Institute for Analytic Journalism

Ver 1.0 kicks off. Statician George Duncan opening speaker.

JTJ — 2006-04-09T13:33:26-06:00

Late this afternoon, the 20 participants in Ver 1.0 will be gathering at the Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM for the first session of the workshop. The first, set-the-tone speaker is George Duncan, professor of statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. George will be speaking on "Statistical Confidentiality: What Does It Mean for Journalists’ Use of Public Databases?"

We will post George's address as soon as possible, along with those of other participants in coming days.

We are very pleased with high-powered thinkers who are in or coming to Santa Fe to address the major problem of how do we verify the data in public records databases. The proceedings of the workshop will, we hope, be published by the end of the month and also available online.

Simulated Journalism? Not exactly, but a topic of relevance

Tom Johnson — 2005-11-01T13:19:02-07:00

Simulation modeling is one of the four cornerstone areas of interest to the IAJ. It's a relatively new, and largely unknown, field that can be of great advantage to journalists if we can take the time to learn how it works and then how we can apply it to our field. The best resource to date for journalists is the J-Lab, (http://www.j-lab.org/) at the University of Maryland.

But today along comes this announcement of a rich issue of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. It's filled with deep thinking and application.

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The Journal of ...

System Dynamics Society

JTJ — 2005-03-28T22:02:18-07:00

System Dynamics Society
System dynamics is a methodology for studying and managing complex feedback systems, such as one finds in business and other social systems. In fact it has been used to address practically every sort of feedback system. While the word system has been applied to all sorts of situations, feedback is the differentiating descriptor here. Feedback refers to the situation of X affecting Y and Y in turn affecting X perhaps through a chain of causes and effects. One cannot study the link between X and Y and, independently, the link between Y and X and predict how the system will behave. Only the study of the whole system as a feedback system will lead to correct results.

Bogus Visual Stats from CNN

JTJ — 2005-03-23T14:12:25-07:00

Media Matters for America points out a bogus use of bar charts by CNN. Yes, the scale and base line DO matter. See http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220005
Update: CNN corrected its chart.

Black Coaches in N.B.A. Have Shorter Tenures

JTJ — 2005-03-22T19:37:38-07:00

DAVID LEONHARDT and FORD FESSENDEN of The New York Times delivered a straightforward analytic piece today. "Black Coaches in ...

Animated map of fires following San Francisco's 1906 earthquake

JTJ — 2005-03-21T17:51:07-07:00
Elementary but interesting application of animated maps of an historic event.
http://www.archive.org/download/ssfBURNMAP/ssfBURNMAP.AVI

LECTURE: The Internet, Epidemics, and Kevin Bacon: The Emerging Science of Networks

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-17T08:23:11-07:00
Abstract: There are networks in almost every part of our lives. Some of them are familiar and obvious: the Internet, the power grid, the road network. Others are less obvious but just as important.... This lecture looks at some new discoveries regarding networks, how these discoveries were made, and what they tell us about the way the world works.

What is System Dynamics

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:47:55-07:00
<>The System Dynamics Group was founded in the early 1960s by Professor Jay W. Forrester at MIT. At that time, he began applying what he had learned about systems during his work in electrical engineering to every day kinds of systems. What makes using system dynamics different from other approaches to studying complex systems is the use of feedback loops. Stocks and flows help describe how a system is connected by feedback loops which create the nonlinearity found so frequently in modern day problems. Computers software is used to simulate a system dynamics model of the situation being studied. Running "what if" simulations to test certain policies on such a model can greatly aid in understanding how the system changes over time.
See http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/

Links on Cybernetics and Systems

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:44:11-07:00
For a good jumpstation related to GST, see:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSYSLI.html

What is Systems Theory?

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:42:09-07:00
Systems Theory: the transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be used to describe them.
See: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SYSTHEOR.html