How to Automate Data-Driven Stories

Do you write the same story each week? Is it based off a data source (think weather alerts, unemployment data, real estate listings)? Then it might be a good story to template and automate. Learn how in this training by Jessica Davis and Kim Bui. 


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IMPACT Tracker 201

You’re tracking impact, now what? Anjanette Delgado of Detroit Free Press leads an exercise in system mapping. Adam Neal of TCPalm. and John Deidrich of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel share examples of successful investigations from 2022 and examine what led to change.


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The Business of Covering Food and Restaurants


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Covering Natural Disasters: Preparedness Training

There are multiple resources journalists can prepare ahead of a natural disaster. Data + Journalism author and trainer Mike Reilley of University of Illinois-Chicago walks USA TODAY Network journalists through tools you may not have considered using.


More training on Planning:

How to Find and Plan Trending Stories

Cincinnati’s News of NOW team walks through the process and tools they use in this session on trending stories.


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About ChatGPT and DALL-E

What to know about Generative AI and Automation featuring Senior Director Jessica Davis @jessicadavis of USA TODAY Network.


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Focus on Your Writing: Writing With Data by Mike Reilley

Writing with numbers isn’t easy. The best data-driven stories don’t read like data stories. They focus on the humans, those impacted by the data and the issues. 


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PowerPoint 05 – Promote Your Story

Learn ways to use PowerPoint to promote and drive more interest in your stories. PowerPoint can help you do that with memes, video and more.


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PowerPoint 04 -Tell Your Story

Learn from Microsoft master trainer Bill Monroe how an effective PowerPoint helps tell your story. This is the fourth session in a five-part series on PowerPoint.


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PowerPoint 03 – Adding Video, Audio and More

Improve your deck with video, audio, data and animations with instruction from Microsoft trainer Bill Monroe. This is the third in our series on learning PowerPoint.


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Be the Beat: How to do CPR*

Tips with videos of CPR dos and don’ts from the American Heart Association with rich data and insights on women’s cardiovascular health *not a certification class.

Access the Be the Beat playlist on Spotify  


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PowerPoint 02: How to Use Shapes and Transitions to See the Story


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Google Earth Studio

Learn about Google Earth Studio, Google Earth Pro, Google Earth Timelapse and Earth Measure Tool with training by author and data journalism expert Mike Reilley.


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PowerPoint 01 – Storytelling with PowerPoint

Learn how to create a slide deck from a template and add basic content, speaker notes and launch your slideshow with Microsoft master trainer Bill Monroe.


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Business tools and investigating companies


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Investigating Nonprofits

Learn how to read a Form 990 and where/how to go about obtaining these documents to track how money flows through non-profit organizations. We’ll also look at other tools for researching charities and also government agencies that investigate them. 


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Microsoft Excel 02 – Fill it out

Adding data to Excel is how you start building a spreadsheet. In this session, we’ll explore how Excel helps you add data in a flash. We’ll explore new data types that pull information from the internet and help you spot the important stuff at a glance: Conditional Formatting; Auto Fill; Flash Fill; Geography and Stock Data Types; Leveraging Tables for Expanding Data Sets  

Keyboard shortcuts in Excel: Here’s the link


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