Post praises 'ambassadors'

The Washington Post hosted a five-day computer-assisted reporting seminar led by Post experts and NICAR trainers, aiming to make CAR a routine practice in the newsroom. Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. called the participating journalists "ambassadors to the newsroom" who would lead the way in spreading CAR skills throughout the organization.

"Ambassadors to the newsroom" is what Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. called the journalists at the NICAR seminar at the Post this spring. In a brief talk with the 10 seminar participants, Downie said he expected them to take their new knowledge back to the newsroom and lead the way on computer-assisted reporting. Downie said he wanted computer-assisted reporting to become a routine occurrence in the Post newsroom, saying that it could be used for deadline stories, on-the-beat stories and projects. The Post invited NICAR to teach three days of a five-day seminar put together by Post CAR experts and trainers. William Casey, who heads CAR at the Post, led the first day of training on the Internet and spreadsheets. NICAR trainers then appeared on the second day and spent three days on spreadsheets, database managers, data acquisition and data cleaning. On the fifth day, Casey finished the seminar.

Casey said the training journalists received before NICAR's arrival made the seminar extremely productive. Trainers at the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and Newsday have also found that kind of preparation helpful.

Diane Weeks, manager of computer training for the newsroom, said the seminar worked "really well" and plans are underway for Post trainers to spread the CAR word further.