An intensive, remote-friendly summer program from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism designed to equip journalists and storytellers of all kinds with the skills needed to turn data into narrativebreak out of Excelperform in-depth investigationsharness APIswrite data-driven stories
Columbia Journalism School's Lede Program is a 10-week intensive on coding, data analysis, and visual storytelling. For 2025, the course will be once again operate with in-person and remote options.
Pulling insights from data isn't just for journalists — our tools and skills are equally valuable to social scientists, policymakers, and academics of all stripes.
We start from zero, with no prior experience in data or coding necessary – You'll learn it all along the way. If you can turn on your computer, you're ready to go!
Tired of programming tutorials that are all about complex ways of putting a dozen numbers in order? We teach the practical, real-world skills in data analysis and visualization and sidestep the theory.
"Data" isn't just one simple thing. You'll acquire a plethora of skills, tools and programming languages to make you a more effective storyteller. Our topics change each year, but let's review a few of the possibilities:
Programming language
Data
Data
Data
Interactives
Analysis and visualization
Data analysis
Web Scraping
Mapping
Charts and Graphs
Web Scraping
Text analysis
Styling the web
Accountable Coding
Interactives
Version control
With coverage ranging from an hour of introduction to a program-long deep dive, you'll return to the workplace with sharp new analytical, investigative, and storytelling skills.
The Lede Program is open to anyone and everyone, with no prior coding experience required.
Summer 2025 will be from Monday, June 2 to Friday, August 8.
As a professional program at Columbia University, the Lede Program costs less than a formal degree. Scholarship aid is also available. For more information on tuition and aid opportunities, see our Tuition and Fees page.
If you'd like to know more, don't hesitate to reach out to us at jrncomputation@columbia.edu
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