Tag Archives: tutorial

dataist blog: An inspiring case for journalists learning to code

February 16, 2011

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 →

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Pfizer Data Redux

April 28, 2010

Updated the code and results to my guide on how to scraper Pfizer’s list of payments to doctors. It now contains a more normalized file that has a line for every doctor and payment. The aggregate totals changed marginally.

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Coding for Journalists 101 : A four-part series

April 6, 2010

Update, January 2012: Everything…yes, everything, is superseded by my free online book, The Bastards Book of Ruby, which is a much more complete walkthrough of basic programming principles with far more practical and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 →

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Coding for Journalists 104: Pfizer’s Doctor Payments; Making a Better List

April 6, 2010

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 →

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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

April 6, 2010

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 →

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Coding for Journalists 102: Who’s in Jail Now: Collecting info from a county jail site

April 6, 2010

This is part 2 of a 4-part series in introductory coding for journalists. Go here for the first lesson. This lesson and code will still be verbose, but will have a lot less hand-holding than the previous one.

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Coding for Journalists 101: Go from knowing nothing to scraping Web pages. In an hour. Hopefully.

April 6, 2010

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 →

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