Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Journalists Toolbox A Guide To Digital Reporting and Ai 1St Edition Mike Reilley Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
The Journalists Toolbox A Guide To Digital Reporting and Ai 1St Edition Mike Reilley Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
https://ebookmeta.com/product/data-journalism-a-story-driven-
approach-to-learning-data-reporting-mike-reilley/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/ai-in-clinical-practice-a-guide-to-
artificial-intelligence-and-digital-medicine-1st-edition-
giampaolo-collecchia/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/mike-meyers-comptia-a-guide-to-7th-
edition-mike-meyers/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/rewired-the-mckinsey-guide-to-
outcompeting-in-the-age-of-digital-and-ai-1st-edition-eric-
lamarre/
Digital Marketing Toolbox The Ultimate Guide to Over
600 Online Marketing Tool and Software Overviews 50
Categories 2022nd Edition Taib Guourija
https://ebookmeta.com/product/digital-marketing-toolbox-the-
ultimate-guide-to-over-600-online-marketing-tool-and-software-
overviews-50-categories-2022nd-edition-taib-guourija/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/driving-digital-transformation-
through-data-and-ai-a-practical-guide-to-delivering-data-science-
and-machine-learning-products-1st-edition-alexander-borek/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/writing-a-watertight-thesis-a-
guide-to-successful-structure-and-defence-1st-edition-mike-
bottery/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/writing-a-watertight-thesis-a-
guide-to-successful-structure-and-defence-1st-edition-mike-
bottery-2/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/primary-mathematics-3a-hoerst/
The Journalist’s Toolbox
Mike Reilley teaches data and digital journalism at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, USA. A former reporter at the Los Angeles Times and web producer
at the Chicago Tribune and WashingtonPost.com, Mike is an early adopter of
web and data technologies in journalism. He’s taught full-time for 20 years at
Northwestern, Arizona State, DePaul and UIC.
Mike and his students cover Chicago urban issues through data reporting on
RedLineProject.news. Mike speaks at dozens of journalism conferences and
has a large following on his @itsmikereilley Twitter account.
The Journalist’s Toolbox
A Guide to Digital Reporting and AI
Mike Reilley
Designed cover image: Illustration by Billy O’Keefe
First published 2024
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2024 Mike Reilley
The right of Mike Reilley to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-032-46021-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-46020-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-43178-7 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-46022-2 (eBook+)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003431787
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9781032460208
To all of my mentors, especially Neil Chase, the late
Daryl Blue and the late Steve Buttry.
And to my mother-in-law, Angela, maker of
all things pasta . . .
– Mike
Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
4 Social Media 81
Index277
Acknowledgments
There are many people who helped with the writing and publishing of this
book. Being an author can be challenging, but a great support team and
cooperation from many professional journalists made it much easier. I’m
grateful for my publisher, Routledge, and the fantastic team of Lizzie Cox and
Hannah McKeating, who helped me navigate this process once again. Their
patience, sound advice and quick responses helped make it a smooth one.
I also need to thank the many professional journalists and college professors
who contributed interviews and exercises: Victor Hernandez, chief content
officer at WBUR in Boston; USC professor Amara Aguilar; CUNY profes-
sor and Wonder Tools newsletter author Jeremy Caplan; Cincinnati Enquirer
reporter Patti Gallagher Newberry; University of Nebraska journalism profes-
sor Chris Graves; Samantha Sunne; and Tom Johnson of the Guardian US. All
are masters of their craft and offer innovative examples of how to use digital
tools to create incredible storytelling.
When I needed help on shooting and editing content for mobile, I went
to two of the best in the business: Robb Montgomery of the Smart Film
School and author of Mobile Journalism and Rob Layton, Assistant Profes-
sor of Mobile Journalism at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast.
They’re both doing innovative visual storytelling using apps on phones
and tablets.
Mackenzie Warren, former director of digital strategy at Gannett, lends
his expertise on the big picture: how digital tools figure into the storytell-
ing process and to properly implement them. Warren now oversees the local
news accelerator at his alma mater, Northwestern University’s Medill School
of Journalism, and offers insight on how to implement these tools at the
local level.
No journalism book would be complete without exploring the broadening
horizons of data storytelling. CBS 2 Chicago’s Elliott Ramos, the BBC’s John
Walton and Andy Boyle, a data contributor for the Chicago Sun-Times, pro-
vide tips and examples for practical applications. I’ll contribute several exer-
cises from my newsroom trainings so you’ll have work samples to show by the
time you finish the chapter.
Acknowledgments ix
You may have noticed the wonderful book cover and illustrations, the
handiwork of longtime friend and collaborator Billy O’Keefe, who also helped
me design the Journalist’s Toolbox websites.
Another key player in the development of this book has been Zizi
Papacharissi, the communication department chair at the University of Illinois-
Chicago. Her guidance helped me not only with this textbook but also my first
book, Data + Journalism, which I coauthored with Sunne.
Introduction
DOI: 10.4324/9781003431787-1
2 Introduction
organizations to see if they wanted to buy the site. Back then, there were no
start-up incubators or funding, and it was difficult to charge people to use the
site because secure credit card software was in its infancy, making it hard to
set up a paywall.
The American Press Institute (API) bought the site from me and agreed to
pay me monthly to update the site. After five years, API sold the site – and my
services as editor – to the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).
So what started as an experiment for a rookie college journalism professor
has blossomed over the next two decades into an international brand. Today,
the Toolbox features links to thousands of resources.
SPJ defunded my JournalistsToolbox.org work in May 2023, ending my
27 years as that site’s editor. Since I own the Toolbox trademark, I launched
the new site, JournalistsToolbox.ai, with a focus on how journalists can use
artificial intelligence to improve workflow, debunk fake news and more.
Launched in June 2023, its sole purpose is to help journalists ethically and
effectively navigate the murky waters of AI. It offers more than 90 training vid-
eos on how to use digital tools. A twice-monthly newsletter shares resources
tips and tricks with more than 7,000 subscribers. My @itsmikereilley Twitter
account surpassed 50,000 followers by 2023.
***
So it only makes sense that The Journalist’s Toolbox would become a book.
Not just any book, but a handbook that journalism professors could use to
teach students starving for digital skills. And a handbook that provides pro-
fessional journalists guidance and examples of how to expand their digital
storytelling.
***
4 Introduction
This book will explore how the Toolbox is being used by reporters and
editors all over the world. We’ll look at the evolution of digital journalism and
cover the key concepts and themes in the industry with mobile, social, eth-
ics/trust, artificial intelligence, multimedia, data and more. We’ll sprinkle in
anecdotes and examples of how simple, free tools can tell stories in new ways.
And we’ll hear from some industry experts about how those tools are used in
newsrooms.
Pick
Choose an app that you think would work well for you. Before downloading,
check the app’s reviews, privacy settings and what data it can gather and share
about you (more on that later in the book). If you think the app could be use-
ful and fill a specific need, download it. If not, move on.
Stick
Use the app once you download it. Get a feel for it. If you can use it in your daily
news coverage, go for it. If it’s more challenging to use, practice with it in your
free time or try it for personal use. In other words, “stick” with it for a while.
Dig
Really dig into what the tool can do. Give it at least two or three months.
Think: Is this tool or app saving me time? How is it enhancing my work, if at
all? If you don’t have a good answer for either question, it might be time to
move on to the next step.
6 Introduction
Dump
After three months, it might be time to part with the tool or app. They take
up space on your phone or computer, and if you’re not using it, why bother
to keep it on there? So delete it and make space for other apps and tools.
You can always download the app again later. Keep your logins handy, and
if it’s a paid account, make sure to end the subscription before you delete
the app.
Hernandez said he tries to “keep an open mind” when trying new tech in
his job at WBUR or just for himself.
“I am generally willing to test out something that comes highly recom-
mended and may offer value to my personal or professional life,” he said,
“especially if it’s a free app. At most, it’ll cost me 10 minutes.
“I’ll try just about anything once. But I regularly go through my toolkit to
clean out tech that has gone a while without any activity or perceived value.
Digital clutter is still clutter and I’d rather take back valuable storage that
could be applied to future downloads.”
He said it is sometimes helpful to look at the last used data for apps on your
smartphone.
“You might be surprised that you actually haven’t engaged with services
that are occupying valuable space on your device,” he said. “My personal expi-
ration date for lack of activity is three months. But your threshold may be
different.”
Jeremy Caplan teaches at the City University of New York’s (CUNY)
Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and writes a weekly newsletter
called “Wonder Tools.” When Caplan tinkers with the hundreds of pro-
ductivity and reporting tools he reviews each year, he examines four core
attributes:
• Quality. “Will this tool help me do better quality work than I could other-
wise, or will it will help others I serve – students, colleagues and readers?”
he said. “I also assess whether it will help me do different work – like cre-
ating a different kind of writing, multimedia or data analysis than I might
be able to easily do without it? For example, Descript is a valuable tool for
me because it allows me to do audio and video publishing and multimedia
editing I might not otherwise do.”
• Time. “I ask myself: does this save me time? Does it solve a problem I have
or reduce friction in my workflow? Time is precious, so I prize tools that
help me work more efficiently. Examples include Raycast and Alfred, appli-
cation launchers that reduce the amount of time it takes to do common
things on your computer.”
• Cost. “Subscription costs can quickly accumulate, given that I use dozens
of tools. And given that my students and readers may not be able to afford
many costly services, I keep an eye on costs.”
Introduction 7
• Reliability. “Services rise and fall online. Remember Peach? Plurk? Jaiku?
Fridge? So I try to get a feel for how likely I think the tool is to stick
around, how committed its team is, and how strong its foundation.”
Caplan said he tries to use a tool a few times in multiple contexts to see how
useful it is in the long run, usually over a period of at least a few weeks. Unlike
some, he rarely deletes tools, because he envisions giving them another look
down the road.
“That’s how I end up with hundreds of apps on my phone and laptop, even
though I use only 10% of them frequently,” he said.
Fast-forward to 2022, when the audio streaming chat app Clubhouse came
onto the scene and attracted large audiences . . . at first.
“At a micro level, when I think of all the alleged next-big-things, Clubhouse
symbolizes a lot of how hard it is to break the lock the big dogs like Meta,
Alphabet and Amazon have,” Warren said. “A lot of initial hype, some manu-
factured scarcity and then . . . kind of crickets.”
Storify.com was another tool that headed to the tech graveyard after enjoy-
ing great success – for a decade. Toasted by journalists, Storify was developed
by former Associated Press journalist Burt Herman when he was a Knight
Journalism Fellow at Stanford in 2009. His concept was simple: Create an
embeddable interface where journalists could pull from Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram and other social channels and add text and headlines to create
curated social media collections.
Storify allowed journalists to arrange social media posts chronologically or
as a narrative. So instead of doom scrolling or searching hashtags, the audience
could read social media for the first time as a story with context. It got to the
heart of what journalism does: select only the best information from a flood of
facts, and give the reader a well-rounded story.
My students and DePaul University and I were beta-testers for the tool
in 2009–2010 and continued using it after it launched on the full market.
We used it to cover breaking stories from the 2012 presidential election, the
NATO Summit in Chicago, local elections, feature stories and many more.
Herman’s Storify was lauded by news outlets all over the world for its abil-
ity to package social media posts in a more contextual way. Newsrooms used
it to cover violence and protests, crime and other breaking news stories. The
tool was purchased by LiveFyre in 2013, where it continued to thrive for sev-
eral more years until it was shuttered in May 2018. In its wake, a tool named
Wakelet has continued to fill the void for social media content curation.
Hernandez said “can’t-miss tech” comes and goes for journalists, and they
have to adapt as the industry changes. Many good apps and websites have
failed, not because they weren’t useful, but that they were mismanaged, strug-
gled to find a market foothold or had other issues.
“It’s been that way forever,” Hernandez said, “and there [is] no worse
feeling than when you fall in love with a technology solution and incorporate
parts of your life around it because it proves to be such a vital lynchpin for
adding utility to your life – only to see it acquired and shut down. Or it evolves
into something much different than you knew it to be, or the people behind it
stop maintaining it and it slowly dies.
“We wish we could get back all of the hours and perhaps dollars we’d
invested into making it work so well for us, and we can’t help but feel burned.”
In his newsroom, Hernandez cautions his staff not to get too fixated on
specific tools because of their proclivity to become obsolete. Tools come and
go, and technology only moves forward, not backward.
“The apps on our phone, the bookmarks on our browser, the peripheral
add-on equipment that adorn our gear – they all get replaced or simply moved
to the trash bin eventually,” he said.
learned earlier in this Introduction, tools, especially apps, can be red-hot one
week and a deserted wasteland the next.
This textbook is targeted to college undergraduate and graduate students
and their instructors, as well as early to mid-career professionals seeking to
learn digital journalism skills. I’ve taught digital journalism skills to three gen-
erations of college students, and I use a tried-and-true approach: I teach jour-
nalism concepts, not tools.
For me, tools are a vehicle for journalists in their reporting, not a means to
an end. So when I teach, I use apps and other tools to expose students not just
to technology, but to great journalism lessons.
My students learn by doing. They publish on the website, The Red Line Pro-
ject (redlineproject.news), which I founded in 2012 while teaching at DePaul.
I combine old-school “shoe-leather reporting” – where students observe,
document, conduct interviews, etc., with “new school,” cutting-edge mobile
and digital storytelling techniques to produce data-driven and multimedia sto-
ries. Their stories are work samples that help them get internships and jobs.
I stress law and ethics in my tech-driven journalism classes. Students learn-
ing Photoshop must first study the National Press Photographers Association
Code of Ethics. They apply those ethics to photo editing (are we manipulating
the photo, or improving truth-telling of the image?) They also learn how to
fact-check images and deep-fake videos that may have been manipulated.
Figure 0.5 Intro RedLineProject.news home page during the 2023 Chicago mayoral
election
12 Introduction
Any student who has taken a class with me has a strong understanding of cop-
yright law, fair use and other legal issues that arise in journalism (libel, slander,
defenses, recording interviews, etc.) They also are taught how to protect themselves
if they are harassed online by trolls on social media or through other methods.
When teaching, sprinkle the ethics, editing and journalism into the software
lessons, and you have a captivated audience of students. Play a long slideshow
preaching ethics, and you lose your audience. My aforementioned approach
with Photoshop and ethics is a prime example of my approach: Teaching
strong journalism fundamentals in a modern way.
This approach proved beneficial at the start of the pandemic. After the out-
break, the University of Illinois Chicago moved all classes online through the
end of the 2020–2021 academic year. This left students to conduct interviews
over Zoom or Google Meet as much of the city was shut down. So rather
than publish Zoom video interviews – yawn! – I switched the students to
more audio-driven stories and taught them more audio editing, SoundCloud,
Headliner.app and other tools.
We also used Videoscribe to create whiteboard videos as we had little, if any,
B-roll available. We used those whiteboard videos to explain to readers how
mail-in voting worked for the 2020 election.
So whether you are teaching digital journalism, studying it or expanding
your tech skills as a professional journalist, I think you’ll find the lessons and
exercises in this book useful. Take advantage of the training videos, and you’ll
be building cutting-edge stories in no time.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Footnotes
Fast Company: The Once-Darling Social Service Storify Is Coming to an End: www.
fastcompany.com/40506878/why-the-once-darling-social-service-storify-is-
coming-to-an-end
The Journalist’s Toolbox AI Newsletter: https://journaliststoolbox.substack.com
The Journalist’s Toolbox AI YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/toolboxvid
The Journalist’s Toolbox: www.journaliststoolbox.ai
Library of Congress Website: www.loc.gov
NPPA Code of Ethics: https://nppa.org/resources/code-ethics
The Red Line Project: https://redlineproject.news
The Red Line Project: 2020 Chicago Voters Guide: http://redlineproject.org/2020
votersguide.php
Startup Graveyard: https://startupgraveyard.io
Wonder Tools Newsletter: https://wondertools.substack.com
1 Reporting, Writing
and Editing
Key resources
iFOIA.org: https://ifoia.org
Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org
QuillBot: An AI-driven editing tool that paraphrases writing. https://quillbot.
com
Student Press Law Center Letter Generator: https://splc.org/lettergenerator
VisualPing: https://visualping.io
***
In the 1990s, Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Chris Graves spent a lot of
time with Minneapolis gang members and their families to get perspective
on the high number of murders in the city. People on the streets started call-
ing her “murder girl” and “Ms. Chris.” How they lived and what Graves saw
informed her reporting in countless ways.
“It provided a very different, rich and stark view of the violence on the
streets but also how often people were just trying to survive and get out
of the life,” she said. “I am more of a street reporter than anything, and so
I spent about 80–90 percent of my time out talking to people and knocking
on doors.”
Graves has sworn by a simple acronym during nearly three decades of cov-
ering the criminal justice beat for the Star-Tribune, the Cincinnati Enquirer
and the Lansing (Michigan) State Journal:
GOYAAKOD – Get Off Your Ass and Knock on Doors.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003431787-2
14 Reporting, Writing and Editing
“You talk to witnesses, suspects and crime victim survivors,” said Graves, a
Pulitzer Prize winner for her work on the Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin”
project in 2017. “Not only does it make for richer, more meaningful and more
complete stories, it will also demonstrate hard work, which is valued by every
cop or investigator I have known.”
To be a good journalist, you have to get out in the field and report. Inter-
view people. Go to the scene of the crime, the public meeting or the event and
document what you see and hear. Your personal observation makes for better
descriptive writing and context in your stories. It helps you take the reader to
the forefront of breaking news. It takes them there, and builds trust with read-
ers and sources.
But field reporting comes with a technological twist, particularly with
mobile reporting tools. Reporters use technology to pull public records, ana-
lyze data, crowdsource on social media, shoot photos and video and post sto-
ries remotely from their phones.
An editor once told me the best tools a reporter has are the “two things
attached to your head – your ears.” Combine that with a pen, notebook,
smartphone and a few other apps and gadgets, and you can generate news
in ways we only dreamed of less than two decades ago. The tools we explore
in this book will complement the reporting, writing, editing and production
processes.
***
• Be a reporter first. This is the skill from which all else flows. Don’t
get caught up in the tools.
• Be a reader second. You know you spend 30 seconds or less on any-
thing you encounter online. Channel your own reading behaviors to
inform what you produce.
• Tell one story at a time, or make one comparison (X vs. Y axis)
at a time. If you have to explain what your tool is telling the reader,
you’ve made it more complicated than you need. Tools are there to
simplify, both for you and the reader.
Reporting, Writing and Editing 15
“At Gannett, we focused on tools that helped improve the reader experi-
ence for people at different places in the subscriber funnel,” Warren said.
“For example, search and social were high-priority tools for reaching sel-
dom- or first-time readers and welcoming them into the top of the fun-
nel. At the bottom, our most loyal, longtime, paying subscribers demand
depth and sophistication for the price of their subscription.
“Advanced data analysis tools that help make sense of complex,
subscriber-only stories enhance the value of a subscription and improve
our retention at the bottom of the funnel.”
***
What to Pack
First and foremost, Graves brings an iPhone equipped with a recording device
such as Otter.ai, either on the phone or laptop. For extremely important inter-
views, she brings a secondary recording device as backup for her iPhone in
case there’s a glitch or the battery runs out.
She also packs two Jackery external batteries to keep her devices fully
charged. At the very least, she says journalists should have a car phone charger
for both the laptop and phone. When reporting in more remote areas, she
keeps a small solar-panel generator in her car that can charge everything.
“This is overkill for some, but I have been saved more times than not while
on the road reporting,” she said. “I also carry an electrical strip that includes
USB ports in my car that can plug into the Jackery and my car’s battery if
I need more outlets.”
If recording for radio or a podcast, Graves suggests bringing a podcast
recording tool, such as a Marantz recorder. This is incredibly important if you
need clean sound for radio or podcasts, which you can almost never get with
Otter or an iPhone. She also packs SD cards or an external hard drive to back
up files; especially photo/video.
Graves also has the online AP Stylebook open on a laptop browser tab
next to the file where she’s writing, making it easy to look things up. She
also suggests carrying several different versions of notebooks: a small one
that fits in your back pocket (out of sight), a reporter’s notebook and a
Steno notebook. Make sure to bring several pencils and pens; pencils are
incredibly important in climates with a lot of rain and/or cold. Ink freezes
and smudges.
She recommends carrying a printed atlas or at least a map in case you’re in
a remote location where Google Maps doesn’t work.
To stay organized, Graves suggests using a Google Drive file-naming sys-
tem that makes sense for stories, photos and video. Be sure to check with edi-
tors for a specific naming system, but this is an example of a good one:
• Assignment_(Name)_Date_StorySlugNOTES
• Assignment_Names_(Dates)_Story slug
Another lesson Graves and I learned from Pagel and Streckfuss: Great
reporting drives great writing. If you cannot research, pull public records,
interview sources and gather information, then your story won’t work. It
doesn’t matter how talented of a writer you are. If you cannot report, you
won’t have a story.
“This simply can not be overstated,” said Graves, reflecting on the class so
many years later. “It is as simple as it is complex: You can not write what you
do not know, what you have not heard, what you have not seen.
Reporting, Writing and Editing 19
“Again, I could write chapters and chapters on this. If there is a secret sauce
to this work it is: Deep, rich, emphatic reporting that is so hard it sometimes
hurts. You can never know too much, you can never report too much.”
That’s why Graves lives by the “Get Off Your Ass and Knock on Doors”
approach. Sit with people and listen, see where and how they live. Have them
show you pictures and tell you their stories from their life.
“This is true of sources, too,” she said. “Go to the morgue, ask to watch an
autopsy. Spend a day in court or with probation officers on his rounds.
“I remember hanging out for a week or so with a child protection officer
[social worker] on her daily rounds just a few years ago. I had no idea the
amount of work and difficulties and situations they are in. I went with home-
less advocates when they were doing the homeless counts and then went
back again to talk to the homeless people to ask them their input on being
‘counted.’ ”
order, with ages, key details of testimony and background with links to her
testimony files recorded and archived in Otter. At the end of the day, she
would set up her laptop with testimony of mostly key witnesses and capture an
audio file with transcripts from her Otter files. She would link that file to her
testimony spreadsheet.
Before the trial, she captured several key stories she wrote in 2016 and kept
them for quick reference in a Google Doc. Having that archive at her finger-
tips has proven valuable, she said.
***
withholding, or other adverse decision, back to the agency, and may also file a
lawsuit to seek redress in federal court. Before going to court, requesters are
encouraged to contact the agency’s FOI Public Liaison at any time for assis-
tance, and to utilize mediation services offered by the Office of Government
Information Services (OGIS).
There are many FOI form letters available with a basic Google search. You
can download them as Word or Google documents and simply fill out the
form and send to the agency by either email or registered U.S. mail. But there
are some free websites that help reporters not only write the letters but track
them; iFOIA.org from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is
one of the best, as well as the Student Press Law Center Public Records Letter
Generator.
Once you set up a free account on iFOIA.org, you can use several pulldown
menus to select the agency and letter you want to use. When filling out the let-
ter, be sure to be very specific about the records you want and in what format
you want them sent (Excel, Word, shapefile, etc.)
Be specific about the type of record you want, what dates the records cover
and what the topic is. Simply asking for “all of the mayor’s email correspond-
ence” is too broad. However, requesting the mayor’s emails over the past
three years discussing the public funding of a new bridge with the city’s chief
financial officer is more specific and gives the agency a better roadmap to find
the records. This typically cuts down on denials.
To get you started, here are some broad public records search por-
tals and other tools you can incorporate into your public records reporting
immediately.
You also can find datasets shared by many newsrooms, including the Washing-
ton Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others. Most will link to the
datasets from stories and graphics, or post them on their Github pages.
***
Many newsrooms now track diversity in their coverage. They look at cross-
sections of the community, how they’re quoted, where they appear (stories/
photos) and that includes expert sources.
Always be sure to vet your expert sources. Read beyond their bio and search
their name. Have they been in trouble before? Are they being paid by a com-
pany to shape what they tell you (a common practice among medical experts)?
Search for them in Google Scholar, a micro-search site that searches two areas
of the web: academic journal article databases and case law. Where have they
been published, if at all?
Google Scholar also is good at finding new expert sources. Just select the
area you want to search by hitting the radio button underneath the search
field, then type in the keywords you want to search (topic or expert’s name).
You’ll find results to the right and filters on a sidebar down the left side. You
can filter by specific dates. You can bookmark articles by clicking the star but-
ton underneath them to add them to your library for later reference.
In the search results, the article author names are often linked to their bios
and contact information. Just contact the person for an interview. This is a
great way for young journalists to build an expert sources list.
Besides Scholar, here are some other databases you can use to find expert
sources:
DiverseSources.org: https://diversesources.org/
Database of experts features underrepresented voices and perspectives in sci-
ence, health and environment work.
ExpertFile: https://expertfile.com/experts
A journalist looking for credible sources can access this searchable directory of
experts in knowledge-based organizations in a curated network of experts
on over 30,000 unique topics.
Expertise Finder: https://expertisefinder.com/
Look up experts in various fields with this network.
NPR Diverse Sources Database: https://training.npr.org/sources/
Find experts from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the media.
Includes a featured “source of the week.”
People of Color Also Know Stuff: https://sites.google.com/view/pocexperts/
home
This online platform connects journalists with subject matter experts and peo-
ple of color who have stories to tell. POC uses customized matching to
connect journalists with a diverse pool of potential interviewees.
SciLine: www.sciline.org
An editorially independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit service for journalists and
scientists. Its goal is to help get more science into news stories. It connects
reporters quickly to scientific experts and validates evidence. It works with
scientists to amplify their expertise and help them give voice to the facts. It’s
fully funded by philanthropies, and everything it does is free.
Sources of Color: https://sourcesofcolor.com
Journalists, PR pros and diverse experts all in one place. This site is a partner-
ship with SPJ, PRSA and other organizations. The site is free for journalists
but charges PR pros.
Women’s Media Center SheSource: https://womensmediacenter.com/shesource/
An online database of media-experienced experts available for interviews in all
mediums.
***
26 Reporting, Writing and Editing
***
of crimes. The potential of the person’s name or parts of the interview being
leaked are realities.
This issue was chronicled in a Feb. 16, 2022, Politico post titled “My jour-
ney down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app.” Reporter Phelim
Kine wrote, “We make privacy versus utility tradeoffs all the time with our tech.
We know Facebook sells our data, but we still post baby pictures. We allow
Google maps access to our location, even though we know it leaves an indel-
ible digital trail. And even savvy, skeptical journalists who take robust efforts
to protect sources have found themselves in the thrall of Otter, a transcription
app powered by artificial intelligence, and which has virtually eliminated the
once-painstaking task of writing up interview notes. That’s an overlooked vul-
nerability that puts data and sources at risk, say experts.”
Kine continued: “Otter and its competitors, which include Descript,
Rev, Temi and the U.K.-based Trint, are digital warehouses whose advan-
tages of speed and convenience are bracketed by what experts say can be lax
privacy and security protections that may endanger sensitive text and audio
data, the identities of reporters and the potentially vulnerable sources they
contact.”
Trint, Otter, Temi and Rev all claim compliance with all or part of the user
data protection and storage standards of the European Union’s flagship data
privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation. But cybersecurity experts
say that the sharing of user data with third parties creates privacy and security
vulnerabilities.
Otter “shares your personal data with a whole host of people, including
mobile advertising tracking providers, so it strikes me that there’s an awful lot
of personal data and the potential for leakage of sources for journalists,” Paul
Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of
Homeland Security, and founder of Red Branch Consulting, told Kine. “They
also quite clearly say that they respond to legal obligation [law enforcement
data requests], so any journalist who transcribes an interview with a confiden-
tial source and puts it up on Otter has got to live with the possibility that Otter
will wind up giving that transcript to the FBI.”
So the best advice for reporters using transcription tools: Proceed at your
own risk. The tools are fine for routine interviews, covering public meetings,
etc. But think twice before using them with sensitive stories and interview
subjects. In those cases, transcribe it the old-fashioned way – by playing the
audio back and retyping what is said.
“If I need to record sensitive information, I don’t use a cloud-based sys-
tem,” Graves said. “I use a recorder and then transcribe the parts that I need
later). Or I just use handwritten notes.”
Graves said transcription tools are helpful but can waste a ton of time. She
finds that taking physical notes still is a tried-and-true way to interview subjects –
especially in person.
“It is my first best editing on-the-fly approach,” she said. “It also signals to
my sources that I am working and we are not just talking. When they see me
28 Reporting, Writing and Editing
writing, they know I am engaging, listening and taking notes. I often only use
my transcripts to confirm context and check for accurate quotes – which is
what I find recording the best for these days.”
Graves requires her University of Nebraska-Lincoln journalism students to
use Otter.ai or another transcription when they are conducting all their inter-
views. She wants them to use it only to check quotes and for context when
they are writing. She also requires them to take handwritten notes. In her
more advanced reporting and writing courses, they are required to upload the
audio file, the transcript and their handwritten notes with full source name and
contact information.
“I spot check these files and use these files to fact-check their work when
I am grading,” she said. “I want to begin using the audio in my report-
ing classes as a tool on contextualizing quotes and best practices or using
examples of when interrupting a source can change the direction of an
interview.”
***
***
Using Otter.ai
Otter is considered the Ferrari of transcription tools for its accuracy, speed and
ease of use. It’s available as both a desktop tool and phone app, the latter is
popular with reporters working in the field.
The tool has a variety of pricing plans based on the number of minutes of
audio transcribed. At the time this book was published, Otter offered 600 free
minutes of transcription a month, more than enough for most reporters.
Reporting, Writing and Editing 29
The interface is simple once you log in to the desktop tool. There are
two buttons in the upper right corner of the interface: Record and Import.
Hit Record if you are recording it live; hit Import if you’re uploading a pre-
recorded audio file (it accepts several file types).
Otter’s machine learning recognizes different voices and will label them as
Speaker 1, 2, 3, etc., so it’s easy to transcribe a Q&A format interview. Once
the recording is done, you have to select Transcribe, wait a few minutes (sec-
onds if the interview is short) and your transcription will appear.
For a pre-recorded interview, just hit the Import button and upload it. In
the example below, I uploaded a speech President Barack Obama delivered on
gun control at Hyde Park High School in Chicago in 2013 (Figure 1.4). The
transcription was nearly flawless, even with name spellings. It even picked up
Obama’s habit of saying “um” as he transitions to new topics.
Even with a good transcription tool, a reporter and editor must go over
the text closely and edit for mistakes. Many transcription tools struggle with
accents, or confuse words such as to, two and too, as well as their, there and
they’re. The AI/machine learning have helped since the early days of apps like
Dragon Dictation, but mistakes still slip through. Take the time to edit care-
fully and save yourself trouble down the road.
***
30 Reporting, Writing and Editing
***
She said the tool saved her many hours of work while covering the mara-
thon hearing.
***
Figure 1.6 Search result for shorter synonyms for terminate using Thsrs.com
synonyms, but only words that are shorter than the word you just typed in. In
this case, words such as “stop” and “cease” appear underneath the search field.
This tool is valuable for reporters stuck with writer’s block or for copy edi-
tors writing short, one-column headlines for print (need a shorter word for
“purchase” to make that headline fit? Try “buy.”) It’s also useful for digital
editors writing search engine optimized headlines – Google and other search
engines like short headlines – and for writing short titles on infographics,
charts and maps.
AI tools: Editors are slowly beginning to use tools like ChatGPT for editing.
You must fact-check any AI-generated content for plagiarism, falsehoods, out-
dated information and biased or made-up information. Think of AI as making
suggestions: You can accept or reject them the same way you would grammar
check or spell check. Remember, AI should work for you, not vice versa. For
example, use ChatGPT to take a confusing paragraph and prompt it to “please
clarify this text.” The response sometimes clears up the author’s intended
meaning. There are more AI exercises in Chapters 9, 10 and 11.
Here are some more turnkey editing and reporting tools and techniques
you can implement into your workflow immediately:
Reporting, Writing and Editing 33
to work with is called Headline Hero. And I like this tool; it’s very simple to
use. You can paste your story in here. It is a little limited on the length of the
story you can fit in there. I’ve gotten a few hundred words in there.
It’s good for breaking news stories, and especially if you’re stuck on writing
a headline. It’s really good for SEO-driven headlines, if you keep the length
of the headline a little shorter up here. It’ll work a little better for print head-
lines if you take the maximum characters, you know, down to 30 to 60. You
know, you’re probably going to get a better print headline than you would if
you’re up pretty high here. This would be a very high-end SEO headline, very
long SEO headline. I’ve tried to keep my SEO headlines between, you know,
70 and maybe 85. Right in there, 70 to 90. You can select what words you
want to make sure that appear in the headline. You also can exclude words.
You can do it in the form of a question or a quote. I’m not big on that, but
especially with news stories. I don’t like gimmicky headlines, especially with
straightforward news. But I can paste my story in here and select a couple of
keywords that I want included in the headline, typically proper nouns that
appear in the story. So here’s a practice story, and you can do this with one of
your own as well.
I’ve got this this little short story a student has been working on about the
Chicago Transit Authority, ridership on the buses and the El trains has been
waning since the start of the pandemic and continues to.
So I’ve just pasted that story in here. And I can go through, and I want
to have two words appear here: CTA, which is our abbreviation for Chicago
Transit Authority, and then also ridership. I’ll make sure those two appear, and
I could do other things too. I could include pandemic or COVID-19. And
here I can have it generate however many headlines you want if you just want
three or four or five as a maximum. So I’ve got the story in, I’m gonna give it
between 70 and 90 characters, a little shorter headline. Good SEO range, so
Google and other search engines don’t cut off the headline right in the middle.
Now hit generate.
And with any AI tool, consider this a suggestion. Don’t let it write the
headlines for you. But if you’re stuck, and you really need a little help and
need to think through it a bit. You can go through and do this exercise and
it’ll help you. Let’s see how they did here. They gave us five of them here. It’s
a nice little copy button here, and you just copy and paste out of it gives you
the character length went a little high with a little on the high end of our range
here, would like to have seen it give me something a little shorter, but I can
always take some words out.
This one here is pretty good: CTA’s post-pandemic struggles with ridership
and safety concerns continue to persist. As you read through the story, it’s got
quite a few of those issues in the story, which is pretty good one; this one’s
I think is a little off-base long-term impact. So you vet these and edit them
into what you want. You know you could still do some rewriting with it with
the headlines; you don’t have to take you know what did you put it gives you
but I would probably take this one and maybe tighten it just a little more.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Survey of
London, Volume 05 (of 14), the parish of St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, part 2
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Language: English
SURVEY OF LONDON
ISSUED BY THE JOINT PUBLISHING
GREATER LONDON
Committee)
VOLUME V.
(Part II.)
Chairman.
E. L. MEINERTZHAGEN.
GRANVILLE-SMITH, R. W.
JOHNSON, W. C.
MEINERTZHAGEN, E. L.
TAYLOR, ANDREW T.
GODFREY, WALTER H.
LOVELL, PERCY.
NORMAN, PHILIP.
MEMBERS OF THE SURVEY COMMITTEE
DURING THE PERIOD OF THE WORK.
President.
C. R. Ashbee.
Oswald Barron, F.S.A.
A. H. Blake.
W. W. Braines.
A. E. Bullock, A.R.I.B.A.
G. H. Chettle.
A. W. Clapham, F.S.A.
George Clinch, F.G.S., F.S.A., Scot.
A. O. Collard, F.R.I.B.A.
F. T. Dear.
William Doddington.
H. W. Fincham.
Matt. Garbutt.
Walter H. Godfrey.
Mrs. Ernest Godman.
T. Frank Green, A.R.I.B.A.
Edwin Gunn, A.R.I.B.A.
Osborn C. Hills, F.R.I.B.A.
E. W. Hudson.
T. Gordon Jackson, Licentiate R.I.B.A.
Max Judge.
P. K. Kipps, A.R.I.B.A.
Gilbert H. Lovegrove.
Ernest A. Mann, Licentiate R.I.B.A.
E. T. Marriott, M.A.
Cecil G. McDowell.
W. Monk, R.E.
Sydney Newcombe.
E. C. Nisbet.
Robert Pearsall.
A. Wyatt Papworth, A.R.I.B.A.
Francis W. Reader.
Ernest Railton.
John Ravenshaw.
Francis R. Taylor, Licentiate R.I.B.A.
George Trotman.
Miss E. M. B. Warren.
W. A. Webb, A.R.I.B.A.
A. P. Wire.
W. Wonnacott, A.R.I.B.A.
E. L. Wratten, A.R.I.B.A.
Edward Yates.
W. P. Young.
Philip Norman, F.S.A., LL.D., Editor of the Committee.
E. L. Meinertzhagen, J.P., Treasurer of the Committee.
Percy Lovell, B.A., A.R.I.B.A.,
Secretary of the Committee, 27, Abingdon Street, Westminster,
S.W.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
GENERAL TITLE PAGE i
SPECIAL TITLE PAGE iii
MEMBERS OF THE JOINT PUBLISHING COMMITTEE iv
MEMBERS OF THE SURVEY COMMITTEE v
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES ix
PREFACE xv
THE SURVEY OF ST. GILES-IN-THE-FIELDS:—
Boundary of the Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields 1
High Holborn, from the Parish Boundary to Little
Turnstile 3
Nos. 3 and 4, Gate Street 10
High Holborn, between Little Turnstile and Kingsway 13
No. 211, High Holborn 16
Smart’s Buildings and Goldsmith Street 18
Nos. 181 and 172, High Holborn 23
Site of Rose Field (Macklin Street, Shelton Street,
Newton Street (part) and Parker Street (part)) 27
No. 18, Parker Street 33
Great Queen Street (general) 34
No. 2, Great Queen Street 38
Nos. 26 to 28, Great Queen Street 40
Nos. 55 and 56, Great Queen Street 42
Freemasons’ Hall 59
Markmasons’ Hall 84
Great Queen Street Chapel 86
Site of Weld House 93
Nos. 6 and 7, Wild Court 98
No. 16, Little Wild Street 99
No. 1, Sardinia Street 100
Site of Lennox House 101
Nos. 24 and 32, Betterton Street 104
No. 25, Endell Street 105
North of Short’s Gardens 106
Site of Marshland (Seven Dials) 112
The Church of All Saints, West Street 115
Site of the Hospital of St. Giles 117
Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields 127
Nos. 14 to 16, Compton Street 141
Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11, Denmark Street 142
North of Denmark Place 144
Site of The Rookery 145
Nos. 100, 101 and 102, Great Russell Street 147
Bedford Square (General) 150
No. 1, Bedford Square 152
Nos. 6 and 6A, Bedford Square 154
No. 9, Bedford Square 157
No. 10, Bedford Square 158
No. 11, Bedford Square 161
No. 13, Bedford Square 163
No. 14, Bedford Square 164
No. 15, Bedford Square 165
No. 18, Bedford Square 166
No. 23, Bedford Square 167
No. 25, Bedford Square 168
No. 28, Bedford Square 170
No. 30, Bedford Square 171
No. 31, Bedford Square 172
No. 32, Bedford Square 174
No. 40, Bedford Square 176
No. 41, Bedford Square 177
No. 44, Bedford Square 178
No. 46, Bedford Square 179
No. 47, Bedford Square 180
No. 48, Bedford Square 181
No. 50, Bedford Square 183
No. 51, Bedford Square 184
Nos. 68 and 84, Gower Street 185
North and South Crescents and Alfred Place 186
House in rear of No. 196, Tottenham Court Road 188
INDEX
PLATES Nos. 1 to 107
MAP OF THE PARISH