Data for Journalists (2018)

Sixth edition, by Brant Houston (Routledge, 2026) The practical route into data work for a reporter who has never opened a database manager. Houston, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors who went on to hold the Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, covers spreadsheets and database managers before moving on to coding and more advanced analysis, along with finding and scraping data and building a database, so each skill pays off on real stories before the next one arrives. The new sixth edition adds a chapter on data visualization and material on free software such as Google Sheets and Datawrapper, which matters for anyone in a newsroom without a software budget.