Computer-driven stories and the numbers they produce challenge radio reporters.
"You can't just box or graph a bunch of numbers," said Andrew Caffrey, managing editor at WBUR radio in Boston. "You have to translate it into English as if you were telling a story."
National Public Radio's Peter Overby agreed. He said it is hard to work numbers into a radio piece. To make matters worse, there usually is not time for in-depth stories.
Yet Caffrey and Overby have found CAR to be a valuable skill for radio reporters.
"I mostly use it for quick and dirty type of stuff, like the percent of campaign contributions that came from PACs," said Overby, who is on NPR's money, power and influence beat.
When Phil Gramm announced his candidacy for president, Overby looked at who had supported Gramm over the years.
He gathered information on the senator's fund raising between 1989 and 1995 and organized it in a spreadsheet. Only the grand total, $133.9 million was used on the radio.
"What I usually do," Overby said, "is analyze the numbers and talk about the trends. Most of what I do is working with Excel on my spreadsheets."
In other instances, he used spreadsheets to:
Track the big swing in PAC money from House Democrats to House Republicans in early 1995. Tally the fund raising by the two parties and by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich after he and President Clinton agreed to establish a blue ribbon commission on campaign finance reform. Do a deadline count of donations to Senator Bob Packwood's campaign and legal defense fund by one PAC.
Story anchors
Caffrey, who uses spreadsheets more than database managers, said CAR helps him track and look at numbers. "I use spreadsheets like a large calculator," he said.
When he was a reporter at WBUR, Caffrey did several CAR projects. He used spreadsheets to look at the 351 towns in Massachusetts. Caffrey said it is hard to compare towns, but with a spreadsheet, it was easy to analyze tax bases and water rates. His station has also analyzed lottery sales and revenue.
"Good computer work gives you an anchor for your story," Caffrey said. "It finds things you wouldn't ordinarily see. It sharpened my critical thinking."
He said CAR allowed him to go after stories he couldn't go after before. He repeatedly asked himself, "What more could I do with these numbers?"
It doesn't have to be difficult or time-consuming.
Making connections
While looking at lobbyist's contributions to state representatives, Caffrey noticed that one lobbyist, Tom Joyce, had made several large contributions. Caffrey sorted them by date and found they were all on June 7.
"What's so important about this day?" he asked himself.
Caffrey looked at the legislative activity on that day and a few days before and after.
What he found made for a strong lead into his story:
"Last June, on the eve of a landmark vote to reform the role of money in politics, a select group of Massachusetts lawmakers got a tantalizing last taste of what they were about to give up.
"On June 7, lobbyist Tom Joyce donated $13,300 to 21 legislators.
"And the very next day, those lawmakers joined their colleagues in passing the nation's most restrictive campaign finance law," Caffrey wrote.
Joyce gave more money in one day than the new law allowed him to give in an entire year.
"It was an easy little thing," Caffrey said of the analysis. "It gave the story a nice pop."
Caffrey uses Excel 5.0 and FoxPro 2.6 on an 486 PC with a couple hundred meg hard drive. His PC is run off a server. He downloads some of his data from state government bulletin boards and has even resorted to typing it in himself in the past.
Overby runs Excel on an IBM PC with a 75 mhz Pentium processor. He gets much of his data from his FEC on-line account.
The Center for Responsive Politics has released a new analysis of soft money contributions made to the national parties in 1995. The release and three-page report are available on disk or as a printout from the center by calling (202) 857-0044. Or, if you have questions, send e-mail to Research Director Josh Goldstein at jgoldstein@crp.org.
Glaston Ford can be reached at (573) 882-0684, or send e-mail to glaston@nicar.org