The good folks from TRAC just
keep on keepin' on.  Once again David Burnham and Susan B. Long
are out in front on the effort to demand that the people's data be made
available to the people.  So comes this from TRAC today:



“The
IRS is illegally withholding information about its operations, claiming
that the public release of some of it would compromise homeland
security. Details of the agency's actions are laid out in the lawsuit
against the IRS filed on April 14 under the Freedom of Information Act.
The lawsuit, brought for TRAC's co-directors David Burnham and Susan B.
Long by Scott Nelson of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, is part of
an ongoing effort to provide the American people with information they
need to judge how the IRS is carrying out its important
responsibilities. The agency's current policy of refusing to make
public routine statistical information and how it is collected reverses
a thirty-year period of relative openness. To see a press release about
the filing, the actual complaint and a short discussion of the dangers
posed by IRS secrecy, go to”:

    http://trac.syr.edu/foia  

A while ago we participated in an on-line project to test the small world hypothesis — the idea that people are connected by only six degrees of separation.



Some of the results from that project have been published in the journal Science.  You can download a copy of the results here, http://smallworld.columbia.edu/results.html and also examine the methodology.



This study has some interesting implications, not just about “social connectedness” but how one can use the internet and, Gasp!, “self-selecting respondents” to do what seems to be valid social science research, at least of a specific sort.

WHAT: Math for Journalists, a new and interactive online course and reference tool

WHO:
Written by Debbie Wolfe, technology training editor, St. Petersburg
Times; designed by Casey Frechette, Poynter NewsU course administrator
and Flash wizard

WHEN: Available beginning today, Mon., April 11, 2005 at 9 a.m. EDT (US)

WHERE: It's available where you are and when you need it. Just log onto the Web even if you only have a 56K dial-up modem.

HOW:
FREE thanks to the Poynter Institute and the Knight Foundation; just
spend a few moments registering at Poynter's NewsU Web site at http://www.newsu.org

WHY:
Because many journalists need an easy to understand, available 24/7 and
free resource to turn to for self-help with math. The content of the
course is the collective wisdom of plenty of gifted math types written
by one who is not, so it's the best of both worlds. Enjoy!



Background about the Math for Journalists course:

    
For the past 30 years, one of my professional goals has been to make
routine math more routine for myself and other journalists. So, with
this goal in mind, the NewsU staff at Poynter has helped me create an
online and very interactive Math for Journalists course.

    
Today just also happens to be the formal launch day for NewsU,
Poynter's online university for journalists. You'll learn more about
NewsU from official messages sent out to the industry by Poynter.

    
In the Math for Journalists course, there are six theme areas packed
with step-by-step formulas (I like to think of these as recipes),
recipes for double checking your work, pop-up screens with common
English tips, story examples, public records data examples and skill
drills. And, by the way, the drills have plenty of skill levels to
choose from so everyone will be challenged.

     The entire course has been written and designed to be used in the following ways:

1. LINEAR – Start from the beginning and work your way through

2. TOPICAL – Choose the order that makes the most sense to you

3.
DEADLINE – Go right to the topic you need at that moment in time. The
formulas and examples are right there without any fluff.

     Here's an outline of what's included in the initial launch:

1. REFRESHERS, includes terms and syntax; order of operations; and, fractions

2. BACKGROUNDERS, includes warm-up exercises; Web resources; and, math helpers

3. PERCENTS OF ALL KINDS, including percent change; percent of total; and, percentage point vs. percent

4. AVERAGES AND MORE, including mean; median; and, mode

5. NUMBER RELATIONSHIPS, including ratio; rank; and, rates with a special section on millage rates

6. ADVANCED TOPICS, including cost of living; weighted averaging; and, estimating the size of a crowd



    
Take the course for a spin in whole or in part, then let me know what
you think. As I hear about suggestions, additions will be made. “Just
in time” newsroom math help and reference 24/7. Free. Forever. Now, is
this cool or what?!



Cheers!

Debbie Wolfe

Technology Training Editor

St. Petersburg Times

800-333-7505, ext. 2919

727-892-2919

Preferred e-mail: dpwolfe@peoplepc.com

Also, check these out these two Web sites:

(1) http://canyonwolfephoto.com

(2) http://usfspconvergence.blogspot.com

By Alex Knott

“WASHINGTON, April 7, 2005 —
Special interests and the lobbyists they employ have reported spending,
since 1998, a total of almost $13 billion to influence Congress, the
White House and more than 200 federal agencies. They've hired a couple
thousand former government officials to influence federal policy on
everything from abortion and adoption to taxation and welfare. And
they've filed—most of the time—thousands of pages of disclosure forms
with the Senate Office of Public Records and the House Clerk's Office….”

The folks at LII (“Librarian's Index to the Internet“) delivered good works again this week.



jux2

———————————————————————-

  
Test version for this “comparative research tool” designed to answer
these questions: how different are the major Internet search engines,
and is one any better than the others? The site is a search engine
aggregator that simultaneously queries Yahoo, Google, and Ask Jeeves.
Results include the rankings from the various search engines and other
comparative and statistical

information.

* http://www.jux2.com

* http://www.jux2.com/stats.php



Also:


Marion Brechner Citizen Action Project (CAP)

———————————————————————-

  
This project's goal is to allow citizens “to better understand public
access to local government information in all 50 states.”

  
Includes ratings that are based on the analysis of statutes,
constitutions, and case law. Also includes summaries of “sunshine”
laws, and comparisons of state laws. The “I can help you get started”
section is not very useful; use the categories to the left instead.
From the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

* http://www.citizenaccess.org



Copyright 2005 by Librarians' Index to the Internet, LII.

Remember Tom Leher's “Vatican Rag?”  HE, at least, got the numbers right.  (“Two, four, six, eight,/Time to transubstantiate!“)  But we're not putting much faith in the Vatican numbers guys these days, along with all the journos who listen to them.  All the reports are that “one million” people viewed the Pope's body the two days it was there for public viewing.  The next sentence or so says something along the lines of “18,000 people per hour passed by the Pope's body.”  Hmmm.  Forty-eight hours times 18,000 equals an optimized 864,000 souls.  Wouldn't a mere quarter of a million pilgrims have sufficed?

The Search Engine Report is yet another valuable tool that serious researchers use as a “heads up” device.  It's a monthly newsletter that covers developments in the search engine industry [Industry?  Who would have thought it?] and changes to the Search Engine Watch web site, http://searchenginewatch.com/.  You can subscribe at http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/

Matt
Ericson, the top-flight map/infographics journalist/designer at The New York
Times, produced another fine piece of work Tuesday related to changes
in the Roman Catholic world.  But what we get in print is superior
[click here to see IoP version] to the online version of the cartogram (i.e. proportional map), which illustrates how the church has
grown in Latin America, Africa and Asia.  The print page positions
the RC world c. 1900 right next to the RC population c. 2005. 
Readers' eyes can quickly shift from one region to the other and see
the differences.  On the other hand, the online treatment of those
graphics, while supplying data for three different eras — 1900, 1978,
2005 — bring up each era individually, making it difficult to compare
one to the others.  Snazzy presentation, but at a loss of
comprehension.  Go to NYT story “Third World Represeents a New Factor in Pope's Succession” 
and click on the right column link for “Interactive: After John Paul
II.”  Then, after the java window pops up, click on “Changes in
Catholics.”

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
at Syracuse University have spent many good years tracking the
relationship between U.S. government and corporations.  They have
a new report out today.

“Greetings
— New IRS data show far fewer agency audits aimed  at large
corporations providing investment advice, various kinds of banking and
credit services and insurance than to corporations in other businesses.
The big disparities — documented in previously undisclosed data obtained
and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC)
— concern corporations with $250 million or more in assets.  At one
extreme  are the corporations providing financial services where less
than one in five were audited in FY 2002, 2003 and 2004. At the other
extreme are the corporations involved in either agriculture, mining and
construction, or heavy manufacturing and transportation. Here, 100%
were audited.

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
488 Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY  13244-2100
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
http://trac.syr.edu

An
impressive list of fine work by journalists in 2004.  Note the
increasing number of stories that employed digital analytic tools.

http://www.ire.org/contest/04winners.html