Teaches the basic, yet all-important, data skills required by today s media professionals The authors of Data Skills for Media Professionals have assembled a book that teaches key aspects of data analysis, interactive data visualization and online map-making through an introduction to Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google My Maps, all free, highly intuitive, platform-agnostic tools available to any reader with a computer and a web connection. Delegating the math and design work to these apps leaves readers free to do the kinds of thinking that media professionals do most often: considering what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to evaluate and communicate the answers. Although focused on Google apps, the book draws upon complementary aspects of the free QGIS geographic information system, the free XLMiner Analysis ToolPak Add-on for Google Sheets, and the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application. Worked examples rely on frequently updated data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Election Commission, the National Bridge Inventory of structurally deficient bridges, and other federal sources, giving readers the option of immediately applying what they learn to current data they can localize to any area in the United States. The book offers chapters covering: basic data analysis; data visualization; making online maps; Microsoft Excel and pivot tables; matching records with Excel's VLOOKUP function; basic descriptive and inferential statistics; and other functions, tools and techniques. Serves as an excellent supplemental text for easily adding data skills instruction to courses in beginning or advanced writing and reporting Features computer screen captures that illustrate each step of each procedure Offers downloadable datasets from a companion web page to help students implement the techniques themselves Shows realistic examples that illustrate how to perform each technique and how to use it on the job Data Skills of Media Professionals is an excellent book for students taking skills courses in the more than 100 ACEJMC-accredited journalism and mass communication programs across the United States. It would also greatly benefit those enrolled in advanced or specialized reporting courses, including courses dedicated solely to teaching data skills.

Teaches the basic, yet all-important, data skills required by today's media professionalsThe authors of Data Skills for Media Professionals have assembled a book that teaches key aspects of data analysis, interactive data visualization and online map-making through an introduction to Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google My Maps, all free, highly intuitive, platform-agnostic tools available to any reader with a computer and a web connection. Delegating the math and design work to these apps leaves readers free to do the kinds of thinking that media professionals do most often: considering what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to evaluate and communicate the answers.Although focused on Google apps, the book draws upon complementary aspects of the free QGIS geographic information system, the free XLMiner Analysis ToolPak Add-on for Google Sheets, and the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application. Worked examples rely on frequently updated data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Election Commission, the National Bridge Inventory of structurally deficient bridges, and other federal sources, giving readers the option of immediately applying what they learn to current data they can localize to any area in the United States. The book offers chapters covering: basic data analysis; data visualization; making online maps; Microsoft Excel and pivot tables; matching records with Excel's VLOOKUP function; basic descriptive and inferential statistics; and other functions, tools and techniques.* Serves as an excellent supplemental text for easily adding data skills instruction to courses in beginning or advanced writing and reporting* Features computer screen captures that illustrate each step of each procedure* Offers downloadable datasets from a companion web page to help students implement the techniques themselves* Shows realistic examples that illustrate how to perform each technique and how to use it on the jobData Skills of Media Professionals is an excellent book for students taking skills courses in the more than 100 ACEJMC-accredited journalism and mass communication programs across the United States. It would also greatly benefit those enrolled in advanced or specialized reporting courses, including courses dedicated solely to teaching data skills.

Preface ix1 Basic Data Analysis 1Some Example Data 1An Introductory Tool: Google Sheets 3Getting the Data into a Google Sheet 4Getting a Fixed Copy of the Data 9Formatting the Data 11Cleaning the Data 12Planning your Analysis 13Filtering 14Calculating 17Labeling and Tidying Up 21Sorting 22Where's the "Save" Button? 24Writing About the Analysis Results 24Recap 26References 262 Data Visualization 27Preparing Your Data 28Making a Column Chart 29Publishing the Chart to the Web 33Choosing the Right Type of Chart 35Recap 41References 413 Making Online Maps 43Downloading a Shapefile 44Importing the Shapefile into QGIS 45Examining the Shapefile and Joining it with the Unemployment Data 47Customizing and Publishing the Map File with Google My Maps 54Mapping Specific Points with Latitude and Longitude Coordinates 64Mapping Specific Points with Addresses 73Making a Map When You Have no Geolocation Data to Import 77Recap 83References 844 Microsoft Excel and PivotTables 85Introducing PivotTables 85Getting Started: Aggregating Contributions by City 89Using the PivotTable Tool's "Filters" Box 92Using the PivotTable Tool's "Columns" Box 94Investigating Relatedness 96Spotting the Absence of a Relationship 105Downloading Campaign Finance Data from the Federal Election Commission 107Excel vs. Google Sheets 111Recap 112References 1135 Matching Records with Excel's VLOOKUP 115Overview 118Aggregating each Candidate's Donations by Source 119Using VLOOKUP 122Using Filters to Create a Classification Column 127VLOOKUP Pitfalls 129Recap 131References 1316 Google Sheets and Inferential Statistics 133Sampling and Assumptions of Inferential Statistics 134Getting the Data and Installing the XLMiner Google Sheets Add-on 136Computing and Understanding Basic Inferential Statistics 138Descriptive Statistics and Confidence Intervals 140The One-sample T-test 143The One-sample Chi-square Test 148Knowing which Test to Use 152Computing and Understanding Basic Bivariate Statistics 154Two-sample T-tests 154Chi-square Analysis of a PivotTable 158Correlation Between Two Continuous Variables: Regression 164Recap 169References 1707 Other Functions, Tools and Techniques 171DATE, NOW, and DATEDIF 171AVERAGE, STDEV, MEDIAN, MIN, MAX 173RAND 175LEFT, MID, and RIGHT 175The "Text to Columns" Wizard 177CONCATENATE 179IF and IFS 180IFERROR 182COMBIN and PERMUT 183Google Forms 184Comparing Numbers Over Time 187Adjusting for Inflation 187Adjusting for Population Changes 188Recap 190References 190Index 191