Live Report from Best Buy on Black Friday

This is a live report I did from the Best Buy in Cuyahoga Falls in Akron on Black Friday.  I stopped by around 11:30 and the line wrapped around the building.  I met some very interesting people and had a good time, since the overall atmosphere outside was of excitement and positivity. 

Stores Open Early for Black Friday

This is a news story I produced for a reporting class highlighting which stores opened early for Black Friday 2012 in the Kent/Stow area.

One Constant in Journalism in a Changing World: Computer Assisted Reporting Skills

Doug Oplinger has been a journalist with the Akron Beacon Journal since 1971.  When he began his career, Nixon was president and the national gas price was 36 cents per gallon.  Many things have changed over those 41 years, but one thing hasn’t: the importance of computer assisted reporting skills for effective journalism. 

THE BEGINNING

Oplinger spent 24 of his years with the Beacon Journal as a reporter.  His CAR experience didn’t really take off until the mid 1980s when he purchased a groundbreaking piece of technology that he knew would help his stories: the Macintosh 512k Personal Computer. 

To put this into perspective, one Macbook Pro manufactured in 2012 comes standard with at LEAST four gigabytes of data; which translates to 4194304 kilobytes, which is 8,192 times the RAM of the Macintosh 512k

Released in 1984, this state-of-the-art computer came with a whopping 512 kilobytes of built-in data (RAM).  Because Oplinger realized how useful the machine would be, he went all out and purchased the rare (and expensive) one-megabyte version.  At the time, Oplinger was assigned to the beat of reporting on local business.  He taught himself the ins and outs of excel and used his new technology and knowledge to compile information on unemployment and track what was going on in the local economy.  He quickly realized that having data as facts gave his reports unmistakable credibility. 

Oplinger gave me an example of how using these skills on a daily basis helped him and a fellow reporter stay ahead of breaking news and produce reports before any of their competitors.  Over the span of eighteen months, the two reporters compiled a large database with information regarding correlations between the state budget and education funding.  This database allowed them to quickly and efficiently react to changes in education funding and stay ahead of the pack when it came to reporting.  Oplinger explains how this culminated in a decade-long court case which used his reports and data-gathering:

CAR in the 21^st Century

In addition to his 24 years as a reporter, Oplinger has spent 17 years as the editor of the Beacon Journal.  Over this time, he has seen the exponential growth of technology and its pervasiveness in our culture.  Now more than ever, he says, is the time for reporters to use this technology to help find and organize data to support and strengthen their reports. 

According to Oplinger, the CAR reporter for the Beacon Journal recently departed the newspaper for professional reasons, and this position was swiftly filled (two days before our interview), because he says, “we cannot be a legitimate newspaper unless we have a CAR reporter.” 

The Akron Beacon Journal website often offers interactive reports online which allow users to compare data and statistics collected by the CAR reporter and allow readers to interact with the numbers and thus make it easier for consumers to understand the reports.  Oplinger says the company is moving forward and intends on using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to get more traffic on its webpage. 

With a seasoned CAR reporter like Oplinger behind the editor’s desk, the Beacon Journal is very supportive of computer assisted reporting and offers CAR training for any reporter who requests the service, and offers fellowships to send their best reporters to IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.) conventions with all travel expenses paid by the company.  They suggest and recommend reporters attend other conventions and learning opportunities but may not financially support other events.

In the end, Oplinger says being able to understand and organize numbers is just the tip of the iceberg for new reporters.  In addition to the skills learned in college, he says having courage is just as important and offers some other words of advice:

Using these words of encouragement and a determined work ethic, Oplinger says he feels confident that quality journalism won’t change, but will live on regardless of how much gas prices and the world in general changes in the years to come.