{
  "id": "2006-july-august-bits-and-bytes",
  "slug": "2006-july-august-bits-and-bytes",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2006-july-august-bits-and-bytes.html",
  "year": 2006,
  "month": "July-August",
  "monthNum": 7,
  "headline": "Bits & Bytes",
  "kicker": "",
  "author_name": "",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "",
  "summary": "Over 800 journalism professionals attended IRE's 30th annual conference in Fort Worth featuring 130+ panels on reporting and data analysis, including specialized computer-assisted reporting workshops. The IRE and NICAR Database Library also updated its Federal Contracts database to provide more timely access to information about contracts between federal agencies and contractors.",
  "keywords": [
    "conference",
    "journalism",
    "data"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Journalism & Newsroom",
    "Data & Databases",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Excel",
    "Access",
    "CrimeStat"
  ],
  "full_text": "More than 800 journalists, educators and students attended the 30th Annual IRE Conference, June 15-18 in Fort Worth, Texas.\n\nThe conference offered more than 130 panels and workshops on covering beats, writing, editing, producing and hands-on classes in data analysis.\n\nAbout 300 people showed up for Thursday's optional CAR day, which included panels on issues as far-ranging as introducing newsroom intranets and diagnosing medical and care data.\n\nThe conference also featured two rooms exclusively geared towards CAR: a hands-on room teaching the basics of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Access database manager, and a demo room where journalists showed off some of the newest and most advanced technology with presentations on CrimeStat, satellite imagery, Web scraping, social network analysis and more.\n\nFederal Contracts Update\n\nThe IRE and NICAR Database Library recently updated its Federal Contracts database, making the latest additions available to journalists faster.\n\nThe database contains data about contracts between about 70 federal agencies and thousands of contractors. Those contractors include large corporations, local businesses, universities, nonprofits, and local, state and foreign governments. The database lists – among other things – the agency and office, the amount of money, date, contractor, purpose of the contract and where the work is performed.\n\nJournalists can use the data to examine the local economic impact of a federal project. Combine it with campaign finance information to look into the relationships between the government awarding the contract and the contractor who earns the business.\n\nPreviously, the data was updated annually, but for the first time, the Database Library is making new data available as soon as the agency's contractor releases updates.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2006-september-october-federal-contracts",
      "score": 0.366
    },
    {
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      "score": 0.313
    },
    {
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      "score": 0.277
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    {
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      "score": 0.266
    },
    {
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      "score": 0.261
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2006-july-august-bits-and-bytes.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2006-july-august-bits-and-bytes.json"
}