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Contaminated industrial sites in cities across Canada have polluted land and water, stalled new developments, and created abandoned lots in urban areas.<\/p>\n
Until recently, it was tough for Canadian researchers and journalists to understand the national scope of the problem.<\/p>\n
But open access to government data has changed all that. CBC Investigative Journalist David McKie has reported on contaminated sites across the country that are owned by the federal government\u2014thanks to open access government data. He argues it\u2019s time for reporters and writers to start interpreting that data for the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cJournalists don\u2019t realize the reach, the scope and the possibility of having access to this data,\u201d explains McKie, who also teaches data journalism at Carleton. \u201cThis is a wake-up call to help journalists redefine their careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
McKie will offer his data journalism course in an intensive weekend workshop called \u201cTelling Your Story with Data\u201d beginning with a meet-and-greet session the evening of June 24 and continuing with full-day sessions on June 25-26. He\u2019ll be joined by Glen McGregor, a national affairs reporter and data-journalism specialist for the Ottawa Citizen<\/em>, who is also a trainer with the Canadian Association of Journalists.<\/p>\n \u201cOur course is designed to give participants the technical skills they need to start working with data using spreadsheets, mapping, and other software,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cAnd they will go back to their newsrooms with a bunch of stories they can use right away.\u201d<\/p>\n Workshop participants will use Microsoft Excel, either at the beginner level or an advanced level, depending on their experience. They\u2019ll also learn the fundamentals of mapping software, which can reveal stories based on geographic data, as well as the open-source database management software MySQL. \u00a0Finally, the instructors will teach a session on \u201cweb-scraping\u201d, which bypasses traditional search engines to find data on the internet.<\/p>\n