Over the last few years, data and data analysis have taken on a new quality. Data and information is now a tool for creating beautiful visuals. What used to be simple charts and scatter plots are now complex and creative pieces of data art — some beautiful enough to hang up on your wall. Visme picked a collection of the best data visualizations of 2018.
It’s been an exciting year of great content and record traffic on GIJN. What follows is a curated list we’ve put together of the top pieces published on gijn.org in 2018 — from the deep web and deep fakes to design thinking and dataviz. See you next year!
It’s been a great year for data journalism and visualizations. GIJN’s Top 10 #ddj series captured snapshots of what’s popular on Twitter among the global data journalism community for 46 weeks in 2018. For this edition, we asked NodeXL to map 2018’s most popular #ddj tweets from January 1 to December 11 and the results are in. This year’s most popular tweets include @FinancialTimes’ ever-popular Visual Vocabulary chart, @Google’s Dataset Search, @hnrklndbrg’s eclectic visualizations, and @SZ’s analysis of Germany’s parliamentarians using laughter as a debate weapon.
It’s been a big year for investigative reporters in Latin America, from unveiling high-level corruption to collaborating across countries. They’ve chased down leads on colleagues murdered at the border between Colombia and Ecuador, and covered the biggest migratory crisis in years. The reporters have demonstrated, once again, the importance of coming together to hold those in power to account — often doing it under very difficult conditions. Erika Lozano, editor of GIJN en Español, has gathered some of the best investigative stories published in Spanish during 2018.
It was a year of significant transformation in the Portuguese-speaking world. This was especially true in Brazil, where corruption scandals landed top officials in jail and propelled a far right-wing politician into the presidency. This year, Lusophone journalists not only exposed corrupt practices via innovative projects, they also revealed sexual abuse and abortion challenges. Breno Costa, GIJN’s Portuguese editor, has selected some of the best investigations from 2018 .
Despite bleak predictions, investigative journalism is thriving in Francophone countries. From Kinshasa to Paris, 2018 was high point for investigative journalism, with more collaborations than ever before. This year’s cross-border investigations have exposed corruption and fraud, while individual newsrooms have uncovered murder, war crimes and more. Marthe Rubio, GIJN’s French editor, compiled a selection of 2018’s best investigative stories from Francophone countries.
More than 450 journalists gathered at the 11th Annual Forum of the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism in Jordan earlier this month. The gathering took place just two months after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as new details of his assassination continued to surface.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from December 3 to 9 finds @BuzzFeedNews mapping wildfire prone areas across America, @dwnews dissecting the value of insurance against climate change, the release of @infobeautyaward winners, and @jschwabish teaching fourth grade kids the wonders of data visualization in fun and inventive ways.
Two French investigative journalists are launching Disclose, a nonprofit newsroom which plans to produce investigative reports free of commercial pressures – and generate the impetus for meaningful change. Olivier Holmey writes about the new media group on the block for GIJN.
Paywalls, live events, special print editions, paid newsletters, the list goes on. From new editorial products to exclusive experiences, news organizations of all types and sizes are looking for new revenue streams. Paula Montañà Tor offers six questions that you should consider before launching a membership program.
In the seven years since the Arab Spring, hope has given way to deep disappointment. Arab officials are increasingly operating with impunity, and by failing to question, investigate and then reveal, journalists are indirectly complicit. Rana Sabbagh, executive director of the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism calls on journalists in the Arab world not to remain silent bystanders in the face of wrongdoing.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 26 to December 2 finds @VRCCrimCam mapping London’s medieval murder hotspots, @geckoboard illustrating common data fallacies to avoid, @ddjournalism teases the beta launch of the Data Journalism Handbook 2.0, and @GoogleNewsInit displays its data journalism courses.
Investigative journalism in this wired world is vastly different from what it used to be. Cobrapost editor Aniruddha Bahal writes about how journalism has changed over time, from postcard complaints to internet trolling, meeting sources in parking lots and using apps and being highly competitive versus collaborative.
Robyn Vinter, founder of a UK-based investigative news website for working-class millennials and people outside the “London bubble,” says she made a conscious choice not to try and make a “big profit” from it. “We’re not trying to be millionaires,” says Vinter.“We’re trying to do investigative journalism, and you can’t really do both, I don’t think.”
Earlier this year, Botswana’s INK Centre for Investigative Journalism tracked down a dossier which detailed the heinous crimes of Gukurahundi — a series of massacres of civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army in the 1980s — which had been kept under lock and key for decades. It was the first time the names of the deceased and blow-by-blow accounts of how the executions were carried out were made available to the public. INK’s Ntibinyane Ntibinyane writes for GIJN on how they did it.
When Clare Rewcastle Brown founded the Sarawak Report in 2010, it was designed to highlight issues affecting indigenous communities in Malaysia, but it soon became instrumental in breaking what the US attorney-general has described as the worst form of kleptocracy in history — the 1MDB scandal involving the plundering of state funds allegedly by Malaysia’s then prime minister and his associates.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 19 to 25 finds society’s most urgent concerns in the textual data of a long-standing @dearabby column, a kerfuffle over @The Economist’s regional inequality graph, dangerous pit toilets in Africa highlighted by @SECTION27news and a gift of sorts from @politico, who open sourced their elections data management system.
Dear Friends: GIJN supports investigative journalists by providing cutting-edge resources, world-class training, access to data and documents, and by linking together the world’s best journalists through cross-border networks. Our Help Desk has responded to over 6,000 requests for assistance since 2012, with a record number this year. We’re helping journalists go after corruption and abuses of power in 140 countries. Won’t you help us continue helping journalists around the world?
With the cost of investigative journalism untenable for too many struggling newsrooms, how are they able to play the role of watchdogs and hold local public officials accountable? New models, replicating global collaborations like the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, may be the answer. Marthe Rubio, the editor of GIJN in French, spoke with editors heading these initiatives in France and the UK.
Non-partisan advocacy organization Issue One spent a year combing through thousands of financial filings over a six-year period to figure out where the money for campaign advertisements in the USA was coming from and who it was going to. They ultimately compiled a database that outlined the top 15 “dark money groups” — organizations that receive millions of dollars of donations from companies and businesses to fund campaign ads.
Reporter Feng Xin tells GIJN about the challenges Chinese journalists face with open records, and about her ongoing John S Knight Journalism Fellowship research to find some answers.
Breaking the Cambridge Analytica scandal has reinvigorated features journalist Carole Cadwalladr’s belief in journalism and how important it is. She talks with Jacob Phillips about Facebook, social media and the future of investigative journalism.
As collaborative journalism becomes a common practice across the media industry, news outlets may need clear documentation to guide their projects. Drafting a memorandum of understanding between collaborating partners can help get everyone on the same page. Stefanie Murray, from the Center for Cooperative Media, gathered six MOU template examples as a guide.
How do freelancers carry out a yearlong investigation when they only get paid at the end? Investigative reporter Samantha Sunne has a tiered approach to keep you from spending precious time and resources.
It’s not difficult to figure out if your story is understandable — if your grandmother can’t understand it, you have failed. At this summer’s MezhyhiryaFest, the annual investigative journalism festival in Kyiv, the OCCRP’s Ilya Lozovsky offered up some tips to help investigative journalists tell better stories. GIJN’s Olga Simanovych pulled them together.
Winners of the Javier Valdez Latin American Award for Investigative Journalism were honored during the 2018 Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism (Colpin), which was held from November 8 – 11 in Bogota, Colombia.
