases to transport foreign nationals to countries where they could torture them.
Some of the skills that CAR Journalists can obtain include data sourcing, data wrangling, negotiation, understanding the legal system and numbers and their ability to express these in a simple way so it can be universally understood. David Donald of the Center for Public Integrity suggested no more than three stats should be used in a story – but it is crucial that the numbers underpin the news. It is also essential that journalists take data back to the people before publication so the numbers can be checked and double checked before they go to print. There’s nothing worse for a journalist than getting a story wrong.
As much as I hate maths and maths hates me, I’m intrigued by CAR and its use of maths to generate good news stories. It is crucial for me to understand numbers if I’m going to use them as fact. Essential tools for the job are spreadsheets, database manager, social network analysis, mapping tools and mashup tools.
CAR I believe is fast becoming an essential part of journalism and we need to learn some lessons from our cousins across the pond and get emphasise to journalists the need for them to be taught in CAR.
