Filing right to information requests can be a very frustrating process, but the reward can be a valuable exclusive article. Here are four examples from India, Northern Ireland and the U.S., in which journalists successfully developed stories using national freedom of information and right to information laws.
To secure the work of independent media, direct assistance from either individual contributions or funding agencies are important as a bloodstream to keep us alive. Here are five reasons why direct assistance is so important to the success of independent media.
Here are the hottest data journalism tweets for Jan 16-22, per our NodeXL mapping: dataviz catalog (@flowingdata); Inaugurations compared (@pewresearch); big data & polls (@ddjournalism); Hispanics in America (@UniNoticias); Le Monde data (@decodeurs); Obama’s record (@nytimes); & more.
For high-quality journalism to thrive after the collapse of the traditional business model for media, independent media outlets need to leverage on their social capital to generate revenue and ensure editorial independence. The economic value of social impact can be used to justify and attract investments from foundations, NGOs, businesses, the public, and even government.
Your nonprofit board of directors can be a dynamic catalyst to bring in new major donations. People who are passionate about what your institution does and have a lifetime of connections can make the difference between “basic survival” fundraising or breaking out into the green fields of major gifts fundraising. Here are three ways to help your board shed their fears of fundraising and find their unique role in this aspect.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is calling on Nigerian authorities to immediately drop all charges against the publisher and a reporter for the investigative news site Premium Times. In a letter sent to Nigerian officials today, GIJN Executive Director David E. Kaplan called the charges “an attempt to intimidate Premium Times from independent inquiry.”
In researching Settling for Misconduct, a story on settlements and judgments of police misconduct, the Chicago Reporter had to account for details from hundreds of county and federal court filings, identify thousands of officers named in civil complaints, tally hundreds of millions of dollars in monetary awards and input all these data in a proper database. They also had to build a slick web app to present the data to the public. Here is how they did it.
The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s exposé on sexual abuse of minors by clergymen made a huge difference – worldwide, the Vatican defrocked more than 800 priests, laws were changed to better protect children and a lot of victims received help, counseling and money. Now, as finances of the news business are crumbling, reporters need help too. Because without the support of the public, investigations that should be done – like Spotlight’s – will not get done.
Here are the hottest data journalism tweets for Jan 9-15, per our NodeXL mapping: DIY graphs (@nytgraphics); identifying megaregions (@undertheraedar); data reporting (@albertocairo); dataviz without data (@ddjournalism); colorizing images (@waseda_univ); Swiss climate shifts (@duc_qn); & more.
KRIK, a journalism network that investigates crime and corruption, began publishing a database listing the properties of Serbian politicians in December last year. The revelations have made front-page news in some newspapers and are fueling online debates.
Non-transparent media ownership in Hungary has created a government-friendly and controlled media environment, but investigative journalists such as Hungarian-born Tamás Bodoky are increasingly going online to report on “sensitive” topics including corruption. Small investigative outlets in the country have so far survived with crowdfunding campaigns and institutional grants.
Access to public information, accountability and participatory democracy may have been a reality in many countries for some time — but in Spain they sounded like a utopia. Entrepreneur Jacobo Elosua and computer technician David Cabo decided that this had to change. Their brainchild, Civio, was just recognized with the Gabriel Garcia Marquez award in innovative journalism for its Medicamentalia investigation.
Here are the hottest data journalism tweets for Jan 2-8, per our NodeXL mapping: Twitter analysis tool (@MeCoDEM); free data course (@utknightcenter); data conferences (@albertocairo); Nobel Laureates (@ReutersGraphics); slopegraphs (@EdwardTufte); Boston subway (@msb5014); job (@FTcareers) & more.
Buzzfeed News wanted to get a better idea of where President-elect Donald Trump gets his information. So they analyzed everything he has tweeted since he launched his campaign and took a look at the links he has shared and the news sources they came from. Open Lab Fellow Lam Thuy Vo walks you through their process.
As journalists who analyze data for stories, we strive to hold ourselves accountable to a high standard of accuracy. But checking our work is rarely a straightforward process. Newsroom editors and fact-checkers might not have enough data expertise. Often, we need an outside opinion. Ideally, we could ask each other for advice, or even turn to experts in other fields for help. In academia, asking for outside comment before publication is broadly referred to as “peer review.”
Esther Htusan, who was part of AP’s all-female Pulitzer Prize-winning team for a series on forced labor in Southeast Asia’s fishing industry, shares her experiences working as a journalist in Myanmar. She emphasizes the safety procedures that her newsroom and herself practices while reporting conflicts, and the struggles and roles of women journalists in Myanmar.
Here are the top data journalism tweets for 2016, per our NodeXL mapping: #PanamaPapers (@ICIJorg); #ddj awards (@GENinnovate); China stereotypes (@ForeignPolicy); U.S. poor & shrinking middle class (@NYTimes, @FT); Earth temps (@HomesAtMetacoda); Germany’s greenest cities (@morgenpost); & more.
The Center for Investigative Reporting embarked on a new experiment last year: piloting an Animated Investigations collaborative course with the California College of the Arts. The course, which is intended for three semesters and a malleable work in progress, first taught students to animate existing Reveal investigations. However, it slowly transformed into a course where students identified their own underreported stories to animate.
What are the hottest data journalism tweets? Here are top links for Dec. 12-18: An ode to bar charts (@stdbrouw); recommended data read (@albertocairo); CO2 emissions (@CarbonBrief); world tax & GDP data (@MaxCRoser); Twitter network graph (@was3210); French origins (@LeTelegramme); & more.
The post-election Presidential transition in the United States has raised many questions and concerns among the international development community about the future direction of funding for and engagement with overseas media and democracy assistance. Here, three experts offer their views about the potential for major cuts in funding and politicization of international media support.
Pioneering British journalist David Leigh, former Guardian investigative editor, shares his insights on story-led investigations, defending your work from lawsuits, dealing with donors, and lifelong learning in journalism.
What a year… We’ve been Trumped and Brexited, blitzed by bogus news, and fighting to protect good journalism pretty much everywhere. But there were flashes of hope and better days. The Spotlight movie and Panama Papers showed the world what great reporting can do. As the year draws to a close, we’d like to share the 10 most popular stories on our site that have grabbed the attention of our dear readers.
December might be when thoughts turn to the holidays, but this year it’s also when anti-corruption activists and advocates for transparency and accountability came together at two major international events: the 17th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) and the 2016 Open Government Partnership summit.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is delighted to welcome seven new member organizations, including first-time representation from Malawi and Ireland. Among them are investigative units from Ukraine and Slovenia, an Irish investigative fund, and a collaborative U.S. site specializing in Freedom of Information requests. The new members bring GIJN’s membership to 145 groups in 62 countries.
What are the hot data journalism tweets? Here are top links for Dec. 5-11: pie chart abuse (@johngrimwade); transit data tool (@ddjournalism); big data stories (@BigDataGirl); US diversity map (@PostGraphics); ddj survey (@Bahareh360); Swiss sprawl (@srfdata); dataviz types (@pol_ferrando); more.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network exists to support the world’s truth tellers and provide them with the training, strategies, and networks that help them hold the powerful accountable and give voice to those who otherwise have none. Your support today can help us meet the tremendous demand for these capacity-building efforts in the months to come.
Scraping the Heathrow Airport operational data website revealed that since the start of 2016, an average of 72 people have complained about the level of noise pollution every day. Here’s how BBC Online data journalist Daniel Wainwright did it.
The second-annual Hitchens Prize—honoring the memory and legacy of the late Vanity Fair contributing editor and columnist Christopher Hitchens—was given to Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, at a dinner held at New York City on November 28, 2016. This year’s citation acknowledged Baron’s long career in journalism and his work as editor at The Washington Post and earlier at The Boston Globe (featured in the Academy Award-winning movie Spotlight this year). In accepting the Hitchens Prize, Marty offered words of wisdom for journalists in the Trump Era.
