5 digital tools for newsrooms and how they help journalism

Here's my list for the top five digital tools and how they can help journalism

1. Storify.
The most overdone way this tool has been used is to pile up tweets and facebook posts. I believe this is a gross underuse of the tool.

Serious crime in Kingston

Reports of serious crime in the city of Kingston were 2.75 percent lower in 2011 than in 2010, according to statistics released by the Kingston Police Department.

Here's a graph that shows those statistics.

Juvenile complaints in Kingston, by hour of the day, 2007 to 2011

Juvenile Complaints in Kingston by Hour

Visualizing overlapping 'double dipping' hours from state comptroller's report

I'm playing around with some visualization tools during my spare time as of late, using ManyEyes.

The concept is simple, upload a document and choose the visualization method. It's a bit tricky, and I'll get better as I get comfortable with it.

But the potential is there. Here's a simple chart from the state Comptroller's preliminary report on overlapping hours in the double-dipping scandal.

If I get the hang of it, you'll see this more often.

UPDATE: I was asked in the comments if we could upload the time sheet with 'double dip' on it. Here is one:

UPDATE 2: Microsoft Excel does charts, of course, so let's add Wages, Overtime with URGENT, School money and benefits and make some CHARTICLES!

Detective Lt. Timothy Matthews wages 2007-2010