New England First Amendment Coalition

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October 2026

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Welcome to NEFAC Classroom!

Each month, we'll send you a selection of informative resources designed to support your reporting and newsgathering. Learn from the region's leading journalists, First Amendment experts and legal scholars at your own pace.

Whether you are new to data reporting or looking to enhance your existing skills, we invite you to engage with our classes, share what you learn and join our growing community.

Reporting with Data

This month we begin our first of three sets of lessons on data reporting. You will learn how to:

• Develop a document-centric mindset while reporting.
• Find sources of data to strengthen your stories. 
• Scrape data from websites for easier analysis. 

LESSON 1

Develop a 'Document State of Mind'

Learn from Jenifer McKim at GBH News how to ask the key questions that will lead you to documents and other information necessary for your stories.

LESSON 2

Finding High Quality Data for Stories

Before using data cleaning and visualization tools, it’s important to first obtain the most relevant datasets. Margot Williams at The Intercept explains how your reporting will improve with the quality of the data you use.

LESSON 3

Web Scraping 101

In the first of two lessons on web scraping, Maggie Mulvihill at Boston University shows how the skill can be helpful to data collection. You'll learn how to begin scraping various websites and what tools are available to use.

LESSON 4

Web Scraping 102

In this second of two lessons on web scraping, Maggie Mulvihill at Boston University teaches additional ways to scrape websites for information, including how to scrape data from PDF documents for use in spreadsheets.

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