In CAR, students learn essential reporting and computer skills, said Journalism and Mass Communications assistant professor Karl Idsvoog.
Students learn how to use data management programs such as Excel and Access to craft in-depth stories. Databases range crime rates in the nation's biggest cities to the Portage County employment records.
"Without CAR skills, you might as well put 'please don't hire me,' at the bottom of your resume," Idsvoog declares.
CAR teaches students how to find story ideas, including by the use of Freedom of Information records requests.
In the past, CAR students have worked on stories where students obtained information about dams from a number of Ohio counties. The data received from the counties reviled many flaws, |
'Without CAR skills, you might as well put 'please don't hire me' at the bottom of your resume' '
Karl Idsvoog,
Course instructor |
and students were able to produce in-depth multi-platform news stories.
"Getting at the data allows you as a reporter to have more information than the person you are interviewing (for a story)," Idsvoog said.
Idsvoog said by demonstrating CAR skills, reporters will have a better opportunity to be hired at a job they want, not a job they have to take.
Computer Assisted Reporting was created in 1990 by Professor Fred Endres. It's taught every semester. |
