Representatives from several data projects in the MENA region made their way to Cairo last month to attend the first Arab Data Journalism Conference. They were there to share their initiatives to help data other Arab journalists — as well as academics and researchers — access reliable data that’s easy to find and delivered in usable formats. A GIJN original.
There are lots of different tools to measure analytics in the newsroom, but Google Analytics is one of the most widely used. Plus it’s free. Here are some ideas to help those working in organizations that don’t have access to expensive audience monitoring services to move beyond page views to measure the success of their digital content. A GIJN original.
Since its creation five years ago, Agência Pública has promoted a revolution not only in Brazil, but around Latin America. It is one of the main drivers of a regional scene that brings together digital native-media founded and led by journalists.
The US Treasury Department hit Russian oligarchs and their companies with a host of new sanctions today, zeroing in on the country’s energy sector and cronies of President Vladimir Putin. Among those blacklisted: seven oligarchs, 12 companies and 17 senior government officials, including metals magnate Oleg Deripaska, who is tied in media reports to Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Here’s a look at the actual documents.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 26 to April 1 finds @washingtonpost on fatal police shootings, @decodeurs mapping Europe’s terrorist attacks, @DagmedyaVeri’s open data resources for Turkey and an undated chart of shrinking donut holes from the @smithsonian archives.
Non-state media in Cuba defy the constitution of the country, which explicitly prohibits the existence of private media in Article 52. But that hasn’t stopped these 14 independent media houses – most of which started up after 2014 – from winning international awards.
OCCRP Data, part of the Investigative Dashboard, offers journalists a shortcut to the deep web. It now has over 170 public sources and more than 100 million leads for public search – news archives, court documents, leaks and grey literature encompassing UK parliamentary inquiries, companies and procurement databases, NGO reports and even CIA rendition flights, among other choice reading.
The Bell illustrates a growing trend in which Russian journalists and media managers are finding ways of building news organizations that are not financially dependent on rich businessmen vulnerable to Kremlin pressure.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 19 to 25 finds a sobering study on income inequality between black and white males visualized by @nytimes, a cool time-lapse graphic of snow fall in the United States by @PostGraphics and peak baby-making seasons by country by @VismeApp and @ddjournalism.
Traditional war reporting, which mostly focused on revealing the brutality of the conflict in Colombia, is being replaced by new storytelling techniques using alternative narratives and creative digital tools. Here’s Proyecto Coca, Rutas del Conflicto and 4 Ríos.
Berlin-based daily Tageszeitung (Taz for short) is a reader-supported newspaper where a 500 euro membership doesn’t even get you a free subscription. Yet more than 17,000 people have joined the Taz news cooperative in Germany on exactly those terms.
Early this February, we launched a new series on investigative tips and tools to add to our Resource Center for journalists worldwide who want to dig deeper and ask tougher questions. Now, this compact set of crash seminars featuring leading experts with insights on how to better investigate has been translated into four additional languages and will be released over the coming weeks.
The reason we know so much about Russian disinformation operations targeting the United States is that some Russian journalists are very good at their jobs. What the world learned about these trolls, it turns out, came not from social media firms, governments or Western media, but from enterprising Russian journalists. Here’s how they first uncovered the Russian troll factory.
We’re proud to announce that Uncovering Asia — the Asian Investigative Journalism Conference — is coming to Seoul, Korea, on October 5 to 7. The conference is the premier gathering of investigative and data journalists in Asia, held only once every two years. This year we’re holding #IJAsia18 in the center of South Korea’s bustling capital, at the four-star Millennium Seoul Hilton, and we’ve got an all-star lineup.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 12 to 18 finds disturbing news from @NASAEarth about low Arctic sea ice and temperature anomalies in the North Pole, @seeingtheory ‘s redesigned educational website on probability and statistics and top ten ways to clean your data by @Microsoft.
Every year South African investigative journalists are recognized for their hard work when the winners of the Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism are announced. This year has provided a chance to assess the highs and the lows of our investigative reporting after an extraordinary year.
The Choqueyapu River investigation was initially intended for the Bolivian newspaper, Página Siete. A three-month reporting project resulted in the publication of two 16-page newspaper specials. But the challenge was to transform it into an innovative digital story.
Last May, Direkt36 published its first story about how the companies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s family were secretly benefiting from projects funded by the government – often paid from the European Union’s budget. Here the reporters break down the five most interesting parts of their reporting.
The cold-blooded murder of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak was also a cold slap across the face of modern Europe. That the public watchdogs could be halted simply by a brutal act of violence seems to portend a further breakdown of European values. Is it possible to legislate better security? There could be.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 5 to 11 finds everyone keenly sharing data tipsheets from @IRE_NICAR’s NICAR18 conference, @texifter discussing how to identify bots versus humans online and @EdjNet talking to @culukaya about the shocking rates of femicide in Turkey.
Late last year, the number of official deaths during Hurricane Maria were at a surprising low. That’s when the journalists at Puerto Rico’s Centre de Periodismo Investigativo kicked into high gear, forcing government to be more transparent and accountable.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is always on the lookout for contributors interested in writing stories about innovation in journalism, as well as tips, tools and how-tos around investigative reporting. Experts in investigative journalism, journalists who write about media, academics in media studies, media trainers as well as GIJN members are encouraged to contribute.
The recently published paper, Bridging the Gap, Rebuilding Citizen Trust in Media, probably offers the most complete list of the current projects around media and trust. But those interviewed for the project viewed trust — and the way publications can gain and sustain it — differently. However, all initiatives seem to rely on two principles to optimize trust: transparency and participation.
The murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, both 27, have sparked protests since the killings on February 25. On Friday, tens of thousands gathered at the Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government and a thorough investigation of Kuciak’s death. Feature image by Tomáš Benedikovič.
More than 30 journalists set out to film and observe every foot of the border with Mexico, from Texas to California. The result was a fully interactive map with about 20 hours of aerial footage of the border, a seven-chapter story about the journey, 14 additional stories about the consequences of the wall, 14 mini-documentaries and an explanation of the history of the border itself. Here’s how they did it.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 26 to March 4 finds @morgenpost setting Germany’s poll data to music, @A_agadjanian showing Google Trends data on people’s general interest in gun control a week after deadly shootings in the US and @puntofisso rounding up an interesting list of #ddj and #opendata newsletters.
