Code Like a Journalist

Illustration of two computational journalists working together. Created with ChatGPT.

Hi! 👋

My name is Nael Shiab. I am a computational journalist based in Montreal. I work for CBC News as a Senior Data Producer.

This website is a free, open-source online course on data analysis and visualization using TypeScript. It’s available in English and French. I assume you know nothing about data or code, and I guide you step by step until you’re ready to take off on your own.

While newsrooms struggle financially, independent journalism has never been more important in our societies. Making this course free and open will hopefully lower the barrier to entry for students and journalists looking to specialize in data and code. Over the years, I have learned so much from free tutorials and open-source projects maintained by passionate colleagues. My hope is that this course will help others in the same way.

The lessons are tailored for journalists, but I believe anyone interested in answering questions of public interest with data, code, and algorithms will find them helpful.

Thanks to the support of the Michener Awards Foundation, I took several months off from my current job to fully focus on building the course. I can also count on the support of Jean-Hugues Roy, data journalist at La Presse and former journalism professor at UQAM.

To allow teachers and professors to reuse the course with their students, the content is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. You have to give appropriate credit with my name and a link to the website.

Want to know when new lessons are available? Subscribe to the newsletter ✉️ and give a ⭐ to the GitHub repository to keep me motivated! Click here to get in touch.

Why this course?