Stories
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: The Winners of the Inaugural Sigma Awards for Data Journalism
The Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes the Sigma Award winners for data journalism, two stories about increased surveillance on journalists, and an interview with BuzzFeed’s Craig Silverman.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Sigma Awards, Campaign Trail Food, Data Cleaning Nightmares, Massive Leaks
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 10 to 16 finds The Guardian US analyzing food expenditure on the Democrats’ campaign trail, The Washington Post’s Steven Rich sharing the pains of cleaning spelling permutations in data, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists explaining the process of handling the massive #LuandaLeaks records, and the Sigma Awards announcing its shortlist.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Covering Whistleblowers: 6 Tips for Journalists
Throughout history, whistleblowers have played an important role in bringing corruption, fraud, waste, and other improprieties to light worldwide. But journalists face serious challenges in doing this kind of reporting, especially when it involves world leaders and the federal intelligence community.
Case Studies
Crowdfunding Campaigns Give Boost to Independent Czech Media
Crowdfunding has become very popular in the Czech Republic, where it is often used to help launch independent media outlets or to get money to finance individual projects and cover specific topics.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: How The New York Times Scooped Its Own Collaboration with ICIJ
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes a story from The Washington Post about how The New York Times scooped its own collaboration with ICIJ, Ben Heubl’s tutorial on how investigative journalists can use machine learning in their reporting, and tips from Witness on how to capture and preserve video documentation during internet shutdowns.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Women and the Oscars, February’s Sad Songs, Hollywood’s Franchises, Moscow’s Elite Owners
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 3 to 9 finds UOL highlighting the lack of gender equality among Oscar winners and G1 looking into problems of ageism in the Best Actress category. This edition also has The Economist analyzing Spotify data to find the most depressing month for listeners, Proekt Media investigating property owners in a prestigious residential area in Russia, and The Financial Times spotlighting the lack of innovation in the movie industry.
My Favorite Tools Reporting Tools & Tips
My Favorite Tools: Sally Hayden
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with freelance journalist Sally Hayden, who has won multiple awards for her reporting on migration. She told GIJN’s Helen Massy-Beresford about the tools she uses to communicate securely with sources, record interviews, manage a freelance career, and more.
Reporting Tools & Tips
10 Newsletter Tips for Media Outlets
Everyone seems to produce email newsletters these days. But not everyone is doing it well. Mark Jacob of the Local News Initiative asked newsletter experts about what works and what doesn’t.
Case Studies
In Kenya, NGOs Bet on Investigative Journalism to Boost Transparency
In Kenya, the NGOs Transparency International and Fojo Media Institute have paired up to train budding investigative journalists and offer them reporting grants. GIJN’s Rowan Philp reports.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: The Ukrainian Investigative Journalists Who Helped Light the Trump Impeachment Fuse
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes the backstory to Ukraine’s YanukovychLeaks, how journalists around the world are using defamation laws to protect themselves against online harassment, and a new free tool that could help journalists spot doctored photographs.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Coronavirus Outbreak, Misleading Graphs, Smartphone Tracking, Trash Can Banging, Mexico Murders
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 27 to February 2 finds The New York Times and Der Tagesspiegel tracking the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, TED-Ed educating viewers about how graphs can be manipulated to mislead readers, and a baseball fan watching every Houston Astros home game in 2017 to log each time they banged a trash can as part of a sign-stealing scandal.
Case Studies
The New Humanitarian Expands Its Investigations into the Aid Sector
Initially founded by the UN, The New Humanitarian became independent five years ago and is stepping up its investigative work into the multi-billion dollar aid industry. Rowan Philp profiles the organization working to hold the humanitarian sector to account.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative Team’s ‘Trust Nuggets’ Inject Transparency into Long Stories
Instead of writing an entire behind-the-scenes article to explain how you carried out an investigation, consider instead incorporating this information in the investigation itself in the form of “trust nuggets” to reach more readers, writes Trusting News’ Joy Mayer.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Pegasus and The New York Times Journalist
This week’s Friday 5 surfaced some of our must reads from around the English-language web, including research from Citizen Lab on Pegasus targeting a New York Times reporter, the Media Impact Fund’s insight for nonprofit media donors, and the out-of-beta Google Dataset Search.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Mapping Coronavirus, Saving the Nile, Protests in Hungary, Annotating Visualizations
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 20 to 26 finds the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering mapping the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Al Jazeera analyzing the impact that Ethiopia’s mega-dam project will have on the Nile river and its surroundings, Der Tagesspiegel outlining the changes in America over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency, and Alberto Cairo highlighting the importance of annotating data visualizations.
News & Analysis
4 Sundance Documentaries That Shed Light on the Perils of Journalism
This year’s Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 23 to February 2 in Utah, includes four films which put journalism front and center. The films take viewers to Kenya, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, tackling the perils reporters around the world face.