Guide

How to use free news data in Excel or Google Sheets

The Tokos files are ordinary spreadsheets (CSV). Here is how to open one and get a first answer out of it.

1. Get the file

1. Open the data page (tokos.news/data) and go to “Download the data”.
2. Pick a day. The easiest file to start with is daily_cards: one line per source of each of that day’s top stories.
3. Tap CSV. On an iPhone home-screen app, the share sheet opens: choose “Save to Files” or open it in Excel.

2. Open it

1. Excel: double-click the file. Accents show correctly.
2. Google Sheets: File › Import › Upload, pick the file, then “Replace spreadsheet”.
3. Each column has a short name. “Data dictionary” on the data page explains every column in plain words.

3. Count which outlets cover the most stories

1. Select all the data.
2. Excel: Insert › PivotTable. Google Sheets: Insert › Pivot table.
3. Put “outlet” in Rows and “card_id” in Values (as a count).
4. Sort from largest to smallest. You now see which outlets were on the most top stories that day.

Ideas to try next

Filter the “title” column for a word, like “election”, to follow one subject.

Download a week’s file (Monday to Sunday) to compare days.

Credit the data in a chart or a post with: “Data: Tokos News, CC BY 4.0.”

All guides

• How to see which outlets covered a storyA step-by-step guide to seeing which news outlets covered a story, when each one published, and how to keep the list.
• How French and English media covered a storyCompare how French-language and English-language outlets covered the same story: who covered it, how many, and who was first. A simple guide with free data.