◢ DUG

How to build a data team in a small or nonprofit newsroom.

DUG is a field guide to standing up data journalism capacity: who to hire, where the team sits, which tools matter now, how to use AI responsibly, and how to fund it all. It's built on what data teams across the field told us, gathered up so the next newsroom doesn't have to start from scratch. A project of Caldern LLC and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

  1. 01 Getting Started A working definition of the data unit and the four kinds of people who staff one.
  2. 02 People The four roles on a data unit, where to find them, and what to pay them.
  3. 03 Structure How a data team should interface with editorial and product, and the failure modes to avoid.
  4. 04 Tech and Tools A current, curated map of the data-journalism toolkit, from wrangling to reproducible reporting to the web.
  5. 05 AI in the Newsroom What AI is good for in data journalism, where it fails, and the rules for using it responsibly.
  6. 06 Value The non-financial case for data journalism, and how a nonprofit should measure its impact.
  7. 07 Fundraising Modes of funding a data team, the funders that matter now, and how the landscape changed.