Bits & Bytes — Uplink Archive

The IRE and NICAR Data Library assisted multiple broadcast news stations in analyzing various datasets, including crime rates on college campuses, felon hunting licenses, poverty rates, and sex offender locations, resulting in significant policy changes and public safety improvements.

Bits & Bytes

Data Analysis

The IRE and NICAR Data Library recently analyzed data for several high-impact broadcast news reports.

For ABC News' Primetime, data analysts used SPSS to calculate violent crime rates on college campuses across the nation. The analysis found smaller institutions often had higher crime rates than larger institutions.

For KUTV-Salt Lake City, analysts compared felon databases against hunter licenses databases and found 7,000 felons had hunting licenses. After the report, the state confiscated 76 tags and changed the hunting license applications.

For WSB-Atlanta, analysts used U.S. Census data and ArcView geographic information system (GIS) software to map poverty rates and found that, in one area, three of every four residents lived below the poverty line.

Analysts mapped sex offenders' residences and public school bus stops, finding that at least 140 sex offenders lived within 500 feet of a school bus stop for WLEX-Lexington. At one bus stop, there were six offenders within 500 feet. After the program aired, the school moved the bus stop.

Analysts mapped sex offenders for WOOD-Grand Rapids by location and helped the station identify clusters in places, such as homeless shelters.

For information about how the Database Library can assist your reporting project, contact Jeff Porter at 573-882-1982 or jeff@ire.org.