As part of our ongoing COVID Public Info collaboration, we’re hosting a free webinar this Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern detailing how to read local medical examiner data. Examiner data is key to better understanding how COVID-19 is impacting communities, and John S. Knight Journalism Fellow Matt Kiefer will walk attendees through how to request, analyze, and interpret this kind of data in places across the United States.

Over the last three months, MuckRock has partnered with COVID Public Info to help request and collect data on COVID-19 deaths from local medical examiners and coroners across the country. These records are maintained independently of health authorities and often include critical, case-level details that county and state governments don’t publish – including names, race/ethnicity, addresses/ZIP codes and other important data points on decedents.

Take a look at the kind of reporting examiner data can help enable with KQED’s reporting on the topic, and then join us Thursday when Kiefer shares what he’s learned, what data we already have, and how you can use our requests to fuel your own reporting. If you missed our last training looking at COVID-19-related emergency orders, it’s now online with related resources. Get updates on future trainings and other COVID-19 reporting resources by signing up for the COVID Public Info mailing list.

This training is a project of COVID Public Info, a non-profit news collaboration between Outlier Media, the MuckRock Foundation, Matt Kiefer and Garance Burke, and it is made possible through the support of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University.