MEDIA ALERT: Tableau Announces New Curriculum for the Next Generation of Data Journalists

Tableau (NYSE: DATA), the global leader in visual analytics, today announced the availability of a new Tableau for Teaching curriculum, Introduction to Data Journalism. The course focuses on the importance of data literacy in media and is available to instructors for free through the Tableau for Teaching program.

Tableau partnered with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Stanford visiting professor in Professional Journalism, Cheryl Phillips, who developed the curriculum. Designed to help students prepare for a career in journalism, the 10-week course consists of 10 targeted modules, each of which include instructor lecture slides and notes, in-class exercises, raw data files, example Tableau workbooks and assessment criteria.

“In today’s media landscape, it is more important than ever for journalists to rely on data to investigate and report news accurately,” said Cheryl Phillips, Stanford University Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism in the Department of Communication. “As educators, it is imperative that we respond to the industry’s growing demand for data journalists and prepare the next generation of reporters with the tools and skills they’ll need to continue telling complex stories with data.”

Upon completion of the course, students will be well-versed in data journalism best practices, have the ability to obtain and clean files, as well as analyze and visualize data in a variety of formats including spatial data - one of the most common formats available through open-data portals around the world. With these skills, students will be able to simplify and visualize raw data into compelling stories that appeal to readers and, more importantly, highlight the truths often found hiding within data.

Instructors associated with accredited and degree-granting institutions can request the free curriculum by creating a Tableau User Community account and joining the Tableau for Teaching User Group.

About Tableau Software
Tableau (NYSE: DATA) helps people see and understand data. Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share information. More than 54,000 customer accounts get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. Over 300,000 people use Tableau Public to share public data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by downloading the free trial at www.tableau.com/trial.

About Academic Programs
Tableau’s Academic Programs provide resources for qualified students and instructors to learn and teach Tableau for free. Learn more: tableau.com/academic.

About Cheryl Phillips
Cheryl Phillips has been teaching journalism at Stanford since 2014 and is a founding member of the Stanford Computational Journalism Lab. Previously, she worked at The Seattle Times for 12 years where she was part of two Pulitzer Prize awards for breaking news coverage. In her most recent role as Data Innovation Editor, she analyzed data for stories, facilitated online storytelling and coordinated newsroom data journalism training. She also worked with Columbia University and doctoral candidate Charles Berret to evaluate how data journalism is taught in the United States. They evaluated more than 100 journalism programs and interviewed more than 50 journalists, students and professors resulting in a book-length report on the history of data journalism, the current state and suggestions for the future, published in early 2016.