For this week’s Friday 5, where GIJN rounds up journalism news in English from around the world, we’re reading about the new Corruption Tracker for the international arms trade, dodgy deals in personal protective equipment procurement, and a recently launched organization to support whistleblowers legally, as well as financially.
People around the world believe the several promising COVID-19 vaccines were designed to do the two things we most want them to do: reduce severe illness and death, and reduce the spread of the disease. But a central problem, experts say, is that none of the new vaccine trials were designed to achieve either of those goals.
As the United Kingdom begins its rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccine this week, the world is watching with bated breath. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 30 to December 6 found Bloomberg tracking the development of nine of the most promising vaccines around the world, The New York Times creating an interactive for Americans to establish where they are in the line before they can get vaccinated, and Spain’s El Pais examining the advantages of using antigen testing for COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, ITV News’ Stephen Hull did a fun data analysis of the assorted chocolates in a Quality Street tin.
As part of our annual Editor’s Pick series, read on to discover the best investigations in French published this year and selected by GIJN French Editor Marthe Rubio and GIJN Francophone Africa Editor Maxime Domegni.
After spending time in solitary confinement in Iran, Sarah Shourd started to explore what confinement meant in the United States and has produced a body of work about what she found in prisons around the country. Her play about confinement – “The BOX”– was broadcast over Zoom, bringing a story about the desperation of solitary confinement to audiences experiencing isolation around the world.
On October 30, the student news site of duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States, published a bombshell of an investigation: While training officers, the Kentucky State Police had used a slideshow that quoted Adolf Hitler. The reporters behind the story were a 16-year-old and his younger brother.
Are scented candles a casualty of the coronavirus crisis? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 23 to 29 found researcher Kate Petrova’s data analysis revealing that scented candles have suffered a blow in online reviews and a decrease in ratings, possibly linked to the coronavirus’ ability to affect people’s sense of smell. Elsewhere, Germany’s Zeit Online created a COVID-19 infection risk calculator, the COVID Tracking Project explained how holidays and weekends disrupt the recording and publishing of virus data, and Reuters analyzed the shortcomings of the coronavirus contact tracing system in England. Meanwhile, the Sigma Awards, which celebrate the world’s best data journalism, have opened for entries.
On the evening of August 4, 2020, a devastating blast at the port in Beirut shook the Lebanese capital. It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. GIJN spoke to three outlets whose investigations all played a pivotal role in understanding what led to the explosion and why a ship and its deadly cargo were stuck at the port for so long.
A November 18 press release, claiming a safe vaccine that protects 95% of people against COVID-19, by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech was greeted with excited headlines. In this article, two leading health reporters shared tips on how to read such releases and balanced cautious optimism with the provision that the release relied on interim results from a trial in an accelerated setting.
