If you came home from Minneapolis and couldn’t stop talking about NICAR25, you’re not alone. We attended the national data journalism conference put on by Investigative Reporters and Editors and got stuck in our own “for loop.”

Looking to find out how others had experienced the conference we surveyed and interviewed more than two dozen attendees about their experiences at NICAR25. We tried to reach as many students and professionals as we could for a chat. (By the way, we don’t work for and weren’t paid by IRE.)

Here are our takeaways:

1. The fun isn’t over yet
   First, a word to the wise: while NICAR is a conference, it’s also a season. Whether you attended the conference or not, check out the audio recordings and tipsheets from sessions now available online. You can also find a podcast version of the audio on the app Pocketcasts thanks to design technologist John Emerson. Do yourself a favor and go catch those panels that you wanted to attend but couldn’t (because there were so many great options!). Share these resources with your team. And reach back out to the people you met to keep the conversation going. You can reap dividends from NICAR25 for weeks or months after the final sessions have concluded.

   Some attendees have already used what they learned at the conference in their work. Sapna Bansil, a Howard Fellow at the Baltimore Banner, said she felt more confident approaching a data story in the weeks following the conference.

   “I had just gone to NICAR and I had just gotten this reminder that I do have the skills and I do have the ability to create something like a massive database on federal spending,” the second-time attendee said. “I tried to keep it simple for myself, like how can I use these skills? Who can I keep in touch with?”




2. Everyone’s talking about AI
   You could attend a session on artificial intelligence (AI) almost every hour of the four days of the conference. We know that AI is hotter than a PC with too many Chrome tabs open, but (human) folks told us this year felt different. Multiple people used the phrase an “explosion of AI” to describe it.

   “This was the year that AI became accessible, but newsrooms are still figuring out usage policies, so we are in an interesting window of time for the AI conversation,” said Stephanie Lamm, data journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I thought the AI sessions — demos and panel talks — reflected the excitement and trepidation around AI in journalism.”

   Tiff Fehr, staff engineer at the New York Times, said NICAR25 was a barometer on how data journalists are embracing AI “with cautious optimism and healthy discussion.”

   “So many examples, tips and techniques were shared, it would be a full-time job (in addition to our current jobs) just to keep tabs on how fast it’s changing,” Fehr said. “That not-enough-hours-to-keep-up was a prevalent hallway-chatter anxiety I heard.”

   Matt Waite, professor of practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications, said, “You're starting to see more concrete things people can do [with AI] versus ‘some day this might work,’ which you saw a lot of in the past.”




3. Code like a girl
   So many people told us they noticed the growing representation of women and students at NICAR.

   Of the more than 900 attendees, 56% identified as women, non-binary or transgender this year, according to IRE. The conference has had gender parity for at least the past five years, said Lauren Grandestaff, director of content for IRE.

   “I recall when the number of women at the conference could all fit into one side of a restaurant (and those who started even earlier than me say they remember when it was a single table of women),” wrote Kate Martin, correspondent at APM Reports, who’s gone to NICAR regularly since 2012.

   About 35% of NICAR25 attendees were journalists of color. Nearly one in three participants was a student.

   The joy of the conference, for many, comes from reconnecting with old peers and colleagues as well as meeting new ones.

   “One of the things I went to was an LGBTQ+ networking event, and I was intentional about leaving time to go to something like that,” said Bansil. “I think that the conference carves out those spaces for people to meet and build community is great.”

   Of the speakers, 46% were women, non-binary or transgender, 40% were men and 15% did not share their demographic information with IRE.

   Sandhya Kambhampati, data and graphics reporter at the Los Angeles Times, applauded IRE for bringing together an increasingly diverse conference and moving toward panels reflective of the industry throughout the NICAR – and away from a token session on diversifying your newsroom led by people of color.
   We also heard the conference could be more inclusive by encouraging more women-led hands-on panels, highlighting accessibility in sessions and considering more subject matter panels with content suited to an international audience.




4. Popular sessions
   There were so many favorites. These were a few that got multiple nods.

   “dRy – don’t repeat yourself, in R,” taught by Christian McDonald, associate professor of practice at University of Texas at Austin, and two University of Texas at Austin students (!), Ella Barnes and Karina Kumar, showed journalists iteration techniques in R to make your data analysis more efficient. (Tipsheet | Repo)

   In “Quantifying history,” the blockbuster group of Michael Corey of the University of Minnesota Libraries, Alexia Fernández Campbell of Bloomberg Industry Group, Jennifer LaFleur of University of California Berkeley, Pratheek Rebala at ProPublica, and Joyce Lee and Andrew Ba Tran of the Washington Post, spoke about their work to uncover new revelations in historical data and records, including mapping racial and ethnic segregation, understanding indigenous remains at the Smithsonian, investigating student deaths at Native American schools and connecting Civil War-era land for Black Americans to their ancestors today. (Slides | Audio)

   “The chaos in college sports: what all students should know,” led by Peyton Barish, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics' coordinator of Special Projects and Policy, Josh Fine, visiting fellow at Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship in Washington D.C., Paula Lavigne, investigative reporter for ESPN, and Jodi Upton, the Knight Chair in Data and Explanatory Journalism at Syracuse University, delivered the need-to-know on college sports, “name, image and likeness” and a recent legal settlement that is likely going to result in revenue-sharing for Division 1 athletes. Did someone say March Madness? (Slides | Audio)

   Journalists also told us that learning from seasoned journalists at beginner-track sessions has been one of the most helpful recurring benefits of the conference, no matter how long they’ve been in the industry. And even when attending a session that might go over their heads, learning about the process a fellow journalist went through to answer a question, solve a problem and overcome a roadblock is one of the most valuable aspects of the conference.

   “Even if I’m not immediately going to apply these tools, it’s just really helpful in working out problems in my own work and thinking about what I can do that is similar, even if it’s not on the same scale,” said Apurva Mahajan, a junior journalism and government and politics major at the University of Maryland.




5. The hottest take
   This one is sure to stir up feelings among NICARians. David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, argued that the difference between NICAR and IRE has started to narrow.

   “I wonder if it's time to consider merging,” he mused. “Maybe that day has come for CAR to integrate into the core tools of investigative reporting, and not be something special that requires its own conference. Diehards might object, and say NICAR is special, but not sure if that is as true today as it was 30 years ago.”




6. A plea for better wifi and intermediate sessions
   There were actually a number of people who had no notes and wouldn’t change a thing about NICAR25 for next year’s conference (hat tip IRE). Of those with feedback, we heard that the tech could be improved upon, including more computers at hands-on sessions and better Wi-Fi (which is controlled by the hotel and has been a common problem at past conferences). There were also calls for more intermediate-level coding courses, noting that beginners and advanced users were served well at NICAR25.

   “The beginner-track sessions sometimes felt a bit simple while other sessions assumed you already knew how to use all the tools they were discussing,” explained Camila Vallejo, communications specialist at the Eviction Lab.

   “We welcome all feedback and really do take all of it into consideration as we plan future events,” Grandestaff of IRE said. “Sometimes aspects, such as hotel WiFi, are out of our control but we do our very best to make all of our events as seamless and enjoyable as possible.”




7. Parting tips
   Next fall, keep your eyes out for emails and social media posts from IRE asking for pitches for sessions at NICAR26, which will be held in Indianapolis in early March. You can request a session without having to commit to being a speaker. Perhaps you even just say, “I’d like more intermediate-level hands-on sessions in R,” or something vague like that. But you can also pitch yourself to teach using some of your existing skills or offer to talk about a great project you’ve done.

   You can stay connected with the NICAR community by joining the News Nerdery Slack (which is not affiliated with IRE). Here’s the link to sign up. There are channels for specific coding languages, AI, spreadsheets and also numerous affinity groups.

Reporting contributed by Andreea Jitaru.

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