Big Local News

Programs offered

Big Local News does not grant academic degrees. It is a research and data-journalism initiative that collects, cleans, and archives government datasets, provides a free data-archiving platform for journalists through biglocalnews.org, and offers training sessions and workshops that walk reporters through analyzing specific types of public data. Selected datasets are preserved in the Stanford Digital Repository. A related undergraduate and graduate course on data journalism has been taught periodically at Stanford since 2018.

Programs and emphasis

The lab partners with local and national newsrooms on data-driven investigative projects covering topics such as criminal justice disparities, wildfire costs, local government accountability, election administration, and housing costs. It grew out of the Stanford Open Policing Project, which Cheryl Phillips co-founded in 2017 and which collected and analyzed more than 250 million police traffic-stop records from 33 states. An Industrial Affiliates program offers newsrooms expanded engagement with the lab's tools and datasets.

History

Big Local News was founded in 2014 by Cheryl Phillips, a former Seattle Times data-investigations editor who joined Stanford's Department of Communication that year. It operates as part of the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative, alongside the Stanford Computational Journalism Lab and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

Key faculty and leadership

Cheryl Phillips: Founder and co-director; Hearst Professional in Residence in Stanford's Department of Communication and faculty director of the Stanford Computational Policy Lab.
Serdar Tumgoren: Co-director; Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism.
R.B. Brenner: Lecturer and Managing Director of the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative.

Location and contact info

Address
McClatchy Hall, 450 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Email
biglocalnews@stanford.edu
Website
https://biglocalnews.org