-
My name is Dan Nguyen and I'm a journalist, programmer and photographer.
Follow me on Twitter: @dancow
Read my guide to programming: The Bastards Book of Ruby.
Tag Archives: journalism
John Sullivan, 48. A notable non-notable obituary in the New York Times
One of my favorite assignments as a metro newspaper reporter was the occasional obituary. Not so much the ones about people whose lives (or deaths) were notable in a news sense (such as a local prominent politician, or a murder… Continue reading
Discussion
Leave a comment
Category thoughts
Tags John Sullivan, journalism, new york times, obituary
NICAR 2011 wrapup
Just came back from an inspiring week at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting in Raleigh, NC. Of all the journalism conferences I’ve been to, this one had the most to learn from and the most attendees excited to learn.… Continue reading
dataist blog: An inspiring case for journalists learning to code
About a year ago I threw up a long, rambling guide hoping to teach non-programming journalists some practical code. Looking back at it, it seems inadequate. Actually, I misspoke, I haven’t looked back at it because I’m sure I’ll just… Continue reading
Discussion
4 Comments
Category thoughts, works
Tags coding, Dollars for Docs, journalism, programming, propublica, Python, ruby, tutorial
Pultizer Prize at ProPublica
It’s been a huge last few days for ProPublica. My colleagues Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein unveiled the result of 7+ months of reporting, a much anticipated collaboration with “This American Life” on how the hedge fund Magnetar Capital helped… Continue reading
Coding for Journalists 101 : A four-part series
Update, January 2012: Everything…yes, everything, is superseded by my free online book, The Bastards Book of Ruby, which is a much more complete walkthrough of basic programming principles with far more practical and up-to-date examples and projects than what you’ll… Continue reading
Discussion
23 Comments
Category works
Tags coding, journalism, pfizer, programming, ruby, tutorial, web scraping
Coding for Journalists 104: Pfizer’s Doctor Payments; Making a Better List
Update (12/30): So about an eon later, I’ve updated this by writing a guide for ProPublica. Heed that one. This one will remain in its obsolete state. Update (4/28): Replaced the code and result files. Still haven’t written out a… Continue reading
Coding for Journalists 103: Who’s been in jail before: Cross-checking the jail log with the court system; Use Ruby’s mechanize to fill out a form
This is part of a four-part series on web-scraping for journalists. As of Apr. 5, 2010, it was a published a bit incomplete because I wanted to post a timely solution to the recent Pfizer doctor payments list release, but… Continue reading
Discussion
4 Comments
Category works
Tags coding, courts, journalism, mechanize, programming, ruby, tutorial
Coding for Journalists 101: Go from knowing nothing to scraping Web pages. In an hour. Hopefully.
UPDATE (12/1/2011): Ever since writing this guide, I’ve wanted to put together a site that is focused both on teaching the basics of programming and showing examples of practical code. I finally got around to making it: The Bastards Book… Continue reading
Discussion
18 Comments
Category works
Tags html, journalism, programming, ruby, tutorial, web scraping
Day of the Tiger: How Newspapers, Networks, and News Aggregators Played Tiger Woods on Friday
On Friday, golfer Tiger Woods held a TV appearance to talk about life after marital problems. At around 2:30 p.m., I screen capped some of the websites for some of the largest news organizations and aggregators. Today, I looked at the screen-caps, cropped them to the top 1600 pixels, and marked in green the areas of the pages devoted to Woods coverage (or related coverage, such as “Slideshow: Top 10 Adultery Confessions).
Even three hours after what was generally considered a highly-scripted 10 minutes of non-revelations (the Golf Writers Association of America boycotted it), Woods pretty much dominated the most visible spaces on general news websites. Of the major American news organizations, CNN probably had the most real estate devoted to Tiger; New York Times, the least. Both Drudge Report and Huffington Post had Woods as the lede. Asian publications (the few that I could read) gave little space.
Among social/computerized news aggregators, Google News gave Woods front placement…unsurprising considering its algorithm is driven by what news organizations have. Neither Reddit and Digg had any mention of it in their news sub-sections. This may be a little unfair, as these sites’ users may be me more strict in keeping all sports-related news strictly in their sports subsections. But I did check their frontpages (which are the top stories from all the major sections) and Tiger didn’t make an appearance.
Continue reading