A Tampa Bay Times investigative series on phony farmer’s markets & farm-to-table restaurants… a really tremendous piece of reporting:

• Overview
• “At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction“
• “Tampa Bay farmers markets are lacking in just one thing: Local farmers“

Two handouts for today’s guest talk about data journalism by Andy Hall and Bridgit Bowden of WCIJ, the nonprofit investigative reporting outfit that lives in the j-school:

• An crash course in computer-assisted reporting (a.k.a. data journalism)
• A guide to using Google’s Fusion Tables

Here are initial team assignments for the final project, based on interest expressed in class. There’s some room for adjustment. Take a look, talk it over, and we’ll begin to meet as groups on Thursday.

Editorial: Trina, Charlie, Leo, Laura, Meghan, Casey, Emily,

Data & multimedia: Kerry, Linh, Madeline

Site development: Hayley, Luke, Brandon

For the record, our chaotic collective in-class final project word cloud (click to enlarge).

And… sustainability takes it!

A few links to coverage of this huge story that broke on Sunday — the fruit of a year-long collaboration by media outlets around the world, to analyze 11.5 million documents leaked from a Panamanian law firm that sets up offshore companies for the rich, famous, and powerful. It’s being called the biggest leak of classified data in history.

• The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/news/series/panama-papers
• BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35954224
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: https://panamapapers.icij.org/
• And why the NYT isn’t on it: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/why-no-big-splash-for-panama-papers/

A few useful (and entertaining) resources about the growing field of political fact-checking:

• PolitiFact’s video guide to fact-checking
• A fact-checking poster and tipsheet from Africa Check
• The fact-checking page at the Duke Reporters Lab — including a map of fact-checkers around the world
• A great Poynter article on debunking fake news stories

For our final Pulitzer Presentation Laura will walk us through this powerful three-part series in the Chicago Tribune, on a tornado that devastated Utica, Ill. Here’s a profile of her work at Nieman Storyboard.

A bit of background for today’s visit by Tom Kertscher of PolitiFact Wisconsin:

• A pair of PolitiFact tip sheets for fact-checking
• The official “Principles of the Truth-O-Meter“
• Various methodologies for fact-checkers around the world
• The latest stats on the global growth of fact-checking

(click to enlarge)

The first line of the story Madeline and Haley will present on Thursday, from ProPublica and the Marshall Project: “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” And here’s a behind-the-scenes look at their reporting.