What they didn't teach you in school

Journalists trained in computer-assisted reporting discover significant gaps between classroom instruction and real-world newsroom application, facing challenges with equipment selection, database accessibility, and staffing limitations.

So you want to start a computer-assisted reporting program. Maybe you've read some books, or taken a seminar on how to use the equipment. Now you're ready to give it a whirl in the newsroom.

No problem, right?

Well

Most reporters said there was a huge difference between the real world and the controlled atmosphere of the seminar classroom.

Jerry Uhrhammer of the Morning News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington said the learning curve was steeper than what he expected after completing a training seminar at the Missouri Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting in Columbia, Mo.,

"Learning how to do this is like learning a foreign language, and you don't learn it in two weeks," Uhrhammer said. "You need to immerse yourself and speak it constantly. I'm still in the learning process."

Uhrhammer also said the Morning News Tribune's computer-assisted reporting program got off to a slow start because, as a money saving maneuver, they tried to get their program running with a Vax business computer.

"When we found that was not working we went out and bought the hard drive and the 486," he said.

At the Akron Beacon Journal, Bob Paynter's also found that his paper's initial equipment purchase designed to save money soon proved inadequate. The Journal started out with the Qualstar (1600 BPI). Now he has the Qualstar 6250, but still finds the going slow. Paynter said his biggest problem has been setting up a user-friendly way to get reporters into databases.

Paynter doesn't have programming background, and has struggled to make his datasets accessible.

"I've aquired a lot of databases that would be valuable to reporters on a daily basis," he said. "How do you spread it around without going through a Jaspin-like seminar?"

Some papers complain they simply haven't had the opportunity to use their equipment.

Rae Davidson of the Blade in Toledo, Ohio, said tight staffing at her paper had prevented people from committing themselves to in-depth computer-assisted projects.

"The reporters we have are very interested," she said. "But this is the nineties. We may be in the age of technology, but we're also in the age of doing more work with fewer reporters."

Judy Nichols of the Arizona Republic who took the MICAR seminar in January, said she has had an almost trouble-free experience with her computer-assisted program and credits Russ Beutner, a former MICAR employee and Republic intern for her success. "But even with Russ here, it has been a learning experience for me and the editors," Nichols said. "When you start to do analysis, it can get more in depth than you expected rather quickly."

Uhrhammer also said he hadn't used the equipment as much as he would like, but cited a different reason. He said after getting the drive he has been involved with investigations that either didn't involve computers or had been based from information on diskette rather than 9-track tape. He has only used the tape drive to download census tapes.