Collaboration with newsroom developers and journalists is key to improving journalism. Hackastory spoke to 19 newsroom developers and journalists around the world for their best advice. Here are their top tips.
Tips & Tools
Advanced Guide on Verifying Video Content
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Verifying video materials should be a routine part of reporting, but knowing how to use the digital tools to verify fake content is just one part of the skill. The creative techniques behind video verification are even more important.
Data Journalism
Beginner’s Guide to Extracting Data from PDFs
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Whether it’s tables of data embedded in reports or spreadsheets saved as PDFs, journalists get lots of data in PDF format. But until you get that data into a spreadsheet, there’s not much you can do with it. Luckily, there are a few great tools that can liberate your data quickly and with relative ease.
Mobile Journalism
Mojo Workin’: Recording Audio on a Smartphone
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In his second column, Ivo Burum has some tips on location sound recording, including suggestions on mic types and a basic checklist to make sure you’re getting it right while working solo.
Data Journalism
Mapping Toolbox: 10+ Tools Worth Checking Out
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Time to get your mapping game on. Here are a list of tools to help journalists get the picture, from the easy-to-use My Maps to custom maps for the more experienced, like Color Brewer and Mapbox.
Research
GIJN Bookshelf: Snowden & Surveillance, Attacks on the Press, Internet Law, Japan
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Got time for a deep dive? From Journalism After Snowden to Press Freedom in Contemporary Japan, here’s a round-up of some of the books that have come across our desks at GJIN.
Data Journalism
Helena Bengtsson: Bringing People Back to Facts
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When faced with data journalism, journalists often say “Oh, I can’t do that, it’s too complicated” [or] “I hated math in school, I really can’t take the time to learn how to do this”. However, data expert Helena Bengtsson stresses that data journalism is not that hard, and insists that every journalist should have basic knowledge of how to sort and filter a spreadsheet, and do simple calculations.
Tips & Tools
Mojo Workin’ — Essential Mobile Journalism Tools
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We’re delighted to launch a new column — Mojo Workin’ — on tips and tools for mobile journalism by noted mojo expert Ivo Burum. Ivo’s workshops are a popular feature of GIJN conferences. The Australia-based journalist brings over 30 years of experience producing prime-time programing across genres. He’ll be profiling the latest techniques with investigative journalists in mind, so here’s a great chance to get your mojo workin’.
Freedom of Information
Protecting Forests with FOI Laws
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Every year the world loses 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forests, an area about the size of Greece. A critical way to stem this forest loss is to make concessions data more transparent. This information is critical as it gives journalists, civil society groups and the public the information they need to hold the government and the private sector accountable for deforestation.
Methodology
How Reader Engagement Helped Unearth Shell Tape
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De Correspondent, a Dutch member-funded journalism platform, leverages on the shared knowledge and experience of their 55,000 paying members as much as possible in their reporting. Here’s their 3-step workflow incorporating reader engagement, which helped them land their scoop on Shell.
Freedom of Information
FOIA This! Tips on Using FOI/RTI Laws from Sri Lanka, Brazil, UK
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Freedom of information requests can generate unique stories on a wide range of subjects. Here’s a sampling that covers fishing, Uber, football and a suspect land deal. They’re united in revealing the potential for developing stories based on requesting information — about government permits, local crime statistics and official correspondence.