I'm MaryJo Webster, a data journalist based in Minnesota, with more than 25 years of experience. I love teaching others these skills that elevated my career!

This website is designed as a DIY class for learning basic data journalism skills. If you're looking to bring skills to a group of people in your newsroom, consider hiring me! I have a lot of options that can even be done virtually, too. Here are a few:

• Intro to AI tools for reporters: How tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini Notebook can help you, how to avoid getting burned and effective prompting strategies.

• How AI can help with messy data work: Regardless of AI tool, they all can solve some of the most tedious parts of data work. This presentation would show examples and give you tips to get started, plus how to avoid hallucinations.

• Writing with numbers: This presentation helps reporters and editors think differently about how to use numbers in stories. You'll come away with a different perspective about numbers in stories and new insights to make your stories read better.

• Developing a data state of mind: Data journalism is about more than learning how to use spreadsheets or how to write code. This presentation will show you how data is just like all our other sources (but better, in some ways!) and that analysis is really just a way of asking questions of one of our sources. And like humans, data can play a variety of roles in stories.

• Introduction to spreadsheets: This could be a basic hands-on session in either Google Sheets or Excel covering commonly used formulas and functions, plus how to make Pivot Tables. Might need more than 1 hr.