May 16: USA Facts to Mine Data on Social, Financial Issues
Finding datasets can be a challenge, particularly when you’re looking for national or international datasets. In past newsletters, we’ve worked with tools such as Google Dataset Search.
USA Facts, founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy to access. The site provides embeddable graphics, raw but clean datasets, and story analysis on US spending and outcomes in order to ground public debates in facts.
The site has several sub-level pages covering topics such as the economy, climate, crime, the Census and more. My UIC students and I check it regularly to find ways to localize the national — and sometimes global — data to an Illinois or Chicago audience.
You can find more data resources on the Toolbox’s Public Records and Data Journalism pages.
Cool Tool
Alternativeto.net is a crowd-sourced software recommendation site. Type a software name into the field and it will give you a list of free, browser-based tools similar to what you typed in.
Try it out: Type in Photoshop to the field and it will give you dozens of free photo-editing tools, complete with reviews from users. Helpful if you’re in a pinch, working remotely with your laptop. Or if you just want to find some free, cheap options.
Buy me a beer: Hey, I work hard to find all of these tools for you! Click on the button to buy me a beer (or six). I’m thirsty!
Around the Web
A list of publishers and their Telegram messaging accounts.
NewsFlow
An application that lets you share stories from all over the world. Create your own news by adding photos, videos, text, and links to other sources and share instantly with your head office.The Artificial Creativity Landscape
More than 180 AI tools in a downloadable PDF. Just click on the icons to find your next AI tool for creative and knowledge work.
In Quotes …
“The first law of journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.” — Alex Cockburn, Irish-American journalist
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