newsbeastlabs:

Tracking the presidential groundgame

As the two presidential campaigns launch into their final throws, we wanted to see who had the biggest footprint of campaign headquarters across the country. The map above ran with the resulting story showing Obama with a large advantage, especially in swing states. We thought getting from idea to map / chart would be as easy as checking the candidates’ websites or calling their press offices to request a full list. Not quite.

Finding Romney’s offices

Governor Romney’s campaign didn’t get back to our requests so we dug into their website. Romney only had volunteer offices in 16 states, each of which has a web page and a map showing office locations. Here’s Ohio’s. The data that powers the map is visible if you look at the Javascript files that power it, so we copied the data sixteen states into one file and saved it. They were in JSON file format — but more on that later.

Finding Obamas’s offices

President Obama has offices in many more states than Romney so going state by state is more of a hassle and his campaign’s website doesn’t have the same convenient state-by-state maps. Instead, you input your zip code and it gives you a map of all locations within forty miles of you. 

Needless to say, getting a comprehensive list by canvassing the country in 40 mile chunks was out of the question. Digging again into the javascript that powers the website (aside: the Obama website has some slick ASCII art in their source code), their volunteer center finder works by sending out a query that looks like this http://offices.barackobama.com/postal_code/10011/ with your zip code making up the those last five digits. If you put that in your browser and hit return you’ll see the centers closest to the Daily Beast offices in Manhattan…. (Read more)

We’re excited to show-off our newest Tumblr: NewsBeast Labs! As we write in the description, we’ll be giving you a peak at notes and images from our ever-growing digital newsroom. So if you’re into journalism, maps, data, pretty colors, etc. you should definitely follow. 

We’ve got some cool news from the Department of the Future: NewsBeast is super proud to be launching our first Daily Beast Election Ad Tracker!

We’ve partnered with the fine folks at Super PAC App to help track political ads that air over the next 80 days until November 6th. Through our dashboard, you can watch and rate the political ads, read articles about the issues, and learn about the (oftentimes shadowy) groups that are producing these ads.

The end result: you’ll be more informed about all the messages screaming at your brain throughout the entirety of the 2012 election season.

So check it out. Download Super Pac App to your iPhone. Then go play around with the dashboard on the site. The more you know, the more informed you’ll be on election day.

fastcompany:

Stunning.

nickturse:

Some of the 648 Journalists murdered since 1992

Beats Covered by Victims *

5% Business

29% Corruption

20% Crime

9% Culture

15% Human Rights

45% Politics

2% Sports

23% War

(* May add up to more than 100 percent because more than one category applies in some cases.)

For more, on these heroic women and men, see Committee to Protect Journalists’ website.

From Narratively’s Kickstarter page:

New York is bigger and badder, weirder and sadder, and far more uplifting and intoxicating than the news headlines would have you believe. But too many of its stories are left untold. Narratively is changing that, and then we’ll do it in your city, too. We don’t care about the breaking news or the next big headline. Narratively is devoted exclusively to sharing New York’s untold stories — the rich, in-depth narratives that get at the heart of what this city’s all about.

Way into this.

New York City needs more storytelling platforms. Your city does too. We’ve got 24 days to help Narratively reach their $50,000 goal! Go go go go.

Columbia Journalism Review’s July/August cover pays tribute to Newsweek’s 1970 “Women in Revolt” cover.

I timed the question believing the president was closing his remarks, because naturally I have no intention of interrupting the President of the United States.

Neil Munro, the “reporter” who interrupted the President during his immigration announcement in the Rose Garden. Hm. It smells like, uh, something kinda stinky in here! What is that?!

(Source: dailycaller.com)

A video mashup of Rafael Nadal picking his wedgie.

storyboard:

Welcome to Storyboard

An introduction to Tumblr’s new home for community features.

CONGRATS GUYS. This looks awesome. Really looking forward to this.

shortformblog:

“For sure, he was killed because of his work as a reporter. Over his at least 17 years at the newspaper, he made a long list of enemies, many of whom I imagine would love to see him dead. But he denounced so many people and so much corruption that it is impossible to say who was behind his murder.” — O Estado do Maranhao state affairs editor Silvia Moscoso • Discussing the death of Decio Sa, one of his co-workers at the Brazilian newspaper. The political reporter was killed Monday night, gunned down while eating dinner. Brazil is a particularly dangerous part of the world for journalists — four journalists have been killed just this year alone, along with 21 since 1992.

Rest in peace, brother.

A new documentary that follows a team of video activists in Homs, Syria reveals they embellished footage to make it appear more dramatic—in this case setting fire to a tire in an alley to create a column of smoke in the background (skip to 8:05). While nobody is debating the extent of the crackdown in the country, episodes like this surely give the Assad regime something to point to when they claim the resistance is fraudulent, no doubt.

So why’d they do it?

The activist tells us by email: “I set the tire on fire because there was a violent shelling on Baba Amr district and we couldn’t reach it. We are being killed with cold blood by the occupying Assad regime. This is the idea that came to my mind to show the world about the shelling as the sky of Homs was covered with smoke.”

“They are desperate to get the word out,” the producer of the documentary later said. “But they don’t need to embellish. It’s all around.”