Frequently Asked Questions

What is Data Storytelling?

Data storytelling is using whatever information – whether it's in comma-separated values format, in spoken word, or even visual data – to help tell your story more clearly. It means actively listening to a conversation for stories that you might consider uninteresting or mundane. Sometimes, data storytelling means extracting data that's entombed in a PDF, or buried in gigabytes somewhere on a cloud. It also means to include any good, quality data in a discussion – this could include personal histories, historical timelines, and even incomplete data sets that help give us a better understanding of the world around us. Learn more, here.

What is Dave Moore Media's Experience in Data Storytelling?

In the mid-1990s, I attended a National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting (NICAR) workshop that explored a variety of uses for public data, from analyzing boat accidents to firearms injuries. Shortly after, I built – from scratch – an Excel database from photocopies of city swimming pool inspections. While I was building that database, several people – athletes, more specifically – started getting sick from swimming in water contaminated by giardia parasites. Though the public pools weren't found to contain that parasite, the timing was good. The publication of the story in the Decatur Herald & Review highlighted the importance of effective pool maintenance and sanitation. I was hooked. Since then, I've learned how to geocode comma-separated values files, how to use RStudio to analyze datasets exceeding 5 million records, and I've applied the knowledge in my business. Not all of my work involves data, but when I can use it to advance a client's interest, I will.

How Can Data Storytelling Help Me Build my Legal Practice?

Lawyers LOVE data. Single points of fact have turned entire cases. That fact helped me develop a specialty of legal data analysis for a previous employer, Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. There, I used my data skills to analyze a boat crash database for reporters looking for Memorial Day stories. I analyzed and identified trends on the federal case filing database PACER. In the process, I found that litigation against debt collectors climbed more than 300% during the housing bubble bust. I found that the Arlington, Texas, entertainment district had become a hot spot for DUI crashes, using Google Fusion Tables and structured query language to visualize the concentration. In those instances, my bankruptcy lawyer clients and my DUI crash attorneys served as subject matter experts for local network affiliates. Since then, I've been able to analyze other databases for legal clients seeking information about tow truck drivers and others who are often paid a salary, but who should be paid hourly (and overtime). See some examples, here. Dave Moore has worked with dozens of attorneys over the years, on a variety of projects.

Why Should I Use Data to Tell Your Story?

If there's anything people and artificial intelligence share a love of, it's data. AI loves it because data is something it can easily navigate. AI IS a collection of algorithms and code, after all. When a human finds data sets that bring greater understanding of the world, two things (at least) can happen:

It helps people think;
It can help improve systems;

Both consequences are desirable. Learn more about how data storytelling beats loudmouth opinions, every time.

Have You Ever Met a Database That Was Too Big to Tell a Story About?

No. Now that I have access to RStudio and R, I've not encountered a data set that was too big to analyze.

What's Your Favorite Enterprise Join for Data Storytelling?

When I was able to use the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) CRASH database and join it with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) truck inspection database, to identify Texas' most problematic trucking operations, that became my favorite enterprise join. Previously, I joined Department of Labor restaurant data and Census metro data to determine which area has the most restaurants per capital.

What Kind of Client Is Dave Moore Media's Ideal Client?

If your for-profit or nonprofit is trying to improve the world and help grow human understanding, Dave Moore Media is your huckleberry* (*preferred option). To get an idea of all the services we provide, visit our services page.

How Do I Successfully Talk To and Interact With a Reporter?

Reporters and editors are busy people who also have incredibly high standards for accuracy and swiftness of completing their jobs. Your job – aside from representing your organization well – is to help them do their jobs as efficiently as possible. That means to approach the interaction as a joint project or collaboration. On first contact, listen intently as possible to the context of the questions. Is this a deep dive or a quick hit? Deep dives -- often conducted by beat reporters and investigative reporters – allow for more time to delve into minutia, documents and data. You're the expert in this – otherwise, the reporter wouldn't have contacted you. If you don't know an answer, freely admit it, but refer them to a source who does. If the reporter is filing the story in the next couple days or hours, try to avoid drowning the reporter in details. Ask what they need and help them out. Write out a list of sample questions to practice with, and stage a mock interview with a friend/colleague. Also remember that writers/producers/reporters/content producers often need visualizations for the stories. Have one or two in mind or handy, if they ask. Or go ahead and offer them. After your conversation, send a condensed summary/series of bullet points of facts/thoughts you discussed. DON'T ASK TO SEE THE REPORTER'S STORIES BEFORE THEY'RE PUBLISHED. For more info on how to interact with a reporter, read more, here.

Is There a Way to Direct Web Traffic to Your Website, Using Google AI Overview?

The idea here is a bit of search-engine optimization/artificial-intelligence-powered jiujitsu: Using your own Frequently Asked Questions – and your links to your deeply researched, well-written content – to lure AI to your deep expertise, and away from a competitor who hasn't adopted this strategy. The key is to include links to your FAQ content, so readers will know where to go for deeper information. This kind of work is what Dave Moore Media is made for.

Does My Organization Need a Reporter to Write Their Website's Blog?

Good reporters – and good listeners in general – LOVE subject matter experts. They often love helping someone who is trying to solve a problem, or improve the world somehow. Blogs – written properly – are a window into what's important to your organization, and new revelations/information that is impacting your mission. Reporters who have covered every subject under the sun – especially one who has been around for two decades, like the one at Dave Moore Media – know what's worth talking about. They know if you've fallen down a rabbit hole no one cares about. They also know a headline-grabbing, show-stopping story when they hear one. Let them build your content and they'll not only get the facts right, they'll capture the essence of your mission. People with good newsroom experience also know when to push back when they're told to do something that hurts their organization. Sometimes, hearing "NO" is the best advice a company leader can hear. Along those lines, hearing "yes, AND" is fantastic. It's a collaboration destined for an appreciative audience. Click here for my blog post on this.

Does My Organization Need a Reporter to Write their Website's Frequently Asked Questions?

Yes. A good writer/reporter has dozens of tricks to effectively telling a story. It could be reading an entire book focused on a subject – such as housing discrimination. It could be using privately maintained, but publicly visible data (such as the number of artificial turf fields constructed) to prove one or several points. A reporter will know to look at the Google AI Overview of your organization, to print it out, and to check it for gaps and misinformation. Then, that reporter will pound out an FAQ page that will make you weep with (hopefully) pride. Read more about hiring a reporter for your FAQ/organizational content here. Click here for my LinkedIn post about how to effectively populate your FAQs for AI Overviews.

How Can I Get My Subject Matter Expert Noticed by the Right People?

Subject matter experts often dwell in minutia. Often, they're nerds. But when their expertise is needed, they can become the heroes on white horses. Look at the COBOL coders who kept computer platforms alive when the year 2000 came around. Consider the bio geneticists who were exploring the use of MRNA gene splicing technology when covid hit. It can safely be said that subject matter experts keep the world spinning around. Hiring an effective reporter/writer can help shine the proper spotlight on the knowledge SMEs carry with them. Read more here about how subject matter experts can serve as content-generating dynamos.

Should I Use AI to Write My Press Releases?

No. While artificial intelligence is fantastic at writing script to scrape data from websites and PDFs, AI can fall woefully short when it's attempting to convey the nuance it takes to write an effective press release for your organization. Definitely have AI review a press release for typos and other errors. AI is great for spotting bad grammar. But press releases should be considered some of the most important public documents your organization publishes. Overview AI often refers to your press releases when it's generating content that answers questions posed by the public. Despite the advances AI has taken in recent years, it's still prone to overgeneralization and hallucination. On a lark, I once asked AI to write an entire press release for me, from scratch. It invented an entire person and city in the process. Would you really trust something like that to a bot? Hopefully, your answer was "NO." If an AI is given close guidance, results improve. Read more about how to write an effective press release here.

Should I use AI to Auto Generate My Website's Content?

No. Next to your press releases and a physical building (if you have one), your organization's website IS your business. Rely on a human to design your website and to display your expertise. While AI is an expert parrot, it doesn't push you beyond your comfort zones. It won't suggest the subject matter expertise you should promote. It can't see seemingly unrelated connections that help people relate to what you/your organization does. Go ahead and let AI serve as your copy editor. But company/organization leaders need to be the drivers of their own websites. I've seen what Wix has tried to foist upon my website via auto generation, and it's abominable. Read more about AI content generation here.

Should I use AI to Auto Generate My Website's Blog?

No. Effective, relevant blog posts hinge upon current events, changing trends and the personal revelations of subject matter experts. While AI is an effective clerical partner, because it doesn't live and breathe, it can't relate to humans. Humans do that. And reporters/writers/content producers – fortunately – are still human, and they can relate to the people who will be reading your content. Your blog belongs to YOU. When you turn your blog's keys over to a bot, you'll get the pablum that glazes human eyes immediately. Don't punish the few remaining readers alive with that. We're all we've got. Read more about the importance of hiring human writers here.

What Kind of Services Does Dave Moore Media Provide?

Aside from data analysis and mapping services, we do targeted media pitches, press releases, media training, launch company blog sites, edit content, etc. For a description of non-data services, click here.