Learn about the Journalist's Toolbox

Come to a virtual training on Feb. 24 to learn about the Journalist's Toolbox, with emphasis on Google tools for journalists, in a live online session with the man behind this fabulous resource.

The Journalist’s Toolbox has been part of the Society of Professional Journalists since 2008. It is edited by University of Illinois-Chicago journalism lecturer Mike Reilley, who founded the site in 1996. Read more about him and the Toolbox below the event details.

The following topics will be covered by Mike Reilley at the event.

7 p.m.-7:50 p.m. ET: What’s new with Google tools: Google Fact-Check Explorer, Google Public Data Explorer, Google Trends, Google search shortcuts, MapChecking.com for crowd size estimates, Google Earth Measure tool, Google Earth Engine Timelapse.

8 p.m.-9 p.m. ET: Data scraping with Google Sheets, scraping PDFs, building graphics with Flourish.studio

Participants should set up an account at Google Flourish prior to the session: http://flourish.studio

Attendance is free and will provide journalist new digital skills for 2022. Register on our Eventbrite page by clicking the button below. A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants.

Discover the Journalist's Toolbox

By Sterling Haynes

SPJ Cleveland Board Member

The website journalisttoolbox.com is usually updated twice a week, but has been updated several times a day since the start of the pandemic. Content contains thousands of free (and some fee-based) resources organized by beats and topics within more than 150 searchable pages.

As newsrooms and resources shrink, the Toolbox plays an important role in providing journalists, students, professors and people in many professions with reliable resources for reporting, editing and verifying complex stories. The site was originally used by news librarians deep-researching in-depth stories. But as newsroom libraries closed, more reporters and editors began using the Toolbox.

Mike Reilley is an SPJ digital trainer who has taught Google News Initiative tools to more than 9,500 journalists and educators in 280 trainings in 40 states over the past six years. He also is co-founder of and trainer with Penny Press Digital LLC, a consulting and training company. When he’s not doing trainings, he teaches data and multimedia journalism at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he is a full-time faculty member.

A former reporter at the Los Angeles Times and web editor at the Chicago Tribune, Mike served for 13 years as a faculty member at Northwestern, Arizona State University and DePaul University, teaching digital journalism to hundreds of students and professional journalists. He holds journalism degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (undergrad) and Northwestern University (master's).

Mike founded and updates the research site The Journalist’s Toolbox for SPJ and runs the Chicago data site, The Red Line Project.

Twitter: @journtoolbox

Email: mikereilley1@gmail.com