spreadsheets.qmd

---
title: "Spreadsheets in journalism"
---

[Cronkite data journalism textbook](https://cronkitedata.github.io/djtextbook/)


## Preparation: 

* Go through the [Excel refresher chapter](https://cronkitedata.github.io/djtextbook/xl-refresher.html) in my data journalism textbook


## In class

* One of the most important elements of working with data in news is to *interview* it like a source. We'll discuss how to go about that in class, following along with this old piece from Derek Willis: "[Take an interviewing approach to find stories in data](https://mediashift.org/2014/07/take-an-interviewing-approach-to-find-stories-in-data/)"


* Day 1: We'll go through [filtering](https://cronkitedata.github.io/djtextbook/xl-filter-sort.html) and [pivot tables](https://cronkitedata.github.io/djtextbook/xl-pivot.html) using data from the Washington Post's police shooting data. 

* Day 2:  We'll walk through how to do math on spreadsheets using the [Excel Formulas](https://cronkitedata.github.io/djtextbook/xl-formulas.html) exercise on a budget. 

## Homework

Your homework is shown in Canvas. It consists of two parts: 

1. A dataset of animals impounded by the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control department. This will be used for filtering and pivot tables. 

2. A story and dataset of Census population estimates for cities and towns in Georgia. You will replicate some of the sentences from that story. I'll get you started on this with a strategy during class.