Using Databases

Suppose you want to find out how many crimes occurred on college campuses and how your university compares to another in the incidence of crime. Or perhaps you want to write a story about how much money college graduates earn in various careers. The data to support your story is literally at your fingertips.

The information from Internet databases may be a little dated, because most surveys of crime data, census data and other statistics posted on the Web are not compiled for the current year. But the data that are available can be used for comparative studies and provide excellent background information.

Every year more government data are being posted to the web. But much of the state or local information you might want is still not available. You might have to ask officials for it, and they may be reluctant to give it to you.

Jennifer LeFleur, a database editor for the San Jose Mercury News, says reporters should try to find the person in the government agency who knows about computers and data. “It is usually a guy named Leon who works in the basement,” she says. “I go to whatever agency I’m covering to find out how they do what they do. I also try to be overly cheery. I never first go in and demand a computer file.”

Government databases may be available only in printout form. Ask if you can obtain the data on a disk. If not, find out the copying costs before you commit to getting the files. They could be expensive. Whether you get the data on a disk or in paper form, you should check all the information carefully, especially if some of the statistics seem unusual. Often data is “dirty”, meaning it contains many mistakes.

After you get and analyze your data, don’t flood your story with statistics. LeFleur bristles when people say computer-assisted stories are about numbers. They may contain only a paragraph or two of numbers, which could make the difference in the focus, but the stories still require good reporting, and writing techniques.

Now that you can use all that statistics, remember a basic writing tip: Numbers are numbing. Your story should contain some of the figures, but try to put most of them in a list or a chart. Analyzing what the figures mean is more important and interesting to readers than listing the figures. If you use statistics, don’t cram them all in one paragraph. Round off large numbers. And don’t forget to include the interviews with people in your story.

Divide the text into logical parts.

Give a title to each paragraph of the text.