Tapping into a wealth of potential stories
Aug. 17 workshop clicks
on computer-assisted reporting
Is your newsroom wired but under-utilized? Has your paper spent thousands
of dollars on faster computers and Internet connections, but next to nothing
on how to use them?
That can change on Friday, Aug. 17, in NIU's Douglas
Hall computer labs. Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Dedman will conduct a
hands-on seminar in computer-assisted reporting. The NINA-sponsored seminar
runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and costs $55 a person (lunch on your own).
Dedman will focus on Census 2000: which statistics are available, which
ones will be and how to turn those into great stories on a tight
budget.
Dedman also will cover:
- An overview of news research. How journalists can use the Internet to find background on people and companies, find expert sources, check facts on deadline, develop story ideas and more.
- Beyond Yahoo! Anyone can use a search engine to find 487,000 Web pages, but how can journalists find exactly what they need, on deadline?
- Web sites for journalists. Alert services, archives, calculators, directories ... hundreds of ways to become more efficient and write better beat stories.
- Spreadsheets. How they work and how reporters can use them to process information quickly.
Dedman is an assistant metro editor for the Chicago Sun-Times. He conducts seminars nationwide, helping journalists improve their daily reporting, writing and editing. His Web site, PowerReporting.com, is used daily by hundreds of journalists as a starting point for research.
Registration
Fifty seats are available for this seminar, and they fill up fast. Cost
is $55. To reserve a spot, call Dana in the NIU Department of Communication,
at (815) 753-1564, or e-mail her at dditrichs@niu.edu.
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