Crooked! Donald Trump’s most recent insults as a word cloud

UPDATE: The Times is still tracking the list of insults — as of January 2017 it grew to 305 — and added a visualization that shows the kinds of people and things most frequently insulted. (Spoiler alert: journalists and Democrats.)

The reporters at the New York Times combed through Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s Twitter feed for the most recent 250 insults to nations, people and random things – including a podium.

NYtimesThis is the kind of story that cries out for a visual representation – there has to be a better way to process the information than listing names of the people he insulted in alphabetical order and the tweets as quotes underneath them. What story does that tell?

Most commonly used words in Trump insults, by frequency.

Most commonly used words in Trump insults, by frequency. By Nicole Martinelli, via Wordle.

A quick word cloud will tell you that the most common insult for the straight-talking New Yorker is “crooked” (his go-to insult for rival Hillary Clinton) followed by “dishonest,” “bad,” and “failing.”

A couple of necessary caveats: this cloud was made with a tool called Wordle and the size of the word corresponds to the number of times it appears in the text. The text in the graphic was copied and pasted from the article on the NYT site without any additional weighting or manipulation. The program automatically cuts out common words (i.e. articles) but it would be interesting to see how the cloud shifts by cutting some filler words like “new” “news” “many” “another” etc.

Digital publishing gives public figures so many ways to broadcast a message – it’s our job as journalists to make sense of it. What would you trawl through other political figures tweets to understand?

Digital mapping finally blossoms for parks and rec

CC-licensed, thanks to KM on Flickr.

CC-licensed, thanks to KM on Flickr

If you went by the maps available today your smartphone, you’d probably think the era of paper maps went out with the Rubik’s Cube.

But the next time you’re in a garden or park, you might come across a group of volunteers huddled around an 11×17 black-and-white printout, hopelessly trying to verify what should be where, clumsily marking it up with pencils and colored highlighters. Their work trails back indoors where it adds to a pile of similar maps that have to be verified (or interpreted?) before changes are put into the data base by a staffer. They are often printed out again and verified for accuracy.

The hateful verification map, SFBG.

A typical paper verification map, SFBG.

That’s why around 40 people from zoos, gardens and parks from around the world came to a recent talk to hear how Steve Gensler, GIS manager of the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, and Veronica Nixon of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix are using Collector for ArcGIS to maintaining botanical garden plant records at the ESRI User Conference.

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The Associated Press Stylebook weighs in on data journalism

bye3nzmg6q355a3splxzCC-licensed, via hatalamas on Flickr.

If you write about tech, you’ll find the Associated Press Stylebook is a little bit like Dear Abby. By the time the bouffant-hair-and-matching-handbag set gets around to addressing an issue, it’s often already been answered by collective common sense.

Still, it’s nice to see the venerable news organization writing about data journalism in the same update where it finally relinquishes capitalizing the word internet.

The AP Stylebook entry on data journalism, added 2016-04-19, weighs in at just under 500 words.

It begins with six rules for evaluating a data set that range from the very basic (“What is the source?”) to the kind of deep dive that may prevent you from ever filing the story (“Is there a data dictionary or record layout document for the data set – which would describe the fields, types of data they contain and details and announcing detail as indicated?”) Side note: If you’re looking for an entire book of how to present data facts and figures for journalists, my favorite is still “The Wall Street journal guide to information graphics: the dos and don’ts of presenting data, facts, and figures” by Dona M Wong. [public library]

Screen Shot 2016-06-02 at 1.47.30 PMThe next section launches into the math of doing data journalism, a reminder that word people are often not numbers people. Or a reminder to all that, yeah, elementary school math is good to know.

“Avoid percentage and percent change comparisons from a small base. Rankings should include raw numbers to provide a sense of relative importance.
When comparing dollar amounts across time, be sure to adjust for inflation. When using averages (that is, adding together a group of numbers and dividing the sum by the quantity of numbers in the group), be wary of extreme, outlier values that may unfairly skew the result. It may be better to use the median (the middle number among all the numbers being considered) if there is a large difference between the average (mean) and the median.”

It heads into more advanced territory with a paragraph on causality, rounding numbers and sample size before winding up with a solid reminder for data-happy hacks: “Try not to include too many numbers in a single sentence or paragraph.”

Now we only have to wait and see how the Stylebook passes judgement on the proper abbreviation for “internet of things.”

Armchair mappers: Help prepare for the next humanitarian crisis

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 5.05.35 PMKathmandu before and after the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team dived in.

Just 48 hours after Nepal’s devastating earthquake, thousands of volunteers from around the world helped create maps that guided emergency response teams.

Many of these “digital humanitarians” came from OpenStreetMap, an open source mapping effort. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) in launched 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti, when the office safeguarding country’s maps pancaked in the 7.0 temblor.

_Schuyler Erle shows what happened to Haiti's mapping office post earthquake._

Schuyler Erle shows what happened to Haiti’s mapping office after the earthquake.

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Why no one cares about your app and what to do about it

This post has been developed into a talk about getting PR for your startup, if you’d like to know more, get in touch!

SAN FRANCISCO — You created an app. You think it’s awesome. Your friends say so too. Something nags at you, though: You have zero reviews, your downloads don’t outnumber your Facebook pals, and you need to make rent.

There’s a fancy name for your problem: “discoverability.” Millions of good apps face it, gathering dust between bogus fart apps and Flappy Bird clones.

“It’s hard to make a living in the App Store,” says Michael Yacavone, founder of Individuate, which makes personal-development apps Ace It! and Affirmable.

But there is definitely money to be made in the App Store, to the tune of $15 billion Apple has paid developers so far. Apple recently vowed to improve discoverability by adding an “explore” tab to the App Store, but whether users will search for new and exciting apps remains to be seen. The basic problem remains for most developers: Nearly everyone is ignoring you. Journalists can help, but you have to know how to deal with them.

At AltConf last week, developers like Yacavone got a chance to chat with tech journalists (including me) about how to garner the kind of coverage that can make or break an app. Billed as a Journalist Pitch Lab, the session felt a bit like speed dating. Some devs hit us with the equivalent of, “Hey what’s your sign?”; others just wanted to talk.

“It’s always great to get face time with journalists,” said Tara Zirker, director of social media and engagement for Imagine If, who was at the AltConf event to talk about her company’s travel app, StayAtHand.

Problematic pitching

While chatting with developers for three hours straight during the AltConf session, I noticed several problems that bubbled to the surface repeatedly.

You don’t know what your app is

You need to know how to get your product across in a sentence or two. Sometimes, people jumped straight into a demo, forcing me to half-listen, half-interpret: “So, this is a Skype/Instagram/eBay killer for the business market?” You don’t want the press wondering what it is you do, especially while you’re rocketing ahead to show off the extra-cool features. This happens all the time in email pitches.

Also, do it simply. You’re a regular person, not a carnival barker. We’re regular people too. Aim for colloquial English, the kind that lives far, far away from PowerPoint presentations. Jargon sucks.

You don’t know who it’s for, or what it’s for

Who would use this app? Why would they want it? This isn’t always as obvious as it seems. And, if you’re touting features like social sharing, be able to answer why your users would want to do that — just because you can include a feature doesn’t mean you should. Or that someone would want to use it. Most journalists avoid buzz-features du jour with the same vehemence that they would steer clear of a “mocktail” hour.

You don’t know what goes into (or should be left out of) a press release

If you’re reaching out on your own to journalists, keep it simple. Don’t link to a “press kit” or point them to a video if your concept can be explained simply.  Avoid terms like “exclusive” and “embargo” (it’s gone the way of the CB radio) — they will only increase your chances of getting ignored or into trouble. Make sure you cover the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, why and how) and include your preferred contact info for quick follow-up. Then forget that it’s a “press release” at all and write like a normal person. Proofread it. Hit send. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

You don’t know that you’re part of the story

If your personal life/background is relevant to your company story, use it to hook interest. Are you a former Apple employee? That’s worth mentioning sooner rather than later. Did you spend 20 years in the food industry before teaching yourself to code a cooking app? Bring that to the table when you’re pimping your story.

It can be a simple sentence or two in a short email — depending on whether your focus is getting product coverage (new release, you just won an award) or a less timely, profile-type piece. But if you are the story, know that going in.

Tara Zirker shows the StayAtHand travel app to MacRumors’ Arnold Kim during AltConf’s Journalist Pitch Lab. Photo: Jim Merithew

You think of yourself as a product, not a source

No app is an island. You may want blanket coverage when you’ve got news, but that’s a numbers game where the odds are against you. You could send out hundreds of emails and get zero coverage in return. A week later, you’re not news anymore, and no one knows you’re out there.

Know the hot-button issues and the seasonality of your industry. Think about your App Store category — fitness? health? dating? It’s easy to pitch marriages sparked by dating apps in early February but an uphill climb to pitch any news about a ski app in the summer.

Consider yourself a source. If you’re an award-winning, cross-platform indie developer with something to say about Swift, we want to hear it when news breaks. Or maybe you’re a designer having to tweak iOS 8 for your clients because of legibility issues that you haven’t read about anywhere yet.

Go to the publications that you regularly read, search for the topic (or your competitors) and fire off a short email to the reporter. Tell them you know they cover the topic, what your point is, why you think your point is interesting/new/different and end with the best way to contact you for a follow-up. Proofread your email and consider anything you write a quote – in other words, it could end up published.

Monitor coverage of your competitors. (Google alerts are perfect for this.) Mainstream media is a great place to look for big ideas: Did USA Today just run a piece on the next generation of travel apps? That story will be passed around in more ways than a nimble young lass at a square dance competition. Find a way to be a part of it.

If you have a company or personal blog, write about that article and put your own spin on it. The same day, if possible. And get it out using the names of your biggest competitors in the social media blast. It might get picked up in the blogosphere – that endless hall of mirrors reflecting publications of varying size and slant.

Also, write that USA Today reporter a short note, telling them either what you liked or what they got wrong (gently, this last one), how you fit into the picture, and what makes you stand out from the pack. Ask that they consider you a source for future stories and provide the best way to contact you. Freelancers may be able to get you into a different publication as they re-spin the story. Also, journos switch jobs frequently. And they also help each other out by trading smart sources who respond quickly.


Monitor coverage of your competitors. (Google alerts are perfect for this.) Mainstream media is a great place to look for big ideas: Did USA Today just run a piece on the next generation of travel apps? That story will be passed around in more ways than a nimble young lass at a square dance competition. Find a way to be a part of it.

If you have a company or personal blog, write about that article and put your own spin on it. The same day, if possible. And get it out using the names of your biggest competitors in the social media blast. It might get picked up in the blogosphere – that endless hall of mirrors reflecting publications of varying size and slant.

Also, write that USA Today reporter a short note, telling them either what you liked or what they got wrong (gently, this last one), how you fit into the picture, and what makes you stand out from the pack. Ask that they consider you a source for future stories and provide the best way to contact you. Freelancers may be able to get you into a different publication as they re-spin the story. Also, journos switch jobs frequently. And they also help each other out by trading smart sources who respond quickly.

If you develop relationships with reporters at other publications, write them about it, too, finding a way to push the story forward. An incisive sentence or two about what the implications are or what may happen next given the upcoming legislative hearing and bam! You’re quoted in a post and become part of the echo chamber.

You don’t know if you need a PR firm or not

Should you interface with the press yourself – or do you need a public-relations person to help you out? Consider this: If you are easily hurt, clueless about all of the above, have no time and are super-nervous about the way you speak or write, get a publicist. They can help you determine where you fit into the news and make you look good until you get the hang of it. Ask them how they will position you and what they think your story is — it will help you to get an outside opinion. Caveat: They cannot (and should not) guarantee that you will get massive coverage. However, they may cut down on the wear and tear to you in the process.

Otherwise, it may be better to go solo. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, public relations professionals outnumber reporters about four to one. Journalists are being slowly suffocated under the weight of press releases, many of them not better (and certainly not more personal) than you could write yourself. I can count the number of interesting, relevant emails from actual people sent to me, personally, without taxing my brain as much as calculating a restaurant tip does. And I’ve ended up writing about almost all of them.

You don’t know the answers to six difficult questions

Any reporter worth that title will ask you something you’d rather not answer, sooner or later. Think ahead about what you’re going to say. Keep it simple. Jargon sucks and, in the face of a tough question, it’s easier to see through than Kim Kardashian’s blouse.

Some standard toughies:

“Why should my readers care?”
“Who are your competitors and why are you different/better?”
“Where’s the money coming from?”
“What’s your business model?
“Is this really anything new, after XYZ already did it?”
“What about privacy/legal issues/data, etc.?”

That’s basically it. If you have more questions about how to deal with the press, ask me in the comments or email me directly.

A version of this story appeared in Cult of Mac.

Data points: visualization that means something [review]

Proving a point about data with the author's wedding photos.

Proving a point about data with the author’s wedding photos.

Nathan Yau is a self-appointed cicerone who shows the rest of us around the big, beautiful data visualization world.

A statistician by trade, the likeable, plain-speaking Yau runs Flowingdata.com. And, like all good tour guides, his job is to get you to think about what he’s presenting, not just drop your jaw at the sights.

In “Data Points: Visualization That Means Something,” [public library] Yau wants you to think about sample size — even if he has to show you with a jar of gumballs. To bring home the point about data representing real life, he takes out his own wedding photos. Later in the book, he manages to transform an eye-crossingly dull table of U.S. education stats into 29 different graphics to show how it’s done.
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Where in the world can you still send a telegram? [Map]

Telegrams may have gone the way of the steam engine, but there are number of places around the world, from Japan to Mexico, still sending them.

The news about India shuttering its 162-year-old telegram service sounded like the last, labored puff of a country making progress into a bold new era.

So I wondered where people are still using them as a swift, inexpensive means to send condolences and well wishes on important occasions. (An outfit called – what else? – iTelegram took over from Western Union for the U.S., though I can’t remember ever sending or receiving a telegram here.)
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Mapping where your iPhone got lost or stolen

I am not a psychic, but I have a good idea where you and your iPhone parted ways.

If you’re desperately seeking it on Craigslist, chances are you lost your device – or had it stolen – over the weekend, especially at night. And probably at some fun destination – shopping, the beach, a bar – or heading there on your usual means of transportation (the car, a gas station or parking lot, or bus).

Although your entire work life might be on it, you are pleading with the person who found it (or swiped it) to return your iPhone because those photos of your dog or kid or grandma can never be replaced.

This is the most common tale to emerge from Cult of Mac’s recent analysis of hundreds of iPhone lost and found ads on Craigslist blanketing the entire United States. (Here’s the backstory on how I did it using Python, if you’re interested.)

Stealing iPhones (“Apple picking”) now accounts for about half the crimes in cities like San Francisco and New York; it’s hard to say how many absent-minded drinkers leave them at bars, but if you find a phone and don’t return it, in many places that becomes theft by finding.

Police and Apple diverge on what to do about it. The Cupertino company advises you to notify police, while some authorities are urging phone makers and service providers to add a kill switch to curb thefts.

Apple’s “Find my iPhone” can help, unless the savvy crook pops out the SIM card or wipes the contents of your phone and starts over. This gray area has inspired some derring-do recoveries, like outing the thief or the finder-who-wants-to-be-keeper by staging a diabolical seduction. Not recommended.

stores

In the meantime, if you’re hoping someone will return your lost iPhone or realize they’ve bought stolen goods and do the right thing, you’re probably heading to Craigslist.

Generally speaking, you’re more likely to offer heartfelt thanks than a reward for the return of your phone. Unless you live in a place such as Washington, D.C. or Michigan, then you’re ready to bust out the cash.

After combing through these ads for the project, I bought an ugly white case for my black iPhone 4S to make it easier to see in the pitch of all of my dark bags and on taxi seats, etc. As a result, I am having fewer of those “where’s my goddamn phone?” moments.

Have you lost your iPhone? How did you recover it? Let me know in the comments.

First published at Cult of Mac.

Painful lessons in data journalism: scraping with Python

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Lost in the woods. CC-licensed, Chris-Håvard Berge on Flickr.

Lost and found ads can be a good way to sniff out a story.

Take the ones on Craigslist about iPhones. There’s a woman who gained a husband in a quickie wedding at city hall but left her iPhone behind. Or a drunk college kid who dropped his phone on the passenger seat of a good samaritan who took him home.

Is there a bigger story about lost and stolen iPhones? To find out, I scraped all 50 states of Craigslist lost and found ads using Python and BeautifulSoup. If you want to check out or improve that code, it’s on GitHub. Here’s the full story, with charts and things!

The project required more fist clenching and eye straining than anticipated – even though writing a basic scraper for Craigslist is considered an easy-peasy programming project.

Let me just say it: as a novice Pythonista, I am challenged by nearly everything. I mean, command line interface, seriously? But I can get past that. I slogged through (and recommend) Learning Python the Hard Way, as well as finished some examples in Scraping for Journalists.
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Five Things I Learned This week From Pope Magazine

This week's edition of "Il Mio Papa."

This week’s edition of “Il Mio Papa.”

For you non-Italian readers, here is this week’s news from the only weekly mass-market magazine about the Pope, “Il Mio Papa:”

  • The Pope Confesses: “I’m a sinner too”
  • The inside scoop on the cross he wears around his neck
  • Francis warns politicians: no heaven for the corrupt
  • The Angelus prayer and audience in the square
  • Meet the cousins of the Pope in Piedmont

And, for the cover story of “My Pope,” Francis and Obama: an historic meeting. (The line above it reads: “What they said and the gifts they exchanged.”)
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