Hacks/Hackers New York

Campaign Funding Analysis Workshop with New York Times Journalists

January 14, 2012 · 9:00 AM
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Campaigns and elections generate a lot of data. Prepare yourself by registering now for a half day of training with New York Times journalists Griff Palmer, Kevin Quealy and Derek Willis

On Jan. 14, Hacks/Hackers NYC is partnering IRE to present a half-day workshop focused on campaign financing. You'll learn:

about the various campaign finance data available from the FEC, what's important, and how to find it and what it means
about a deeper understanding of the uses, benefits and pitfalls of FEC data.
FTP data vs. electronic filings, the FEC's new CSV files and how they figure in reporting
how to use libraries like Fech for presidential filings, and The New York Times' Campaign Cash and Campaign Finance APIs
You'll get hands-on experience working with independent expenditures data via spreadsheet, as well as an opportunity to code a skeleton app for presidential filings.

Minimum knowledge requirements:

Know how to work with CSV files in Excel
Familiarity with Ruby/Rails/Sinatra or similar
Must be comfortable using the command line

To join this half-day workshop, RSVP today ($55, payable in advance) to attend. Seating is extremely limited to ensure personalized instruction, so be sure to sign up right away. Further instructions will be sent to registered students before the class.

Schedule:

9 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.: Registration

9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Workshop instruction

Have an idea for future Hacks/Hackers topics, speakers and events that meet the at the intersection journalism, technology and innovation? Let us know at j.mp/hhnycInput.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from some of New York's best practitioners!

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Make data accessible at February's Journalism Data Camp Play a part in keeping Wall Street and NYC government agencies accountable by making data accessible for analysis. ScraperWiki, along with the Knight Foundation, is hosting a free Journalism Data Camp at the Tow Center at Columbia University School of Journalism on Feb. 3 – 4 to do just that. It doesn't matter if you're a novice or pro programmer or an investigative journalist with no programming experience: this unique event has three tracks to choose from so you can use your skills to make the biggest impact, and even pick up some more along the way. Find out more and sign up today.

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Kim Barker

Felt privileged to be there, even on an awful, cold, windy Saturday in January, and inspired as to what can be done with FEC data. Thanks much to the journos for doing this.

0 · January 17, 2012
Tim Healy

Informative and interesting. It gave me some ideas for doing more with the campaign finance material we're posting.

0 · January 16, 2012
Tim Henderson

It was a good combination of technical knowledge and journalism -- neither was neglected which is hard to pull off

0 · January 15, 2012
A former member

The split format (one half about the FEC and its data and the other about Ruby/Rails and how to leverage that data in web apps) made good sense, and the people speaking in both halves made the time go quickly. I would recommend it to anyone interested, but if you are not already fairly familiar with campaign funding data or Ruby/Rails, prepare to be a bit overwhelmed in one section. (Probably to be expected - neither is trivial.)

0 · January 15, 2012