Media Bloggers Ass'n. Doing Computer Assisted Reporting Bootcamp

A number of people have signed up but we still have open seats available for MBA's second Database 101/201 Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting (CARR) Boot Camp at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., as well as some fellowships to help cover travel and lodging expenses. The first MBA CARR Boot Camp at BlogNashville drew rave reviews from all 14 of the folks who attended. the CARR boot camp gives you the skills to find and use publicly available data to get beyond the hype and PR cant to get to the truth about virtually any major public policy issue being debated in the Blogosphere and the MSM. It's fun, it's cheap and it's a great professional investment in yourself. Forgive me for sounding like a commercial, but it's hard not to be enthusiastic about these boot camps because I've been leading them for five years and I've seen how they transform people by giving them confidence to dig into stuff they never dreamed of tackling. Enrollment is online at: http://www.heritage.org/press/carr/bootcampenroll.cfm. And feel free to call me if you have questions about any aspect of the program. Besides our usual folks from Heritage, the instructors at BlogNashville included David Kamin of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank here in D.C. For the September event, the instructors staff will include Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, which is the AFL's think tank. Many thanks to Rebecca McKinnon, Doug Petch, Ian Schwartz, Bill Hobbs and others I have undoubtedly missed for posting recently on the CARR Boot Camps. Here's what a couple of the BlogNashville graduates said of their experience at the CARR Boot Camp: "Citizen journalists will find the CARR training to be very useful. I came away with a better understanding of how to find, analyze and interpret data in order to shape a story, as well as recognize some ways it can be distorted by news media. CARR also helped me develop my investigative and computer skills, which allow me to get to the heart of a story faster. The training is immediate and practical and each person will come away having learned something useful, which can be put directly into practice. On top of that, it's free; how can you beat that?" --- Mick Wright, Fishkite.com "Nothing improves your standing with others more than actually knowing what you're talking about. The MBA CARR Boot Camp teaches you how to find that knowledge for yourself. It's one thing to know it, it's another to prove it. The MBA CARR Boot Camp shows you how to find the proof you're looking for." --- Kevin Barbieux, Nashvilleis.com "The burr that launched my blog was the escalating effort to strip religion from the public square. The whip that keeps me blogging as though my children's lives depend on it is attempts to regulate the Internet. The skills I need to worry that burr and counter that whip are curiosity, enthusiasm, perseverance, a clear writing style and analytic ability. The resources I need are a public forum and data. When I attended the MBA CARR Boot Camp in Nashville, I know I brought the first three. I flatter myself that my writing is clear and informative. The MBA CARR Boot Camp handed me the two missing pieces by showing me where the data are and how to analyze them on my personal computer without burying me under piles of technobabble. Plus the instructors are a hoot and a half! Anyone interested in public policy blogging from the most local level to the international level needs this class." --- Shelley Henderson, Kicking Over My Traces Mark Tapscott Director, Center for Media and Public Policy and the Marilyn and Fred Guardabassi Fellow The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, D.C. 20002 Mark.Tapscott@Heritage.org http://tapscottscopydesk.blogspot.com "Talk is cheap. Freedom of Speech is Not."