SLA News Division CE Day

Being a team player

in your newsroom’s

technology “brain trust”

Target: spreadsheets

By Debbie Wolfe

Technology Training Editor, St. Petersburg Times

Session outline:

2 projects by beat reporters

1 project for the entire newsroom

handout give-a-ways

Q & A

• course or seminar designers

• lead trainers --

“how to” from scratch

• support trainers --

“ready reference” Excel answers

• writers and designers of intranet

technology training modules

News librarians and researchers can be involved as:

Reporter project #1 starting simple and small

Situation:

Two portable classrooms that are supposed to be identical

What an Excel analysis showed:

Significant differences

The totals just didn’t add up the same for both classrooms

simple sort for portable 1

simple sort for portable 2

Simple sort step-by-step

1. ACTIVE CELL in the data area

Simple sort step-by-step

2. on the menu bar, click on “Data”

Simple sort step-by-step

3. Choose “Sort”

on the

drop-down

menu and

this box

appears:

Simple sort step-by-step

4. choose the

column

you wish to

“Sort by”

Simple sort step-by-step

5. and the order

in which you

want the

sort to appear

Simple sort step-by-step

6. then, click

the “OK”

button

Simple sort step-by-step

7. the results:

subtotal… step by step

1. active cell in

data area

2. menu bar: “Data”

3. drop-down menu:

“Subtotal”

subtotal… step by step

4. choose the column (field) you selected as your primary sort

5. pick a function -- usually “sum” or “count”

6. place checkmarks where you want answers to appear

7. click “OK” button

click on “2” for collapsed view

full

view

(“3”)

Thousands of dollars worth of construction

supplies … purchased to help create a campus

for troubled kids … were … used by

Withlacoochee Technical Institute on two

unrelated construction projects without the

knowledge of school Superintendent Pete Kelly

or his facilities director, Bill Humbaugh.

from the reporter’s lead:

Until the Times questioned the supply purchases,

Kelly and Humbaugh did not know WTI had used

some of the materials to construct scaffolding for

a scallop-growing platform and to build a staging

area at WTI's off-campus shooting range, where

area law enforcement officers will practice picking

off snipers.

and, just a bit more

from the reporter’s lead:

Reporter project #2 city budget

mission:• spend about an hour doing data entry

• reduce 266 pages to less than 50 lines (rows) and a dozen or so columns

• compare expenditures over 3 years

• look for patterns you might not otherwise be able to see

Situation:

2000-2001 proposed DRAFT data

What an Excel analysis can show:

1. patterns in the same year2. patterns between years

patterns in the same year =

percent of total

piece of pie

divided by

the whole pie

percent of total

recipe:

=B4/$B$40

Answer: 15.13%

The double check for percent of total? … All the pieces add up to a whole pie or 100%

analysis tip:

Shade the “top 10” (and “bottom 10”) for each year … as you change the sort order, you can easily see the rankings

patterns between years =

percent change

orangeorange = top 10 yellowyellow = bottom 10

new

minus old

divided by old

percent change

recipe:

=(new-old)/oldformat decimalsas percents: order

sort

autosum =SUM(B2:B38)

answer

• simple sort

• subtotals

• percent of total

• percent change

• autosum

Review of skills

Low-cost and low-commitment technology IDEA

Use PowerPoint to create self-paced tip sheets so journalists can easily use Excel to analyze budgets and other beat-related public records

Use this presentation as a starting point!

Print it. Post in on your intranet. Use it as a model.

Add your value

to the technology expertise

in your newsroom...

when the newsroom thinks of “value added” …

have them think of YOU!

more handouts for more ideas...

(1) Excel skills checklist -- Levels I & II

(2) Ten questions editors should ask reporters ** when stories are based in whole or in part on the use of technology and/or electronic public records…an editing conversation starter

Which newsroom team will you be a member of?

“brain drain”

or

“brain trust?”

News librarians and researchers should be involved as:

AND/OR

AND/OR

• course or seminar designers

AND/OR

• lead trainers --

“how to” from scratch

• support trainers --

“ready reference” Excel answers

• writers and designers

of intranet

technology training modules

NumeracySee the special math handout

Creating the

ideal math class for journalists

in your newsroom

featuring tips on ...

the cornerstone of all technology use --

Acrobat Reader

linked

“Math and Statistics

Toolbox Recipe Cards

for Journalists”by Debbie Wolfe, Technology Training Editor

St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Florida

free for the asking… the starter set of:

intranet and/or Internet ready