More than a dozen journalists from the U.S. and abroad will spend a week at FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication learning advanced reporting techniques to help them produce better stories.
     The “Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp,” co-sponsored by the SJMC and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), runs Dec. 11-15. NICAR is a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism.
     Participants will learn how to use high-level computer software to analyze mountains of data and find the stories within. One recent story done by journalists at the Sarasota Tribune using computer-assisted reporting showed that bad ballot design may be responsible for 18,000 “missing” votes in a recent congressional contest.
     “We welcome IRE and NICAR to the SJMC and are more than pleased they chose our facility for the boot camp,” said Fred Blevens, associate dean at the up-and-coming school recently called “best qualified school in the nation for teaching bilingual and Spanish-language journalism” by a leading trade publication.
     “Neil Reisner’s work to establish this partnership is a milestone for our school,” Blevens said. “As a seasoned journalist and CAR trainer for many years, Professor Reisner knows the value of investigative journalism and the important role that computer-assisted reporting plays in the press’ watchdog function.”
     The SJMC currently has about 2,000 students, about half of whom study journalism. More than two-thirds of the student body is Hispanic.
     IRE, a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting, leads training seminars around the world. Computer-Assisted Reporting boot camps typically take place at the organization’s headquarters at the University of Missouri. FIU is the first site to host a boot camp outside of Missouri.
     “We want to thank FIU for inviting us to their campus and for initiating this collaboration. This allows us expand our program to a region that produces some of the best journalism in the U.S. and is also convenient to Latin and South American journalists,” said Brant Houston, who is executive director of IRE and NICAR. “Miami’s winter weather doesn’t hurt, either.”
     CAR enables journalists to pore through millions of records, usually from official sources, to find out whether government is functioning the way it should.
     Other recent stories using CAR techniques showed that one out of 10 fire hydrants in the Seattle area malfunction when firefighters try to use them; that high-quality cardiac care tends to be most available in wealthy counties nationwide; and that minorities in South Florida are denied mortgage loans more often than whites even when their income levels are about the same.
     Boot camp participants include journalists from throughout Florida, as well as Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina and Chile.