CAJ and King's College partner on data journalism training

OTTAWA, April 11, 2017 /CNW/ - The University of King's College School of Journalism and the Canadian Association of Journalists are teaming up once again to provide Canada's top training in data journalism.

King's is an official sponsor of the CAJ's national conference in Ottawa, April 28 and 29 and CAJ members are eligible for 10 per cent off the early bird and regular rates for the 2017 King's summer schools in data journalism and coding for journalists, in June in Halifax.

#CAJ17 will feature two days of presentations and hands-on training in data techniques, headlined by the Globe and Mail's Robyn Doolittle and Michael Pereira, who will give the inside scoop on their blockbuster data story Unfounded. Their work has prompted a third of the nation's police forces to rethink how they handle sexual assault allegations.

King's professor Fred Vallance-Jones has been leading data sessions at the CAJ for more than 20 years and this year will join CBC producer and Kings' adjunct professor, David McKie, for a two-hour introductory workshop Friday. This year's CAJ data program also features King's MJ grad Valérie Ouellet, now a senior data journalist at the CBC, Jasmine Sohal of Esri Canada, and representatives of Cometdocs.com. CAJ members who attend the data sessions will get a free account for the CometDocs PDF extraction platform.

"It is so important that as many journalists as possible master data skills," said CAJ President Nick Taylor-Vaisey. "That's why we have arranged a full two days of hands-on sessions."

And the training doesn't end there. Since 2008, the King's Summer Schools in Data Journalism have provided working journalists and students with the best intensive data training available in Canada. In the basic school, participants learn how to obtain, analyze and visualize data, to find and tell great stories. The coding school introduces computer programming for journalists, how to scrape data using computer programming, and building simple bots.

This year's data schools start June 19, and CAJ members are eligible for 10 per cent off the early bird and regular rates for both.

"The CAJ has been such a strong supporter of data journalism and King's has become such a centre of training in this, that this seems like a natural partnership," said Tim Currie, director of the journalism school. "We look forward to seeing many CAJ members in June."

With the special CAJ discount, the rate for a week of exceptional training is as little as $427.50. This year the best rate applies to those recently displaced from the news industry, as well as active freelancers, those who work at smaller outlets, and students. Rates for other journalists are as low as $540, with the CAJ member discount included.

You can find out more about the data schools, and King's master's program in data and investigative journalism at kingsjournalism.com/data. Or you can email [email protected]. Complete details on #CAJ17 are available at caj.ca.

SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists

Nick Taylor-Vaisey, CAJ President, Phone: [phone], Email: [email protected]

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