Save the date: March 15th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Pacific Time. The Big Local News team will host its virtual open office Hours to assist reporters with data-related tasks.

Whether you’re a newcomer to working with data or an experienced data journalist, join our Zoom Meeting to get advice on tasks such as drafting public record requests, finding data, or cleaning, processing, and analyzing data. Also feel free to stop by just to catch up on all things Big Local News or discuss possible collaborations. Feel free to submit your questions in advance through our survey.

About our team:

At Big Local News, we contribute a diverse set of skills to advance accountability in local journalism. We specialize in data collection through public records requests and web scraping, creating data processing workflows, and conducting data analysis, we aim to strengthen local journalism.

Our team is involved in The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship, providing mentorship, training, and support to fellows in handling data tasks for each investigation, such as the story of the bribery scandals in Hawaii and how the system is still broken, or the abuses of a Mississippi Sheriff’s Department and the lockdowns in a Wisconsin prison.

As part of the California Reporting Project, we played a role in reporting on the involvement of the Bakersfield Police Department in 31 bone fractures over four years and their challenges in handling mental health crises.

In 2021, our collaboration with The New York Times and Ed Source involved collecting public school enrollment data from 70,000 schools nationwide. In 2023, we expanded our education project in partnership with The Associated Press and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, analyzing private and homeschool enrollment data, and explaining the drop in K-12 public school enrollment. These datasets and story recipes are available for reporters interested in exploring local school enrollment trends.

For additional questions, please email [email protected], and don’t forget to sign up for the virtual office hours on March 15th!

About Big Local News

From its base at Stanford University, Big Local News gathers data, builds tools and collaborates with reporters to produce journalism that makes an impact. Its website at biglocalnews.org offers a free archiving service for journalists to store and share data. Learn more by visiting our about page.