ADD STRENGTH TO INVESTIGATIONS, SNAP TO BEAT STORIES

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jan/Feb 2004 by Campbell, Ronald, LaFleur, Jennifer

It was a slow day, the sort of day when desperate editors put snoozers on Page 1.

Matthew Waite of the St. Petersburg Times used census data to turn his snoozer into something better. After a small-town council reduced the speed limit to 20 miles per hour "for the safety of the children," Waite confirmed the rhetoric with hard facts: "The number of 5- to 9-year-olds went up 19 percent in the 1990s, and the number of 10-to 14-year-olds increased by 18 percent."

In the three years since the first results of Census 2000 were released, journalists have found thousands of ways to turn numbers into news.

A decade ago, just a handful of newspapers had the computer power to tackle in-depth census stories. This time, thanks to cheap computers and IRE's aggressive census training, many more journalists jumped onto the census beat.

Thanks to the census, mapping became a "killer app" - or hot software - in newsrooms across the country. Dozens of newspapers used maps to explain differences among areas as small as a few blocks in size.

A handful of papers also built census intranets to share key bits of data with computer-challenged colleagues. Using ImageMapper, an add-on for Arc View mapping software, I created a tool that allowed reporters to get instant neighborhood demographics just by pointing and clicking on a map. Bill Dedman at The Boston Globe and Rob Gebeloff at The (Newark) Star-Ledger built demographic almanacs that let reporters rank and compare communities on several measures.

Armed with these tools, journalists have pushed census reporting far beyond traditional stories about population growth. The 2000 Census has figured in beat investigations as well as breaking stories about politics, schools, traffic and - just in case you're getting bored - sex.

Demographics with a twist

The Oregonian wove census data and interviews into a November 2003 series that examined growing differences among "The Nine States of Oregon."

"Oregon can now be seen as nine distinct regions, each with its own values, economic approach and political outlook," the reporters wrote. "These differences are at the heart of why the legislature has been gridlocked, why there is little consensus on how to compete in the global economy and why Oregon's prospects don't seem as clear as they did 30 years ago when timber was king."

Garry Lenton of the The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News caught the Pennsylvania government making a potentially dangerous math mistake at Three Mile Island. Neighbors of the nuclear plant wanted potassium iodine pills, which protect the thyroid from radiation. The state claimed it already had provided enough potassium iodine pills for 35 percent of residents within 10 miles of TMI.

But census data revealed that there were many more residents living near the nuclear plant than the state claimed. Lenton reported that the state had provided enough pills for just 17.7 percent of TMI's neighbors.

Basic demographics have been a staple of census reporting for decades. Following Census 2000, many reporters found ways to deliver basic demographics with a twist.

One staple story - the decline of rural America - received a big twist in Oklahoma from the Tulsa World's Shaun Schafer. He discovered that several small towns held steady or even grew in the 1990s.

How? By making room for new prisons and their inmates - a trend captured in the census count of the "institutionalized population."

"Although they finally came to town under lock and key," Schafer wrote, "in places like Sayre, Watonga and Holdenville they're VIPs: Very Important Prisoners."

Elsewhere many cities are losing residents in the early morning and getting them all back at night, causing mammoth traffic jams.

Lori Weisberg of the The San Diego Union-Tribune used census data to put a number to commuters' frustration:

"If you've been battling traffic on Interstate 15, the U.S. Census Bureau has evidence that your worst suspicions about mounting traffic congestion are right," Weisberg wrote. "Over the last 10 years, the number of people commuting between Riverside and San Diego counties increased by 167 percent."

But sheer numbers are just part of the picture. Census data also can lead to subjects that statisticians normally ignore.

Any beat can benefit from census information

No matter what a journalist covers - from the environment to schools - demographic data such as that provided by the U.S. Census can provide the backbone for any reporting.

Census demographic data will not only provide you with the basic knowledge you need to understand a place or a population, but help you dig deeper when doing investigations.

Demographics will show whether services for poor, disabled or elderly are placed in appropriate areas, or provide insight into voting patterns when compared to election results. At the same time, census data can - and should - be part of any crime analysis to see what types of neighborhoods are subject to which types of crimes.

Remember: Any beat can benefit from census information. Consider these areas: