Articles

Projects walkthroughs, tool teardowns, interviews, and more.

  1. How to bring new perspectives to journalism

    By Andrew Losowsky and Ariel Zirulnick

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    Reflections and lessons from organizing Perspectives LA during ONA 2022.

  2. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: Three things that could be hindering your newsroom’s DEI progress

    By Amanda Zamora

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    To get beyond short-lived gains, it’s time to commit to vision-driven goals that lead to real results.

  3. Lessons from a data project: Investigating Toronto’s multimillion-dollar program to improve road safety

    By Inori Roy

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    Poor record-keeping foiled our FOIA plans. Here’s what we learned through the simple, tedious process of creating data by hand.

  4. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: How to lead in a Kobayashi Maru scenario

    By Paul Cheung

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    Leaders of color are used to a no-win situation. What doesn’t break us only makes us stronger!

  5. How people used the Scholarships+ program in 2022

    By Ryan Pitts

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    Our Scholarships+ program offers funding to help people pay for events and programs that develop their work as a journalist with data and code. This recap of the programs we helped people take part in in 2022 is part of our commitment to transparency and trust in our work—and we also think it’s a great source of ideas for community members who want to keep building their networks and careers.

  6. Small teams & solo work: Using a QA process to build confidence in your data stories

    By Kae Petrin

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    Four steps you can take to catch errors earlier and bulletproof your work, even if you don’t have a colleague to help out.

  7. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: You can’t hire your way out of a diversity problem

    By Marla Jones Newman

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    What to do before you hire your BIPOC candidates.

  8. How we take care

    By Erika Owens

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    Highlights from how care has shown up in the past year, inside and outside of work.

  9. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: It’s time to talk about the way we treat freelancers

    By Emma Carew Grovum

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    Leaders in news organizations have a chance to change the way we treat independent journalists.

  10. Running scrapers on GitHub to simplify your workflow

    By Iris Lee

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    How the LAT Data and Graphics team uses GitHub Actions to keep code and data in one place, and track scraper history for free.

  11. How we tracked down and mapped historic street signs in New York City’s Chinatown

    By Aaron Reiss

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    Small data”—the kind you might have to get out and collect yourself—can uncover the deeply personal history of a place.

  12. Four things newsrooms can do right now to counter science polarization

    By Katie L. Burke and Amanda Yarnell

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    There aren’t easy fixes for a systemic issue like polarization—but there are steps we can all take to encourage civil discourse.

  13. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: With love from a lonely place

    By Emma Carew Grovum

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    Now’s the time to check in with leaders of color.

  14. Stop the victim narrative, and other tips for covering working-class women

    By Paul Cheung, Erika Owens, and Ryan Pitts

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    Takeaways from a recent event with community leaders and journalists.

  15. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: How to survive and thrive at ONA

    By P. Kim Bui

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    Taking care of yourself and making room for others can help you find the conversations that change your career.

  16. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: We’d love to hear from you

    By P. Kim Bui and Emma Carew Grovum

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    We’re so proud of what we’ve shared so far. We want to know what’s helped you the most and what you need next.

  17. Where to look for local stories about Census undercounts

    By

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    A roundup of story angles plus data you can use to investigate the places you cover.

  18. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: The after is the hard part

    By P. Kim Bui

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    At the beginning of a working relationship, you act with more transparency as you get to know the other person. That same transparency is necessary for the after.

  19. Story Recipe: Using Census migration data to find out where young adults are moving

    By Brent Jones and Eric Schmid

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    Our reporting found that people who grow up in St. Louis tend to stay in St. Louis: About 3 out of 4 young adults who were here at age 16 were also here at age 26. Here’s how you can use federal data to see where people are moving to and from in your area.

  20. Sincerely, Leaders of Color: It takes hard work from all sides to build coalition across identities and communities

    By Francisco Vara-Orta

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    Building coalitions is tough, awkward work that leads to happier employees and better journalism products for our communities.

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