Data Journalism Backup Site

Here is my optional tagline

Day 4 Class

by | Aug 31, 2017 | Excel

 Numbers in the Newsroom

Sarah Cohen, Math Diva

Sarah Cohen’s “Numbers in the Newsroom” is a classic in journalism numeracy. She is a Pulitzer-winning journalist at The Washington Post, a former Duke University professor and now a data journalist at The New York Times.

That’s why we read her book.

* Limit yourself to 8- 12 digits, including dates such as 2012, in a single paragraph.
–This allows us to stress the most important numbers
–Simplify using rates, rations or percentages. “One in four” = ratio or rate. “Forty percent” = ratio or rate. 235 deaths per 100,000 is another.

*Memorize some common numbers on your beat: Population of Fayetteville. Population of Arkansas. Population of the U.S. Per capita income Arkansas and U.S.

*Round off! Unless you’re dealing with really small numbers, decimal points may not be meaningful. “I’m a big fan of rounding,” Cohen said.

* To make a very small number more understandable, divide it into 1. For example, .0081 is the proportion of the U.S. population who die every year. 1/.0081 translates to 1 in every 124 Americans die each year.
* If you have a story filled with numbers – and not people — it needs to be really, really short.

* Portion of whole – For example, at the time of the Million Man March in 1995, a turnout of 1 million black men would have represented 1/12th of all the black men in the country at the time.

 

Relative Risk

“Black applicants are denied mortgages at twice the rate of whites with similar incomes.”

If 20 smokers per thousand contract cancer, and yet non-smokers have a cancer rate of only 10 per thousand, the relative risk of smoking is 2.

“More than” or “less than” = compute difference between the smokers, an extra step

Example:  Relative Risk

 Figuring Rates – Numbers in Newsroom MathCrib-Doig

Exercise 4: Rates and Ratios

Exercise4

Data

transit

 

Free Technology Consulting

Tune Up: Excel Basics

https://wordpressua.uark.edu/datareporting/excel-basics/

 

Review UrbanPop and Exercise 1 for Quiz

 Urbanpop – Change population to Actual Figures.


1) New Tab, Rename as Data2


2) Copy / Paste Data


3) Delete All Numbers
—Search to bottom and far right of data file – paste . at bottom and after last column


4) Create formula to link back to data using cell references  =(DATA!D2*1000)
4a) On Tab Data2, Cell D2, Begin a Formula: =(
4b)  Click on Data Tab, Click on Cell d2
4c) In Formula Bar: *1000) and Enter
Excel will return you to the Data2 Tab with this result: 82,468 for Herat in 1950. 


5) Copy that formula on entire sheet. You should have 2,048,423 for Harare in 2030


6) Copy all of the numbers. Paste Special. Values. Format as Number.


You are done!

 

Quiz Due Sunday 11:59 pm
This is an open-book quiz on Excel. working with others is fine but please submit your own work. The quiz is due 11:59 pm Sunday, Sept.  3.
This quiz is designed to assess your proficiency with Excel. You will be graded on your ability to create percentage change formulas, to sort data, correctly format a spreadsheet and to discern patterns.
The quiz is based on Exercise 1, Analyzing population change.
Use the UrbanPop data set.
Answer the following questions in complete sentences, following AP style. Upload your completed spreadsheet into the blog post.
1) Which urban areas (agglomeration) was the largest in 1950?
2) Which urban area is expected to be the largest in 2030?
3) Which had greatest rate of change between 1950-2015?
4) How many urban areas expected to lose population from 2010 to 2030? Which one is expected to lose the most?
5) Which United States urban area is expected to have the largest percent increase from 2015 to 2030? Which one has the smallest increase or the greatest decline in population?