CARR HOT SHEET - Spring 2003 In this Issue
The
Heritage CARR Program and National Press Club to Co-Host CARR Boot
Camps The camps will
be held in the digital training center of the NPC's Eric Friedheim
Library. The curriculum will be the Friday portion of the regular
two-day events hosted by the Heritage CARR program at the foundation's
headquarters. The Heritage-NPC
course will use the same textbook as the regular boot camp, "Computer-Assisted
Reporting" by Brant Houston, Executive Director of Investigative
Reporters & Editors (IRE) at the University of Missouri School
of Journalism. The Brant text and all other course materials are
provided at no cost to attendees. Attendance is free but is limited
to 12 people on a first-come/first-served basis. Attendance will
be open to all NPC members, as well as to Washington-area journalists,
who seek an introductory course in CARR techniques and skills. Emphasis
will be on using Microsoft Access and Excel in beat reporting. Using computer models is an emerging CARR application. Two years ago, for example, the Heritage CARR program worked with Elliot Jaspin, Technology Editor for Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, to build a model that was then used to project the impact on state spending of population undercounts by the U.S. Census Bureau. With the debate in Congress on the Bush economic growth package, computer models can provide a unique tool for providing readers with added perspective. The Heritage Foundation's Center's for Data Analysis uses its Individual Income Tax Micro-simulation model to estimate changes in tax liability for a national sample of 100,000 tax filers. This sample contains tax return data from the Public Use Tax File, produced by the Internal Revenue Service, which has been supplemented with additional information from the March 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS) produced by the Bureau of the Census. The March 1996 CPS contains family income information for 1995. The 1995 data from the SOI and CPS have been "aged" using a forecast produced from a WEFA-DRI macroeconomic model that has been calibrated to the baseline economic assumptions published by the Congressional Budget Office. To this data, CDA analysts added the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) economic and budget forecast to project the sample data forward to through year 2012. Recently, CDA
analysts used the model to analyze the President's January 2003
Economic Growth Package and Congressman Christopher Cox's proposal
to end the double tax on dividends. Also, the model is used to perform
distributional analyses and to examine specific elements of the
tax code, such as taxpayers with refundable credits or alternative
minimum tax liabilities. For more information, contact: Norbert
Michel at Heritage, 202-608-6218 or at Norbert.Michel@Heritage.org. Modeling
Terrorist Threats: What would have happened had Saddam Hussein fired artillery shells carrying VX Nerve gas against coalition troops? How many coalition troops and Iraqi civilians would have been at risk? What effect would weather conditions at the time of the firing have on the effect? What would have occurred if an Iraqi Scud armed with a chemical warhead and fired toward Tel Aviv were shot down? Where would the gas have gone and who would have been affected? The Media Center is making available to journalists a software package originally developed for the Department of Defense (DOD) that can provide answers to these and many more newsworthy questions in the war against terrorism. The Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability (HPAC) software program makes available to journalists mountains of data that can provide the core of critically important reporting about the capabilities and readiness of local, state and federal anti-terrorism and law enforcement authorities. Are officials in your area really prepared, for example, to administer thousands of anthrax antidotes or to quarantine whole communities? Reporter Mike Hedges of the Houston Chronicle used HPAC-generated models to evaluate the city's response to a potential terrorist attack. Scenarios such as small "suitcase" nukes, dirty bombs, and air released biological and chemical agents were all done. The population that would be exposed was examined and how Houston law enforcement and medical authorities would deal with the aftermath was projected and analyzed. Hospitals, police and fire officials were interviewed Hedges quoted a senior official in the White House Office of Homeland Security, who said: "Obviously this would be a tremendously devastating event, and I want to manage expectations as to what could be accomplished immediately. It may take some time, but we do know how to manage events like this." HPAC projects likely fatalities, casualties and property damage based upon real-time weather and data drawn from hundreds of databases and map layers. These include the location of nuclear, biological, and chemical facilities world wide, world population numbers, airfields, terrain, and military facilities just to name a few. HPAC also lets you add databases for customized analyses. Originally developed for DOD's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) after the first Gulf War, HPAC has been available for several years to selected federal, state, and local government emergency response organizations nationwide. News organizations
that have used HPAC in recent months include ABC News, CNN, Fox
News, Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, USA Today and The
Washington Times. For more information, contact Dexter Ingram
at 202-608-6227 or Dexter.Ingram@Heritage.org. You just finished a Database 101/201 CARR Boot Camp and you're back in the newsroom. That elation and anticipation you felt on the way home has ebbed and now its back to the real world. And your editor wants to know what you learned and to see it applied in a story. Government agencies at all levels create new and update existing ones constantly. Start by making a list of every database maintained by officials on your beat. Maybe your state or local government released employee salaries or a school testing service releases the previous years test. If not, ask for them! Such databases
can be used for a quick, timely, and original CARR story on an annual
basis. Federal agencies also maintain countless databases, which
often include data for your readership or viewers region. Whether
it's the FBI's Uniformed Crime Report (UCR) data released annually,
the General Social Survey report that is given every two years or
the mountains of U.S. Census Bureau data, there is more than enough
newly released information for a quick spreadsheet analysis or a
longer and more in-depth database timeline comparison. Need help?
Contact Mark Tapscott at 202-608-6155 or Mark.Tapscott@Heritage.org. More What Do I Do Now? How About a Quick Campaign Finance Piece? Lessons from the Database 101 Boot Camp are especially suitable for campaign finance reporting. Using Maryland and Baltimore County records, for example, Database 101/201 graduate Bryan Sears of Patuxent Publications compiled a database of campaign contributors to area candidates, the amounts contributed and the dates of the contributions. He wanted to find the sum of all contributions made by each contributor, determine how many candidates they contributed to, and the date of their initial donation was made. Bryan's task
was much easier than it might sound. Here's how to do it, using
Microsoft Access: First, go to the Design View field of your Query.
It's the upper left button that allows you to go between the actual
data and the input variables. Once in Design View, click the Sigma
icon (Totals) at the top of the screen. Once done, another field
will appear on the left of the columns labeled Totals. At the top of the Screen, click the "Run" icon (Red Exclamation Point). There's your data, arranged just the way you wanted. By experimenting with the other drop-down variables in the Totals row, you will find a variety of other ways to arrange your data and discover more stories. Want to talk about more "What Do I Do Now" story ideas or suggest one for a future CARR HotSheet? Contact Mark Tapscott at 202-608-6155 or Mark.Tapscott@Heritage.org. Working
with Date/Time Fields in Access: You will need to create a custom format. Move to the field in Design View, select VIEW, then PROPERTIES. Enter the format in the Format property. Here is a list of the formats you can use and the effect they will have on the date 25th December 1999: There are built-in functions that will return part of a date. You could use these to create a calculated field to equal one part of a date. For example, the following expression will return the year of birth: Year([Field
containing DOB])
Computer-Assisted
Research and Reporting: 2003 Courses are
taught by experienced CARR journalists and statistics experts who
have worked with editors, reporters and researchers for such news
organizations as AP, Scripps Howard News, Knight Ridder Tribune
News, USA Today and ABC News. "Mini"
Database 101 Boot Camps Available: These mini boot camps provide highly compressed half-day introductions to Newsroom Uses of Excel and Access. This approach can be useful as an introduction to CARR for skeptical and/or time-pressed newsroom colleagues. Also during 2002, we took the CARR Boot Camp on the road for the first time, providing two days of training for eight editors and reporters working for the Army Times Publishing Co. newsroom. We are considering offering more boot camps on the road in 2003 if there is sufficient demand. Let us know if this sounds like something for your organization to consider. For more information, contact: Dexter Ingram at 202-608-6227 or at Dexter.Ingram@Heritage.org. |
| Center for Media and Public Policy Resources |
| Mark
Tapscott Director |
Database Editor |