Business and computer-assisted reporting workshops to be held in Louisville Feb. 27 through March 3

Louisville's Hyatt Regency Hotel, right, will be one of the best places in America to improve your journalism skills this year, all in the space of a few days: Wednesday, Feb. 27 through Sunday, March 3.

The first day, from 2 to 5 p.m., the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will offer a free workshop, "Breaking Local Stories with Economic Data." Center Director Linda Linda Austin writes, "Government data offer unparalleled opportunities to distinguish your reporting with trend stories about what’s happening in your local economy. Especially this year, with the release of the every-five-year Economic Census, journalists will have a unique opportunity to track changes in their local community from 2007 — before the recession — to 2012." Instructors Paul Overberg of USA Today and Jeannine Aversa of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, a former writer for The Associated Press, will show how to do least 15 local enterprise stories from government economic data. Examples will be specific to the Louisville region, but applicable anywhere. For a PDF of the program flyer, click here. To just sign up for the workshop, go here.

The next four days is the annual conference presented by Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. It has something for everyone, from beginners (basics on spreadsheets, databases and online mapping) to experts (data science and the latest technological advances). The list of sessions is still growing, as is the attendance; the room block at the Hyatt is full of near-full, but other hotels are available; see here. For more information, go here.