Sarah Cohen (journalist)

Last updated
Sarah Cohen
Datagraveren (5716099360).jpg
Sarah Cohen in 2011
Alma mater
Employer
Awards

Sarah Cohen is an American journalist, author, and professor. Cohen is a proponent of, and teaches classes on, computational journalism and authored the book "Numbers in the Newsroom: Using math and statistics in the news." [1] [2] [3]

Contents

She holds the Knight Chair of Data Journalism in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. [4]

Previously she was an assistant editor for computer-assisted reporting at The New York Times and adjunct faculty at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. [5] [6]

Education

Cohen received an A.B. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduation, she worked as an economist (1980-1991) for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1991 she returned to school at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, graduate program in public affairs reporting, and received her M.A. in journalism in 1992. [1] [5]

Career

Cohen gained her first work experience, as a reporter, at The Tampa Tribune . She spent two years at the Tribune, before leaving to work for The St. Petersburg Times, where she worked as a reporter from 1994 to 1996. [5]

in 1996, Cohen began a long record of service, working in different positions with the nonprofit organization, Investigative Reporters and Editors. She was the Training Director at the IRE from 1996-1998. From 2010-2018, she served as a member of the Board of Directors, including time as president. [7] [8]

During the same time, she worked as a reporter and database editor at The Washington Post, (1999-2009) then leaving to teach at Duke University, (2009-2012) where she was the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. [9] In 2012, Cohen joined The New York Times, as editor for computer-assisted reporting. [5] She remained at the Times until 2017, before leaving to go back to teaching, as the Knight Chair, at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, in Phoenix, Arizona. [1]

Cohen on data-driven reporting

in 2002, Scott Maier, wrote a short review about two books, including one that Cohen authored: "Numbers in the Newsroom: Using Math and Statistics in News." In his concluding remarks, he said that "all journalists need math." [10] That conclusion is what Sarah Cohen emphasizes in interviews, training sessions, and in the courses that she teaches. She explains that "data journalism helps keep the work responsible which, in turn, contributes to credibility," especially in the current time of watchdog journalism, or accountability reporting. [11]

Throughout her career, Cohen's work has been largely focused on data gathering and the use of computer-assisted journalism. Her methods have enabled her to "cut through a lot of clutter and display data in a more efficient way." In a 2009 interview, with Steve Myers, with the Poynter Institute, she gave examples to his question as to how a visual representation of data can help a reporter. [12]

One example she used was how data can tell a reporter where to look for the story. She was with the Washington Post when they began to look at farm subsidies and who was receiving the money. Cohen explained :

"During a [2003] story on disaster payments in the farm subsidy system, we wanted to make sure that we went to places that had received the payments year after year after year. Using a database, we could find farms that had received multiple payments pretty easily. But looking at repeated images of density maps that I made of the payments, it was really obvious where to go — specific areas of North Dakota and Kansas." [12] [13]

In another example, where the data appeared to point to what might have been a serious problem, involving deaths at a detention center; a closer look at the data showed that there just happened to be more sick people who were sent there, negating the need to cover the story. She described what happened:

"Last year, [2006] when two reporters here were working on a story on deaths in detention centers, I made a simple Flash interactive that let them look at deaths on a map by age group, cause of death, year and a couple of other variables. It helped to be able to see whether certain kinds of deaths were centered in certain areas. It also helped show that what appeared to be a site of many deaths was really one where they sent very, very ill people, making it far less newsworthy and obvious that they should focus somewhere else." [12] [14]

Cohen says that as a street reporter, one must be familiar with public records, both in how to find them and how to make the correct requests, in order to use what is needed for data purposes. She stresses that as a reporter, you need to understand what to ask for. [15] Additionally, Cohen doesn't think most reporters need to be experts but, they need to be "conversant with a spreadsheet." [16]

Investigative and public affairs reporters are increasingly fact-checking to strengthen accountability, which requires training and resources. As newsrooms continue to cut staff, the need for reporters who can use data to help them with stories, is becoming more important as data-driven journalism becomes standard practice in most newspapers and news organizations. [17] [18]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medill School of Journalism</span> Constituent school of Northwestern University

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University that offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It frequently ranks as one of the top school of journalism in the United States. Medill alumni include 40 Pulitzer Prize laureates, numerous national correspondents for major networks, many well-known reporters, columnists and media executives.

<i>Hartford Courant</i> Largest daily newspaper in Connecticut, US

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut is a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates CTNow, a free local weekly newspaper and website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting</span> American journalism award

The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publication. It is administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

<i>The Daily Pennsylvanian</i>

The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. is the independent student media organization of the University of Pennsylvania. The DP, Inc. publishes The Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper, 34th Street Magazine, and Under the Button, as well as five newsletters: The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Weekly Roundup, The Toast, Quaker Nation, and Penn, Unbuttoned.

James V. Grimaldi is an American journalist, investigative reporter, and Senior Writer with the Wall Street Journal. He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, twice, for investigative reporting in 1996, with the staff of the Orange County Register, and in 2006, for his work on the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal while working for The Washington Post.

Leonard "Len" Downie Jr. is an American journalist who was executive editor of The Washington Post from 1991 to 2008. He worked in the Post newsroom for 44 years. His roles at the newspaper included executive editor, managing editor, national editor, London correspondent, assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, deputy metropolitan editor, and investigative and local reporter. Downie became executive editor upon the retirement of Ben Bradlee. During Downie's tenure as executive editor, the Washington Post won 25 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper had won during the term of a single executive editor. Downie currently serves as vice president at large at the Washington Post, as Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and as a member of several advisory boards associated with journalism and public affairs.

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is a nonprofit news organization based in Emeryville, California. It was founded in 1977 as the nation’s first nonprofit investigative journalism organization, and has since grown into a multi-platform newsroom, with investigations published on the Reveal website, public radio show and podcast, video pieces and documentaries and social media platforms, reaching over a million people weekly. The public radio show and podcast, “Reveal,” co-produced with PRX, is CIR’s flagship distribution platform, airing on 588 stations nationwide. The newsroom focuses on reporting that reveals inequities, abuse, and corruption, and holds those responsible accountable.

<i>The Post</i> (Ohio student newspaper)

The Post is a student-run newspaper in Athens, Ohio, that covers Ohio University and Athens County. While classes at OU are in session, it publishes online every day and in print every Thursday. Though its newsroom is located in John Calhoun Baker University Center at Ohio University, the paper is editorially independent from the university.

Scott Higham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning member of The Washington Post's investigations unit. He graduated from Stony Brook University, with a B.A. in history and has a M.S. from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Higham also earned an A.S. in criminal justice at Suffolk County Community College.

Margot Williams is a journalist and research librarian, who was part of teams at the Washington Post that won two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1998, Williams was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Gold Medal for public service for reporting on the high rate of police shootings in Washington, D.C. In 2002, Williams was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the "war on terror".

Debbie Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist and nonfiction author. As of November 2022 she writes for ProPublica and is the director of the Medill Investigative Lab at Northwestern University. She spent more than a decade as an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, and has written two nonfiction books.

Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is a journalistic process based on analyzing and filtering large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story.

Alan C. Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and the founder of the News Literacy Project, a national education nonprofit that works with educators and journalists to offer resources and tools that help middle school and high school students learn to separate fact from fiction. In 2020, NLP expanded its audience to include people of all ages.

Alix Marian Freedman is an American journalist, and ethics editor at Thomson Reuters.

Russell John Carollo was an American Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, who worked as an investigative reporter for numerous publications, including the Dayton Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, and The Sacramento Bee.

Gary Cohn is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Tom McGinty is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist known for his use and advocacy of computer-assisted reporting.

<i>BuzzFeed News</i> American news website

BuzzFeed News is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it has won the George Polk Award, The Sidney Award, National Magazine Award, the National Press Foundation award, and the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Angwin</span> American investigative journalist

Julia Angwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and entrepreneur. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of technology on society. She was a senior reporter at ProPublica from 2014 to April 2018 and staff reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2013. Angwin is author of non-fiction books, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (2009) and Dragnet Nation (2014). She is a winner and two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

Anthony Cormier is an American journalist with BuzzFeed News, and formerly with the Tampa Bay Times and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Cormier was a co-recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Pulitzer-Winning NY Times Data Editor Joins Cronkite as Knight Chair". Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  2. ↑ Cohen, Sarah; Hamilton, James T.; Turner, Fred (October 2011). "Computational journalism". Communications of the ACM. 54 (10): 66–71. doi:10.1145/2001269.2001288. ISSN   0001-0782. S2CID   30295912.
  3. ↑ "Numbers in the Newsroom: Using Math and Statistics in News, Second Edition, E-version". IRE. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  4. ↑ "Pulitzer-winning NY Times data editor joins ASU Cronkite School". ASU Now: Access, Excellence, Impact. June 22, 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Sarah Cohen". May 20, 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  6. ↑ "Sarah Cohen". 2013-12-11. Archived from the original on 2013-12-11. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  7. ↑ "About". IRE. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  8. ↑ "Past Board Members". IRE. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  9. ↑ "New Professor Will Focus on 'Computational Journalism'". today.duke.edu.
  10. ↑ Maier, Scott R. (2002-09-01). "NRJ Book: Math Tools for Journalists, Numbers in the Newsroom: Using Math and Statistics in News". Newspaper Research Journal. 23 (4): 108–109. doi:10.1177/073953290202300413. ISSN   0739-5329. S2CID   85437381.
  11. ↑ Mroziak, Michael. "Pulitzer Prize winner Sarah Cohen to discuss data journalism in Buffalo". news.wbfo.org. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  12. 1 2 3 "Using Data Visualization as a Reporting Tool Can Reveal Story's Shape". Poynter. 2009-04-10. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  13. ↑ Cohen, Gilbert M. Gaul, Dan Morgan and Sarah (2006-10-15). "Aid Is a Bumper Crop for Farmers". ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  14. ↑ "Careless Detention | Medical Treatment of Immigrants". www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  15. ↑ White, Ryan. "NYT's Sarah Cohen will make you realize how much better your public records game could be". Center for Health Journalism. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  16. ↑ Wihbey, John (2014-08-29). "Research chat: Sarah Cohen of the New York Times on the state of data journalism and what reporters need to know". Journalist's Resource. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  17. ↑ "Journalism, Technology Starting to Add Up". MediaShift. 2009-11-24. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  18. ↑ "Computational Journalism".
  19. ↑ "2001 IRE Award winners". IRE. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  20. ↑ "The 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winner". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  21. ↑ Kennedy, Robert F. "Journalism Winners". Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  22. ↑ "Washington Post Wins Selden Ring Award". USC News.
  23. ↑ "Washington Post team wins 2009 Goldsmith reporting prize". Shorenstein Center. 2009-03-17. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  24. ↑ Daillak, Jonathan (June 29, 2016). "UCLA Anderson School honors 2016 Gerald Loeb Award winners". UCLA . Retrieved January 31, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.