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Stories

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Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips

25 Tips for Everyday Digging

by Bruno Ingemann & Nils Mulvad • May 6, 2016

Some of the best tips and techniques come out of the annual meetings by our colleagues in Scandinavia, and this year is no different. More than 600 participants attended the SKUP conference in Tønsberg, Norway, on April 8-10. Among the tip sheets presented was this gem of 25 practical tips that reporters in even the smallest newsrooms can use to good effect, focused on finding great characters and cases to bring your story to life.

Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips

A Data Journalism Expert’s Personal Toolkit

by Duc Quang Nguyen • April 25, 2016

People regularly ask what tools to use or what programming language to learn for data-driven journalism (ddj). There is no right answer for it, especially considering that technology and tools available are evolving quickly in the field.

Reporting Tools & Tips

How To Get People To Pay for News

by Molly de Aguiar & Josh Stearns • March 24, 2016

A Round-up of Recent Debates about Community Support and Culture Change in Newsrooms. A study released earlier this month suggested that 40% of Americans would buy digital newspaper subscriptions if they were presented with a persuasive argument. It is worth spending a minute unpacking what that “persuasive argument” might look like.

Reporting Tools & Tips

How To Save Online Evidence And Why It Matters: Part Two

by Paul Myers • March 8, 2016

In part one of this blog I discussed the need for journalists to save evidence they find online and some of the techniques for recording that information. In part two, I’ll focus on some of the issues journalists face when it comes to saving information from social media and mobile devices.

Reporting Tools & Tips

8 Lessons on Investigative Journalism from “Spotlight”

by David E. Kaplan • December 7, 2015

Spotlight is without a doubt the most compelling, most insightful movie on investigative journalism since All the President’s Men, the 1975 classic on the Watergate Scandal. This is great story-telling that takes viewers inside the Spotlight investigative team at The Boston Globe as it dived into one of the more notorious crimes of our time – the systematic tolerance and cover-up of thousands of cases of pedophilia by the Catholic Church. At a time when investigative journalists are under fire around the world, here is a public tutorial on why in-depth, watchdog reporting is so important to social accountability and democracy.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Research Desk: Databases on Land, Nazis, African Mining

by Gary Price • October 26, 2015

We’re back from the wonderful Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Lillehammer with a new roundup of resources for you. Thanks to everyone who came to and shared the presentation I did there with Margot Williams of The Intercept, 100 Best Databases for Internet Research. You can find links to all the resources that Margot and I talked about in this post.

Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips

Research Desk: Databases on Ag, Insider Trading; Reports on Migration, LGBTI, Food Supply

by Gary Price • September 16, 2015

The Internet is an amazing research resource but often discovery of quality reference tools and reports can be challenging, especially when you think about how quickly new resources appear and often disappear. I hope that these columns not only alert you to useful material but will help you build up your own collection of reference resources, which you can save on your own computer, or utilize a tool like The Wayback Machine to archive it for yourself and others.

Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips

Research Desk: Nuclear, Health Databases, New Int’l Reports

by Gary Price • August 20, 2015

Time for a new collection of resources and research reports. Today’s roundup features two online databases — one on nuclear reactors, the other on health — and the latest international research reports from Brussels, London, and Washington. Global Health Facts from the Kaiser Family Foundation is an organized and frequently updated collection of browsable and searchable data.

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

On the Ethics of Web Scraping and Data Journalism

by Nael Shiab • August 12, 2015

Web scraping is a way to extract information presented on websites. As I explained it in the first installment of this article, web scraping is used by many companies. It’s also a great tool for reporters who know how to code, since more and more public institutions publish their data on their websites.
With web scrapers, which are also called “bots,” it’s possible to gather large amounts of data for stories. But what are the ethical rules that reporters have to follow while web scraping?

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

Web Scraping: A Journalist’s Guide

by Nael Shiab • August 11, 2015

$8 billion in just a few hours earlier this year? It was because of a web scraper, a tool companies use—as do many data reporters. A web scraper is simply a computer program that reads the HTML code from webpages, and analyze it. With such a program, or “bot,” it’s possible to extract data and information from websites.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Sustainability: Tips on Holding Live Events That Support Journalism

by Dena Levitz • July 29, 2015

Just as an article or a gallery of photos can shine a light on an issue for the public, so can these in-person gatherings. Some media organizations are putting on full-fledged festivals in the same vein as South by Southwest and TED. These gatherings include panels of experts, one-on-one conversations with major newsmakers and presentations that explore ground-breaking topics. In other words, they’re an entirely new way of informing and providing information — undoubtedly journalistic functions.

Reporting Tools & Tips Safety & Security Teaching & Training

Data at Risk: How To Protect Your Sources and Your Work

by Paul Myers • July 16, 2015

Information stored on your computer or mobile is at risk. You could leave it on a train; it could be seized at an airport security checkpoint; or by the police or courts. And of course hackers can access your data. You need to be aware of all the risks and ways to protect your information, your sources and yourself.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips Teaching & Training

Environmental Investigative Reporting: Resources & Methods

by David E. Kaplan • July 7, 2015

In this just-released video, investigative reporter Mark Schapiro goes in-depth on how to use investigative techniques in probing often complex environmental issues. Schapiro, a veteran of the original Center for Investigative Reporting, gave this talk in Hamburg at NR15, the July 2015 annual conference of Netzwerk Recherche, Germany’s investigative journalism association.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Eight Practices of Successful Entrepreneurial Journalists

by James Breiner • June 23, 2015

For the last seven years I have been interviewing and profiling successful entrepreneurial journalists in various countries of various socioconomic classes. I’ve talked to publishers and editors with staffs of as many as a hundred as well as some one-man/one-woman bands. The ones that survive and thrive after several years share some common practices.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

Drones in Media Bring New Perspectives, Ethical Issues

by Sarah Hartley • June 12, 2015

We’re already seeing the use of drones proliferate across a whole variety of stories — from incredible imagery of the vastness of the natural world to investigations that couldn’t be told with conventional cameras, to views of the inaccessible right under our noses. So how are the drone journalists of the future being trained for their work?

Reporting Tools & Tips

The Research Desk: A Roundup of Tips & Tools from IRE 2015

by Gary Price • June 9, 2015

I am back from Philadelphia, where I attended my first annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the world’s largest and oldest association of investigative journalists. The conference featured plenty of research resources and other useful online tools. Here’s a roundup featuring some of the highlights.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Brussels Brainstorming: Media Start-Ups Share Strategies

by Margo Smit • May 13, 2015

Journalism start-ups from throughout Europe gathered at DataHarvest 2015 in Brussels on May 8, for a roundtable discussion on possible cooperation and collective needs. With journalism increasingly seeking new business models and investigations coming out of non-traditional media outlets, there is much to gain by fledgling publishing platforms, investigative centers and non-profit organizations in sharing knowledge and strategies.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips Teaching & Training

Online Research Tools and Investigative Techniques

by Paul Myers • May 5, 2015

Search engines are an intrinsic part of the array of commonly used “open source” research tools. Together with social media, domain name look-ups and more traditional solutions such as newspapers, effective web searching will help you find vital information. Many people find that search engines often bring up disappointing results from dubious sources. A few tricks, however, can ensure that you corner the pages you are looking for, from sites you can trust. The same goes for searching social networks and other sources to locate people.

Reporting Tools & Tips

How Can Online Research Tools Help Investigative Reporters?

by Friedrich Lindenberg • September 26, 2014

How can online research tools aid the work of investigative reporters and others looking into transnational financial flows, corporate structures and other illicit activities of organized crime and global business? Google and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) brought together a small group of investigative journalists and technologists from around the world to examine the answers to this question at their first Investigathon in London last month.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Thoughts from a Journalism Trainer

by Bill Ristow • August 13, 2014

For the past seven and one-half years, I have spent large portions of each year doing media-development work–most of it training of journalists or journalism students–in four countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and in Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Inevitably, my own experiences and observations about what works and what doesn’t, and what is really important in this work, have passed through my mind while researching and writing this report. None of them is unique, but it may be useful to list what I consider my three strongest lessons from nearly a dozen different training projects.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Digital Digging: How To Use Twitter without the Clutter

by Henk van Ess • June 24, 2014

GIJN is excited to introduce Digital Digging, a new feature by acclaimed Internet search expert Henk van Ess. In this inaugural story, Henk sets sail to a world without selfies or cat pictures, showing readers how to stay on top of Twitter by changing their workflow. Here’s part one of a series of three.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Investigating with Drones, Stone Tablets, and LinkedIn

by Sheila Coronel • April 29, 2014

This video was taken by a drone and then posted on a popular web portal in China. It provides an aerial view of the luxurious home of the son of Zhou Yongkang, the country’s security chief. There’s not much commentary here, just tracking shots of a white, two-story mansion built in the traditional style. But the real evidence showing corruption in the Zhou family wasn’t dug up by drones. Instead, it was names etched on tombstones in a village in China’s Jiangsu Province that allowed reporters to find the corruption trail.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Holding Big Fish Accountable: How to Uncover Corruption

by Umar Cheema • February 10, 2014

In a 2011 Transparency International survey, more than 3,000 business executives from around the world were asked to assess the effectiveness of various approaches to weeding out corruption. The result: nearly half (49%) indicated that investigative journalism played a critical role. Respondents from Pakistan (73%) and Brazil (79%), countries where the press reports fiercely on suspected acts of corruption, placed particular faith in the media’s ability to uncover wrongdoing. Why did the participants feel so strongly that journalists can help?

Reporting Tools & Tips

The Art of the Interview

by María Emilia Martin • February 7, 2014

The interview is one of the—if not the—most important tools we as journalists have to obtain information, to expand on information we may have from other sources, and to clarify facts and see things from different perspectives. We use the interview to expand upon the basic “who, what, where, how, when and why” of newsgathering. This is true whatever beat we may be covering: health, economics, politics, or issues having to do with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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