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I learned today that Depth Reporting's recent problems were caused by Google's blogroll widget, which I have removed from my page. That allowed me to restore Depth Reporting's old template. I considered elaborating on Google's lousy way of handling problems like these, but don't have the patience right now, and will be moving on.
Depth Reporting, which is hosted by Google's Blogger, was down for more than a day for reasons that are still unclear to me. Apparently others are having similar problems, but as is typical with Google, they haven't responded to my request for help or offered an explanation. They tell users to report problems in their forums, but actually replying to those reports doesn't appear to interest them. Their status page, more than 8 hours after I submitted my request for help, mentions only "a small number" of users reporting "broken feeds," which doesn't fit my situation. I restored Depth Reporting by reverting to one of Google's classic templates, as suggested by a blogger in their forums, but all of my customizations have been lost. Depth Reporting also seems to be having problems displaying images.
To be continued ...
I've moved this blog several times, and in doing so I've had to go through various contortions to make sure everyone subscribing to Depth Reporting could continue using whichever RSS feed they originally signed on with. The feed I've been using the last several years has been http://feeds.feedburner.com/DepthReporting, and that's the one you should be using now. My feed hasn't changed with the latest move to Google, but if you're still pointing to an older Depth Reporting feed, I'd appreciate it if you'd update it to the FeedBurner feed. That will insure that you continue to receive my posts -- assuming, of course, you really want such a thing.
Google now allows you to keep your own domain name but host your blog on their servers. I am going to attempt to move Depth Reporting to Google, so it may or may not be available at times during the next few days while I make the transition. Thank you for your patience.
A belated note that I'm on vacation this week: Depth Reporting will return the day after Xmas, or thereabouts.
Blogger has always been evidence that Google is not the smoothly running machine its high stock price, bursting profits and slick new technologies would seem to imply. Clearly they've had some technology and management problems there. I've used it since 2003 and it has failed repeatedly, sometimes making it impossible to put up new posts. Only inertia and the dread of moving nearly 1,200 postings to a new system has kept me using it. Finally they've invited me to participate in their new Blogger beta, which is supposed to fix the many issues Blogger has had over the years, as well as add new features. I made the switch last night, and for you, the reader, this is probably important in only one way: Blogger now supports "labels," which will allow me to organize the postings here in a more useful way. I can now categorize the postings by subject, such as "investigative tools" or "mapping" or "demographics," so if you're interested in a particular subject, you can more easily find relevant postings. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back and add labels all 1,200 postings I've already made, but I will at least try to label some of them, as well as all future postings.
If you've visited Depth Reporting in the last few days, you'll have noticed it has a new look.
Depth Reporting now flies under the banner of The Courier-Journal.
I started this blog more than two years ago. It was my way of learning what this blogging thing was all about, and another way of sharing the information sources I kept tabs on for my work and passed on to my colleagues in a regular email called the "CAR Report."
CAR -- computer-assisted reporting -- is newspaper jargon for the use of computers to gather and report the news. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you already know that. But if you're reading it today because you saw it mentioned in the newspaper for the first time, you probably don't.
I'm the CJ's computer-assisted reporting director. I help reporters gather and analyze information for news stories, build databases, create data-driven maps, manage and write code for the newsroom's intranet, and generally help out whenever journalists must defer to computers.
Although it has always been an outgrowth of my work, my blog up to now has been a personal project. But the newspaper's editors, as well as myself, think many of the things I write about here would interest readers too, so starting today we're going to publish some of the links I write about here on page A2 of the paper in a feature called "Look it up online."
I hope you find it useful.
As for the blog, I plan to continue writing it pretty much the way I always have. A few months ago I changed its name from the CAR Report to Depth Reporting because I thought the term "computer-assisted reporting" had outlived its usefulness, and because it was too narrow for the true subject of this blog, which is simply information gathering, in whatever form that might take.
Thanks for reading. Stick around, and let me know what you think.
If you’ve been paying attention in the last 24 hours you’ll notice the CAR Report has a new name: Depth Reporting.
Why? One reason is that I never intended the CAR Report to become a blog. It began as a semi-regular email on computer-assisted reporting topics I would send to the staff of The Courier-Journal, where I am the computer-assisted reporting director. I put it on the Web two years ago after several people asked me if there was a way they could read it from home without having to forward it to themselves.
I called it the CAR Report because the morning I sent the first email I couldn’t think of a better name. (I remember one newspaper had a CAR newsletter called “Mouse Droppings,” but that wasn’t quite the image I wanted to project). The name has been with me ever since, and I will continue to use it inside the newspaper. On the Web, however, it’s another matter. I know from my server logs that I get a lot of visitors looking for information on automobiles. If you do a Google search on “car report” you’ll find that the CAR Report turns up fourth – a Google rank many a Web site would kill for. But I hate to disappoint all those people looking for ratings on that new Hummer.
I also agree with those who find “computer-assisted reporting” an awkward phrase (see, for example, the recent discussion on NICAR-L, assuming, that is, that you’re an IRE member). A British blogger recently chastised me and other journalists for using it. He called it an “archaic term” and “kind of silly.” Fair enough, but for better or worse, it’s the name that’s stuck. The language will do what the language wants to do.
I like computers, but my interest isn’t in computers as such – it’s in using them as a tool for research and writing. I’m interested in anything that will improve my reporting skills – whether it’s software, a book, a statistical technique or a different way to organize my files. Focusing too much on computers misses the point and scares away some who otherwise would be interested.
I chose Depth Reporting as the name because it doesn’t carry the computer baggage and it states directly what I’m interested in: encouraging richer, deeper reporting. Besides, my wife liked it better than the alternatives I offered (and will take with me to my grave).
Truth is, I’m mostly talking to myself because the audience for the CAR Report is miniscule. A few weeks ago I began running my feed through FeedBurner, and it tells me roughly 30-35 people regularly get my feed. If you’re one of those people, I hope these changes don’t lose you. In making the change, I’ve had to redirect the old links to the CAR Report to the new links for Depth Reporting, and I’m not sure all the changes will work as intended. We’ll just have to see. For the record, the new home page for Depth Reporting is http://schaver.com/depthreporting.html and the new address for the feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/DepthReporting. Try entering the new feed address manually in your reader if you’re having problems. Or email me at schaver at gmail dot com and I’ll try to help.
Thanks for reading.
