{
  "id": "2002-march-april-students-reveal-gifts-to-legislators",
  "slug": "2002-march-april-students-reveal-gifts-to-legislators",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-students-reveal-gifts-to-legislators.html",
  "year": 2002,
  "month": "March-April",
  "monthNum": 3,
  "headline": "Students reveal gifts to legislators",
  "kicker": "CAMPAIGN FINANCE",
  "author_name": "Jeff C. South",
  "author_title": "Professor",
  "affiliation": "Virginia Commonwealth University",
  "summary": "VCU journalism students built a database of gifts given to Virginia legislators, highlighting expensive trips and potential conflicts of interest.",
  "keywords": [
    "ethics",
    "legislature",
    "gifts"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Data & Databases",
    "Government & Politics",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Excel"
  ],
  "full_text": "My Legislative Reporting students at Virginia Commonwealth University created and analyzed a relatively small database: a list of all gifts received last year by state legislators, the governor and other top officials. The dataset contained fewer than 1,000 records, totaling about $185,000 in gifts, taken from the conflict-of-interest forms. We highlighted the biggest gifts - including trips to hunt caribou in the Arctic Circle and quail in Georgia. Many gifts have a cachet that campaign donations don't. Access is the goal of most big gifts and campaign contributions. Constituents may view certain gifts more suspiciously than campaign contributions. The class entered the Schedule E information into a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel. We then analyzed the data with Excel's PivotTable Report feature. This allowed us to see how much each donor had given in gifts and how much each lawmaker had received. One student decided to write about gifts given to Gov. Jim Gilmore, who reported 337 gifts worth almost $55,500.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2001-julyaugust-legislator-gifts",
      "score": 0.497
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-september-out-to-the-ball-game",
      "score": 0.475
    },
    {
      "slug": "2004-september-october-lobbyist-data-rich-with-trips-food-gifts",
      "score": 0.373
    },
    {
      "slug": "2001-julyaugust-money-and-politics",
      "score": 0.183
    },
    {
      "slug": "2003-julyaugust-learning-lessons-while-tracing-pols-spending",
      "score": 0.148
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-students-reveal-gifts-to-legislators.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-students-reveal-gifts-to-legislators.json"
}