Some CAR programs and their reporters have moved into the new information age with relative ease. What have been the keys to these successful transitions?
"Persistence," said St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter George Landau. "You run into so many problems working with government data. You need patience and determination to solve them."
Landau said the Post's program began when "they'd had some stories that could have benefitted from data analysis." A senior editor, Richard Weil, initiated the program in 1989. "I'd been working GA for a couple of years, and was pretty well versed in computers, so I was tapped for it."
Greg Reeves, reporter for the Kansas City Star who did the data analysis for the Pulitzer winning "Failing The Grade" series, said that helping other reporters with ongoing stories has been one of the successful qualities of the Star's program. "I've started some stories, but the peripheral stories are the most important."
Brant Houston, of the Hartford Courant, agrees that helping other reporters is essential. "You've got to have a willingness to spend a lot of time with people answering questions. If you think you're the only one who should be doing this, you're going to choke your program to death."
Houston also attributes some of his success to a willingness to stick with it, despite the initial hours. "You have to realize that 'full time' means anything from eight to 16 hours a day. It's as though for 10 hours you're a journalist, for four hours you're a technician, and for two hours you're a database administrator.
"There's no question that success is a two-edged sword."
Pat Stith, of the Raleigh News and Observer, credits "the newspaper's patience" with determining the success of their program.
He added that an open mind is helpful. "I learn something new every day. You never learn it all, you just get a little better as you go along.
"I've loaded 40 databases, more or less, and each one presents a different problem."
Implementing a computer-assisted reporting program is not cheap, and financial support from the publication is essential.
"We were able to wrangle about $12,000 for equipment when we started," said Landau. "The biggest investment was my salary, letting me do this full time."
Landau said that they were able to sell the idea to the Post's management as a "secret weapon" to gain a competitive edge over the now-defunct St. Louis Sun. Most agree that to ensure success, a program should include more than one reporter. In-house training of reporters is essential to computer-assisted reporting. "This should be a routine tool in the newsroom used by a wide range of reporters," Stith said. "This is exactly where we want to go."
Stith has gone a long way to train his colleagues at the News and Observer and familiarize them with the technology, holding classes for reporters, editors and news researchers. "The class was successful in destroying the mystery of the computer. That's progress. You can't teach people computer-assisted reporting in 20 hours. It requires a lot of practice." Stith said that about 15 reporters have produced one or more computer-assisted stories for the News and Observer in the last year. However, he said, "We don't have a situation where those reporters can do all their own work independent of anyone else." It is important that computers be used for a broad spectrum of stories, Stith said. "We've used databases in reporting business stories and features," he said. "If we can get a database, load it in and crank out the data, why not use it for features?" The Courant's Houston said being able to "crank" out the data is vital to a program. "The challenge now is to continue to integrate it into the newsroom—without creating a lot of bottlenecks," Houston said. "We have to figure out how to make it more accessible to people on the fly." Although Landau said he has been doing most of the Post's data analysis by himself, "I would like every reporter to be able to do their own analysis when they need to. They would need training and periodic refreshers." Houston said it is vital to have more than one person possessing the skills. "You need a couple of people who are up on things," he said. "Otherwise, if you're sick or go on vacation, everything comes to a grinding halt."