Tag Archives: politics

Campaign funding: interactive graphics

As we approached the off-year primary election in the spring of 2014, the reporting staff at The World in Coos Bay, Oregon, began looking for interesting ways to cover the races. We had started experimenting with interactive graphics (I created a simple funding timeline to accompany a reporter’s story.) and we thought this tool would be useful to show our readers where campaign funds came from and where they went. I worked with a reporter to obtain the necessary data from the Oregon Secretary of State website and we used the publicly available Tableau Public software to make connections within the data. This tool allowed us to sort through more than 5,000 rows of financial data to present it in a condensed, easy-to-navigate format.

One candidate, who ended up losing the election after her opponent out-fundraised her 7-1, tweeted …

This is a three-part graphics series. Please use the page navigation below.

DeFazio: Country will survive shutdown

When the U.S. government shut down in the fall of 2013, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D- Oregon, was among the more vocal critics of Republican lawmakers as the cause of the shutdown. This was a quick piece following an interview with the congressman.

By Les Bowen for The World
Oct. 1, 2013   |   1:00 PM   |   Original source

Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, called the federal government shutdown Tuesday a “phony crisis,” and blamed the far-right wing of House Republicans for the failure of Congress to pass an appropriations bill. Continue reading DeFazio: Country will survive shutdown

Livingston County DA contest

Livingston County, N.Y., had one of the most interesting primary contests in 2012 as two candidates vied for the GOP nomination into the general election. Coverage of this race started with my colleagues at a larger daily paper, but when this story broke wide open our news team opted to assign coverage to me; although I typically ran on a weekly news cycle, my office was geographically closer and given the speed at which this story progressed my proximity proved critical in staying with this story.

Eric Schiener responds to questions from reporters following Wednesday's hearing in Rochester, where 7th District Supreme Court Judge John Ark ruled that Schiener will remain tied with opponent Steve Sessler.
Eric Schiener responds to questions from reporters following Wednesday’s hearing in Rochester, where 7th District Supreme Court Judge John Ark ruled that Schiener will remain tied with opponent Steve Sessler.

This is a multipart series that ran over a period of several weeks. Please use the page navigation below.