What you will make¶

This tutorial will guide you through creating a custom Django administration panel where reporters can inspect, edit and augment a list of invitees to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the elite organization that decides the Oscars.

In 2012, a study by the Los Angeles Times found that the group is overwhelmingly white and male, which led to renewed calls to diversify the Oscar voting pool. A new list was used to write a follow-up story in 2013. The analysis appeared on the front page again in early 2015 when the academy was criticized after announcing a virtually all-white slate of nominees.

In the steps below, you will repeat The Times’ work using the academy’s 2014 invitation list, creating a system to share the load of producing a follow-up story in the vein of this 2016 update to the original analysis.

You are following in the footsteps of Times reporters Sandra Poindexter and Doug Smith, who developed a similar administration panel as part of their investigation. They were inspired by a presentation made by Matt Wynn at a past conference of The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.