Introduction:
This is going to be a little different as Prof. Herndon and I are partnering on offering an in-depth stats boot camp for Grady students. We aim to engage you with understanding how vital numbers are to modern work in any kind of journalism, including sports. We’ll have a couple of sessions on stats, sports, and understanding how to use the former to tell stories about the latter.
Learning objectives:
- Understanding how to use data and statistics to tell sports stories
- Understanding the basic principles of statistics in the context of journalism
Steps to completion:
Background:
- Tableau information TK
- Silver Chapter 3, “All I care about are Ws and Ls”
- Class session with Jacob Pomrenke of SABR and Dash Davidson with Tableau, Thursday, Sept. 22
- Basic Statistics for Journalists (9:05-9:55am or 10:10-11am Friday, Sept. 23)
- Extra Credit: Intermediate statistics for journalists, (12:20-1:10pm Friday, Sept. 23)
Reflective:
- Using a stats database like http://stats.nba.com, come up with a defensible story about why a player, a team or a game finished the way it did during the previous season. Use a Tableau graphic to illustrate your point. Post your story to Module 4 by Sept. 26.
Exploratory
- Team budgets due Sept. 19
- Team conferences during class Sept. 20
- Revised story memo due Sept. 23
- OPTIONAL: Develop a plan for using advanced statistics for your team or personal package.