# Computer-assisted reporting
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'''Computer-assisted reporting''' describes the use of [computer](/source/computer)s to gather and analyze the data necessary to write [news](/source/news) stories.
The spread of computers, [software](/source/software) and the [Internet](/source/Internet) changed how [reporters](/source/reporters) work. Reporters routinely collect information in [database](/source/database)s, analyze public records with [spreadsheet](/source/spreadsheet)s and [statistical programs](/source/statistical_package), study political and [demographic](/source/demographic) change with [geographic information system](/source/geographic_information_system) mapping, conduct interviews by [e-mail](/source/e-mail), and [research](/source/research) background for articles on the [Web](/source/World_Wide_Web).
Collectively this has become known as computer-assisted reporting, or CAR. It is closely tied to "precision" or [analytic journalism](/source/analytic_journalism), which refer specifically to the use of techniques of the [social sciences](/source/social_sciences) and other disciplines by journalists.
== History and development ==
One researcher argues the "age of computer-assisted reporting" began in 1952, when [CBS](/source/CBS) television used a [UNIVAC I](/source/UNIVAC_I) computer to analyze returns from the U.S. presidential [election](/source/election).[Melisma Cox, [http://com.miami.edu/car/cox00.pdf The development of computer-assisted reporting] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928144238/http://com.miami.edu/car/cox00.pdf |date=2011-09-28 }}, paper presented to the Newspaper Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Southeast Colloquium, March 17–18, 2000, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.] One of the earliest examples came in 1967, after [riots](/source/riots) in Detroit, when [Philip Meyer](/source/Philip_Meyer) of the ''[Detroit Free Press](/source/Detroit_Free_Press)'' used a [mainframe computer](/source/mainframe_computer) to show that people who had attended college were equally likely to have rioted as were high school dropouts.[{{cite magazine
| last = Bowen
| first = Ezra
| title = New Paths to Buried Treasure; Computers are revolutionizing investigative journalism
| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961680-1,00.html
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070930193236/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961680-1,00.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = September 30, 2007
| magazine = [Time](/source/Time_(magazine))
| date = July 7, 1986
}}]
Since the 1950s, computer-assisted developed to the point that databases became central to the journalist's work by the 1980s. In his book, Precision Journalism, the first edition of which was written in 1969, [Philip Meyer](/source/Philip_Meyer) argues that a journalist must make use of databases and surveys, both computer-assisted. In the 2002 edition, he goes even further and states that "a journalist has to be a database manager".[Philip Meyer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uUzT0M_lPbYC ''Precision Journalism''], p. 1, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.]
In 2001, computers had reached a critical mass in American newsrooms in terms of general computer use, online research, non-specialist content searching, and daily frequency of online use,[Bruce Garrison, 2001. [http://jou.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/2/221 Diffusion of online information technologies in newspaper newsrooms], ''Journalism'', volume 2, pp. 221-239.] showing that CAR has become ubiquitous in the United States.
==Tools and techniques==
The techniques expanded from polling and surveying to a new opportunity for journalists: using the computer to analyze huge volumes of government records. The first example of this type may have been Clarence Jones of ''[The Miami Herald](/source/The_Miami_Herald)'', who in 1969 worked with a computer to find patterns in the criminal justice system. Other notable early practitioners included [David Burnham](/source/David_Burnham) of ''[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)'', who in 1972 used a computer to expose discrepancies in crime rates reported by the police; [Elliot Jaspin](/source/Elliot_Jaspin) of ''[The Providence Journal](/source/The_Providence_Journal)'', who in 1986 matched databases to expose school bus drivers with bad driving histories and criminal records; and [Bill Dedman](/source/Bill_Dedman) of ''[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution](/source/The_Atlanta_Journal-Constitution)'', who received the [Pulitzer Prize](/source/Pulitzer_Prize) for his 1988 investigation, ''The Color of Money'', which dealt with [mortgage lending discrimination](/source/Mortgage_discrimination) and [redlining](/source/redlining) in middle-income black neighborhoods.