Idea List Assignment

Introduction

We have spoken about what makes a newsworthy story in class. We have also discussed what makes a story data journalism, and have talked about online data sources, including but not limited to municipal, state, and federal websites and data portals.

For this assignment, you will create a list of your own newsworthy ideas based on datasets you find (most likely online). These datasets will inform your major assignments throughout the semester. Eventually, you will have the opportunity to include the best of your ideas on our list of potential topics for our team investigative data journalism project, which we are conducting in collaboration with local news organization The Shoestring.

Assignment

Create a list of 2–4 ideas, each 3–4 sentences long. Link to a dataset for each idea (or explain where you would obtain the dataset – you must confirm the dataset exists). Your ideas should be local to Northampton, MA and/or Western Mass, or be of interest to that audience. Please note that state or even federal data may also have a story to tell that is relevant to local residents.

To find datasets of interest to you and that might eventually be of interest to The Shoestring, consider the following.

  • Each idea should fall within one of The Shoestring’s major news categories: Policing and Prisons; Labor; Education; Housing; or Environment
  • Browse online data sources discussed in class for surprising or interesting data sets, including on the Northampton city website, Massachusetts Data Hub, or the Boston open data portal.
  • Consider looking on other municipal open data platforms for popular datasets. Are similar data available somewhere for Northampton or surrounding towns?
  • Consider your own areas of interest and knowledge. The following questions are most useful for non-data-focused pieces, but you may still find them helpful as you search for relevant data. For each of these, consider—are there data sources that might illuminate the answer?
  • What do you wonder about?
  • What do you wish more people knew?
  • What’s special about your geographic area that others could learn from?
  • What are some debates or controversies you are aware of in your immediate community or communities?
  • What’s happening locally that has broader significance in today’s world?
  • What’s happening nationally or globally that you might be able to localize (look at in a local context for a local news source)?
  • Who do you know doing interesting things?
  • What have you spotted lately in your social media communities that got some attention or that seems engaging to you, but hasn’t been widely disseminated?

Your idea list is due to Moodle by classtime on Feb 6, 2025.