CAR Boot Camp helps reporter tell stories with raw data

In this column, Gregg Hennigan of The (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) Gazette details how he used Computer-Assisted Reporting to turn raw data on public money distributed to Iowa communities into a story. He learned that 79 percent of the $395 million in statewide disaster funds went to Cedar Rapids and the University of Iowa.

I was warned prior to IRE and NICAR’s CAR Boot Camp that many attendees leave feeling overwhelmed.

And at the end of the five-day class in Minneapolis in early October, I felt … overwhelmed.

But with my employer, The Gazette newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, having spent a decent amount of money sending me to the camp, I was not in a position to return home and not produce.

More here.