Class blog – Page 39 – Online Reporting, Research & Writing

A world of pirates

The data set that I believe will be captivating is most popular illegal downloads based on a four day data capture by The Guardian. Although this article only writes about popular Christmas movie downloads, having this data readily available has me wondering about a couple different scenarios.

How many people download and or illegally stream movies premiering in theaters, television shows etc. Also, how many people do not have cable service or video streaming services like Hulu or Netflix?

This type of data set would prove helpful in writing a blog piece on this subject due to its analysis of the term “popular” and transitioning that to what actually is popular. For example, the premier of “Game of Thrones” may have had 10 million views through a sanctioned cable provider, we have people who use piracy sites to view them as well.

The article specifies the type of movies that were downloaded, timeframe of when data was collected, and the software used to collect the data. The article certainly raise the question: Are we living in a world of modern pirates?

Quartz data, data we can believe

Quartz is a popular outlet for the data that it shares. While looking on different social media outlets for this news station I came across an interesting Twitter feed where they published data on unemployment (see screenshots) .

In this feed Quartz mentions how Trump boasted about having the African American unemployment rate down in just one year. On the surface this seems like wonderful news, especially for the economy.

Quartz uses its twitter to pull data from reliable sources to back the publication that is being tweeted, which is more than what some folks do! For example, for this article Quartz pulled the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In its twitter feed Quartz have also included the incarceration number among African American women and men, and if those numbers where counted this 6.7% statistic would be higher. I also liked how Quartz has included the differences in numbers between non black employment and incarceration. There is a wealth of difference.

After viewing there twitter feed and the data they show. It’s safe to assume they have the backing for their claims. It is great to see a news outlet that links data without being biased. One could tell they are considering “The Elements of Journalism.” And that dear reader is a bullseye in the realm of news and data. Until next time.

~ Z

Surprising cost of colleges in Michigan

So, as many of you know we recently had to do data analysis of the cost of certain colleges in Michigan. It came as a great surprise to me that the most expensive public four year college is not The University of Michigan. Because my family is a Michigan family I alway heard stories of the cost of attendance for Michigan, so I blindly assumed that The University of Michigan was the most expensive. But its not!

tuition

Some off-shoot of Ferris State is actually the most expensive school to attend. Looking at the cost per credit hour and the ridiculous requirement of owning a MacBook Pro it is not that surprising that Kendal College passes The University of Michigan. Other than Kendal beating out Michigan the rest of the table has nothing up its sleves. Michigan beats Michigan Tech and Michigan State, and they beat other smaller schools like Western and Central.

The Age of Walls

Change is on the horizon, we all know this. The question is, in what way?

One of the many things that has become a topic of conversation over the last year is the building of a wall on the US and Mexico border.

The Washington Post had a documentary about how borders are rising all over the world, not just here in America. There were different reasons as to why these walls were built.

The most common reason was “security”. Security is a very iffy term these days due to who or what needs to be secured.

In the third part of this series, is when it starts to hit home. The Washington Post begins to discuss what could happen if the wall that President Trump preached about came to fruition.

In a nutshell, farming lands could be affected and other business may begin to suffer as well.

One of the common reasons that was portrayed in this piece was “bettering themselves” in regards as to why immigration is taking place.

I think we can all agree that somewhere our families history that someone wanted to do better for their future. So why should we deny that from anyone else.

I truly hope we as Americans can do better and truly be the better people as a nation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/border-barriers/global-illegal-immigration-prevention/

College athletics: Where does the money really go?

I’ve decided to focus on the USA Today article about NCAA salaries for football head coaches.

Some fans may not know why a head coach receives the amount of money he or she makes. There are also fans who are more knowledgeable then most and would enjoy to know more as to where the money the get is really going.

This article would be able to appeal to both sides because it would break down exactly how much they make in a year and also gives income exemptions for the current year.

Here are some samples:

As we can see, there is a full report of the top five head coaches in NCAA football. We also see tax notes for the year as to where specifically Jim Harbaugh’s money goes to.