We've got plans for you
By Brant Houston NICAR managing director
It's the time to accelerate again at NICAR. Over the coming months, we will start a series of new efforts and expand on the many already underway. Here's a partial list. We will:
Increase Uplink from 12 to 16 pages in order to accommodate the interests and requests of its readers. We will include "a handout of the month" feature, bring you more news of programs at NICAR, Investigative Reporters & Editors and the Missouri School of Journalism, and expand our coverage of CAR in broadcast and print and at universities. Add an intermediate level seminar (coming this January) on data cleaning, good database design, and advanced data analysis. Add a seminar in the spring on creating searchable databases on the Web. Become a broader repository for common and often used data, particularly state and local campaign data. Continue our programs to make CAR available to minority journalists by offering fellowships and working with the journalism school's Multicultural Management Program. We are giving three regional seminars for minority journalists in the next few months, one in Richmond, one in Dallas, and one in San Francisco. Offer management seminars for broadcast and print journalists on how to bring and keep a good CAR program at their news organizations. Continue our basic Bootcamps. Our January Bootcamp is full, and our May Bootcamp is filling fast. We'll have two more in the summer. Give an expanded national conference in Nashville in March. This national conference, dubbed NashCAR, will not only cover the usual computer-assisted reporting panels and training, but also will have advanced classes in mapping, statistics, programming, Web development, and Lotus Notes. Develop more joint programs with other universities. We already work with Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Maryland and Columbia University. Continue our on-the-road programs to better help small- to medium-size news organizations, but also add on-line tutorials as follow-up training.
Brant Houston can be reached at (573) 882-0684, or send e-mail to brant@nicar.org