GIJN’s Resource Center is here to help journalists expand their knowledge and skills. The Center holds more than 2,000 items in 14 languages – from tip sheets and guides to instructional videos. Use the menu on the right to navigate it or the search box below to find topics you’re interested in.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for May 29- June 6), including items from DatenBlog, the Tow Center, and the London School of Economics, among others.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for May 22-30), including items from Spiegel Online, Mole.net, and Harvard Business Review, among others.
Nieman Journalism Lab calls it “one of the key documents of this media age,” and I can’t say I disagree… If anything, the main surprise is that even the storied NYT, with huge resources poured into its digital teams, has the same kind of problems as the rest of the mortal media world. But it’s an important document not because of any great revelations, but because it so clearly and starkly lays out the common challenges that all legacy news organizations face – and in some ways, the issues that even some startups will have to grapple with.
In December 2012, Poderopedia was launched in Chile to map who is who in business and politics in the country, with the goals of promoting transparency and accountability, and revealing potential conflicts of interest among the most influential political, civic and business leaders, as well as companies and institutions. The platform is now a wealth of information about the powerful in Chile. At this writing, it contains info on 3,107 individuals, 1,398 companies and 812 institutions.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for May 8-13), including items from Jeune Afrique, Le Monde, and The Guardian, among others. [View the story “Top Ten #ddj: The Week’s Most Popular Data Journalism Links” on Storify]
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for April 17-24), including items from Jeune Afrique, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among others.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for March 27-April 2), including items from The Migrant Files Project, NZZ Data, and the Tow Center, among others.
As we discussed in part one, you can customise your web browser with ‘add-ons’ and get amazing extra functionality to support your internet research. Chrome and Firefox have the widest variety of add-ons, but some are also available for other browsers. I previously looked at add-ons that help users grab videos and images of web pages, trace the hosting of web servers and download YouTube videos. Here are a few more essentials.
While many people use Internet Explorer to surf the net, users of Firefox and Chrome enjoy a wider range of options when it comes to add-ons. Add-ons are little apps that run inside the browser and allow you some extra functionality. They are usually free and are launched by either clicking on a button or choosing from a right-click menu.
The Verification Handbook is a new resource for journalists and aid responders, with step-by-step guidelines for using using information generated by the public. Although targeted for use during emergencies, the handbook provides useful tips for verifying crowd-sourced information in general. Thanks to the European Journalism Centre, which developed the handbook, for allowing GIJN to publish this excerpt.
There are a lot of websites out there that can help you find hidden information. But there are also software applications and browser plug-ins that can be of use to investigative journalists. Created by up-and-coming developers and enthusiasts on a budget, many of these programmes are rather unsophisticated, so don’t expect slick interfaces and 24-hour help desks. That said, if you can get past the jargon and rough-and-ready feel, you’ll find nifty little apps that can help you discover nuggets of information which would be unavailable through conventional means.
IPI has compiled a set of useful resources and contacts for journalists covering topics related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While certainly not exhaustive, the links below may help point the intrepid reporter in the right direction.
There are the two essential questions a reporter covering business, the economy, or just about any topic should always ask: ‘How much does it cost?’ and ‘Where will you get the money from?’. These simple questions are not only key to gaining information about your current story’s topic, but they offer greater insight into reasons for decisions that have a direct impact on a country and its citizens.
The environment is the overarching issue of the 21st century for two reasons:
1. The environment includes and touches everything: air, water, food, health, climate, energy, development, poverty, economics—the list could go on without end.
2. Nearly every major environmental indicator is in decline.
We are pushing up against the limits of the Earth’s ability to support us. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution are moving toward crisis levels, according to recent studies. There is little public awareness of this reality, which means journalists covering the environment have a plethora of important stories to cover.
When a story on a particular topic is told over and over again, it leads to what is known as media fatigue—a situation where journalists and editors find the topic no longer newsworthy. However, the worst is when audiences become fatigued—when general readers are fed up with the subject as well. This problem is one that bedevils HIV/AIDS reporting despite the fact that many people—especially the affected and the infected—still want to learn more.
Although egalitarian societies with a pattern of matriarchy still exist in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, the decline of matriarchal societies in the world has made way for patriarchal domination. Gender discrimination has become rampant. World history is, indeed, “his-story” and not “her-story”. The way we live today is influenced by, and based on, male-derived principles, which bring about male dominance and universal patriarchy. No matter where women live, they do not share equal rights with men. Sensitive and justice-seeking journalists should expose this social malady at every opportunity, so that the lives of women can improve.
Education is the path to development. It creates choices and opportunities for people in terms of access to employment, reduces the twin burdens of poverty and disease, and empowers people. For nations as a whole, education produces a more skilled and competitive workforce that can attract better quality foreign investment, thus opening the doors to economic and social prosperity for society as a whole.
However, people often do not see how these global goals can be translated to local realities. The media plays a key role in forming opinion, helping to ensure that citizens and politicians alike recognise that there is no room for complacency in tackling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to education.
When stories of a food crisis emerge, it is tempting to ask if the problem stems from the lack of grain. I followed this lead during my early years as a reporter until I read about an event that took place in 1970. That year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Norman Borlaug. The American agronomist was recognised for his work that combined science and new agriculture techniques to help save millions from hunger. His research—heralding the Green Revolution—paved the way for agriculture built on high-yield outputs.
Investigative journalists and other citizens interested in uncovering the organised crime and corruption that affect the lives of billions of people worldwide gain, with each passing day, unprecedented access to information. Huge volumes of information are being made available online by governments and other organisations, and it seems that the much-needed information is in everyone’s grasp. However, corrupt officials in governments and organised crime groups are doing their best to conceal information and to hide their wrongdoings.
There are many different concepts and definitions of poverty. According to the Oxford University Poverty and Human Development Initiative, ‘Poverty is often defined by one-dimensional measures, such as income. But no one indicator alone can capture the multiple aspects that constitute poverty. Multidimensional poverty is made up of several factors that constitute poor people’s experience of deprivation–such as poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standard, lack of income (as one of several factors considered), disempowerment, poor quality of work and threat from violence.’
With two and a half years to go until 2015, the deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), progress has been mixed. The spread of some diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, is being brought under control. In China, the proportion of people living on under a dollar a day has been halved. At the same time, though, the number of those living on under a dollar a day in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by a measly one percent. Why such uneven progress?
To Hermilio, a working day is no less than 12 hours. In return, he receives a wage that does not guarantee that his two children, who are six and seven years old, have food three times a day, nor does it prevent them having to walk miles to reach the nearest school. This is the reality in the Cusarare community in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, and in many other parts of the world. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—which underpin an alliance between governments and society geared at eradicating marginalisation—were created up in response to the suffering of Hermilio and the billions of others like him around the world.
Editor’s Note: For the next two weeks, GIJN is running a series drawn from the newly released Reporter’s Guide to the Millennium Development Goals: Covering Development Commitments for 2015 and Beyond, published by the International Press Institute. Agreed to in 2000, the UN Millennium Goals comprise an ambitious agenda to improve quality of life around the world, focusing on such issues as poverty, gender equality, and education.
Since 1995, Transparency International has surveyed and analyzed how corruption is perceived around the world. Through its Corruption Perceptions Index, TI has shown that abuse of power, secret dealings, and bribery are widespread and not confined to a handful of developing countries. The just-released 2013 index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 177 countries and territories. It “demonstrates that all countries still face the threat of corruption at all levels of government, from the issuing of local permits to the enforcement of laws and regulations,” according to TI Chair Huguette Labelle.
Journalists face some unique problems keeping their data and communications secure in the digital environment. This tends to be especially true when doing investigations, working in war zones or traveling in unfamiliar terrain. If these are concerns for you, The Journalist Survival Guide has your back — or, more precisely, offers insights and expertise on how you can protect yourself, your sources, your data and digital equipment. Good stuff to know about because it can get dangerous out there.
How can you protect yourself from online snooping? Reporters Without Borders has published an Online Survival Kit on its WefightCensorship.org website with tools and practical advice that will help protect your communications and data. As the website explains, “The tools and techniques presented in this kit do not require advanced knowledge of computers and programming.” In other words, you don’t need to be an IT engineer to protect your emails and stay anonymous online.
The Reporters Without Borders Digital Survival Kit is available in French, English, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese, and is published under a Creative Commons license.
GIJN is featured in the July cover story of Newspapers & Broadcasting, the monthly journalism review published by the Korea Press Foundation. The issue focuses on the role of nonprofits in the global spread of investigative journalism, and also features GIJN members International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. South Korea hosts […]
There’s nothing like a good photographer to bring alive an investigative story. One of the worst crimes that investigative journalists commit is spending months on a great story, and then only minutes on the presentation. Working with photojournalists who know their craft (along with designers and graphic artists) can be one of the real pleasures of putting a big project together. We’re fortunate that a new handbook on using photography for investigations was just published: Investigative Photography: Supporting a Story with Pictures, by CJ Clarke, Damien Spleeters, and Juliet Ferguson.
