Document of the Day: Algorithms for Journalists

Understanding how algorithms work can seriously up your game as a journalist. From analyzing election predictions to simulating a measles outbreak or verifying whether Nike’s shoes really do make you run faster, the potential applications of this knowledge are vast.

A good place to start is the course syllabus of the algorithms class taught by computational journalist Jonathan Stray at Columbia Journalism School’s The Lede program. It’s up on GitHub, with links to slides, reading material and exercises. Note that the class is intended for students with a beginner’s level in Python programming.