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[email protected] CREATING A CBP LESSON

Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

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Steve Doig presents "Creating a CBP (County Business Patterns) Lesson" during the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism's annual Business Journalism Week, Jan. 3, 2014. Doig is the Knight Chair in Journalism, specializing in computer-assisted reporting, at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. The annual event features two concurrent seminars, Business Journalism Professors and Strictly Financials for journalists. For more information about business journalism training, please visit http://businessjournalism.org.

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Page 1: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

S T E V E . D O I G @ A S U . E D U

CREATING A CBP LESSON

Page 2: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

LESSON OVERVIEW

•  Discuss Census Bureau as a rich source of business/economic data.

•  Download county-level economic sector data on payroll, employees and establishments for two different time periods (like pre- and post-recession.)

•  Use Excel to calculate useful measures – totals, differences, percents and percentage change – across time.

•  Discover how different sectors of the local economy have changed across time.

Page 3: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

LESSON GOALS FOR STUDENTS

•  Learn about Census Bureau business data as a source of story ideas.

•  Learn to find local economic data about industry sectors with County Business Patterns from Census.

•  Learn to use Excel spreadsheet to calculate sums, differences, percents and percentage change.

•  Learn to use results of calculations to spot trends in the data.

Page 4: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

PREPARATION

•  Download raw tables from Census •  Prepare a spreadsheet that has two different years of

data side by side. •  Format the numbers and text to make them more

readable. •  Delete the “first quarter payroll” columns (why? kind of

redundant to annual payroll.) •  Delete “total for all sectors” row (why? So students can

calculate the totals themselves.) •  Add variable names to be calculated during the lesson.

(or have students do that.) •  Save and put somewhere for students to download

during lesson.

Page 5: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

WWW.CENSUS.GOV/ECON/CBP/INDEX.HTML

Page 6: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

WWW.CENSUS.GOV/ECON/CBP/INDEX.HTML

Page 7: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

PICK STATE, THEN COUNTY

Page 8: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

GET THIS TABLE

Page 9: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

SAVE AS A CSV FILE

Page 10: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

OPEN RAW TABLE IN EXCEL

Page 11: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

SELECT, COPY, THEN PASTE INTO A NEW WORKSHEET

Page 12: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

PASTE 2011 AND 2007 SIDE BY SIDE

Page 13: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

DELETE “FIRST QUARTER PAYROLL” COLUMNS

Page 14: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

FORMAT TO MAKE IT READABLE; ADD 2011 AND 2007 TO THE VARS

Page 15: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

ADD NEW COLUMNS FOR LESSON

Page 16: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

EXCEL CALCULATIONS

•  Find number change in number of employees for each sector

•  Find number change in annual payroll by sector •  Find number change in total establishments by

sector •  Find percentage change in number of employees

for each sector •  Find percentage change in annual payroll by

sector •  Find percentage change in total establishments by

sector

Page 17: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

FORMULAS FOR LESSON

Page 18: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

ANSWERS

Page 19: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

PATTERNS TO EXPLORE

•  What was the economy-wide change in total employees, payroll and establishments between the two periods?

•  Which sectors gained/lost the most in absolute terms?

•  Which sectors gained/lost the most in percentage terms?

Page 20: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig

OTHER IDEAS

•  Calculate each sectors’ share of the total economy in both periods. Who is gaining and who is shrinking?

•  Calculate the “average income” by sector (payroll*1000/employees). Correct for inflation by using the CPI. Any real growth/loss?

•  Explore change in the size of establishments by using the bottom of the CBP table.

•  If you want to focus on a particular sector, go back to the CBP website table and click on “detail”. Download that resultinto Excel and do similar calculations.

Page 21: Business Journalism Professors 2014: Creating a CBP Lesson by Steve Doig