Doing good journalism in the Middle East and North African region is no easy feat. But since 2014, the journalists at Tunisia’s Inkyfada have been doing crucial investigative stories, supported by compelling visual storytelling and interactive reading experiences.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 5 to 11 finds @flowingdata’s tips to visualizing missing or incomplete data, statistics of women’s challenges in journalism by @abraji and @generonumero and a cool income inequality interactive by @EconomicPolicy.
What started out in 2013 as a small donor-funded health journalism center situated inside a legacy newspaper in South Africa has transformed into a staff of 10, and 15 regular contributors across the continent. Today, Bhekisisa consistently produces impactful reports which help to influence policy and decision making, set agendas and define conversations.
Often referred to as the only independent radio station in Russia, Echo Moskvy has been subjected to state pressure for some time, but 2017 was particularly bad. One radio host was almost killed, two journalists went into in exile and several more were detained in the course of their work.
Communications lecturer and former Columbus Dispatch business journalist James Breiner on how credibility works to the advantage of independent media.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 29 to February 4 finds an @UpshotNYT analysis of the influence of Trump’s tweeting on Republicans’ attitudes towards the NFL, a new font typeface made out of human silhouettes created by @albertocairo and a fun Graphic Continuum card set by @jschwabish and @dataviz_catalog to use in the classroom.
The Middle East is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an investigative journalist. Which makes this list of top stories from 2017 by GIJN’s Arabic editor, Majdoleen Hassan, that much more impressive.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out our new video series on investigative tips and tools. This compact set of crash seminars features leading experts with insights on what investigative journalism is, as well as how to follow public records, investigate with data, understand financial records and the best online search strategies.
In an edited extract from the book “Global Teamwork: The Rise of Collaboration in Investigative Journalism,” GIJN’s Program Director Anne Koch talks about the successes — and shortcomings — of the collaboration between Transparency International and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 22 to 28 finds a gorgeous data visualisation of German streets by @zeitonline, a detailed data analysis of Roger Federer’s tennis career by @srfdata and a look at eight alternatives in redistricting US voting boundaries by @FiveThirtyEight.
From laundromats to propaganda factories, GIJN’s Russian-language editor, Olga Simanovych, rounds up some of the most outstanding investigations out of the Former Soviet Union countries in 2017.
Authoritarian governments have cleverly used the liberal norm of transparency in order to shut down liberal groups in their countries, according to a new report “Distract, Divide, Detach: Using Transparency and Accountability to Justify Regulation of Civil Society Organizations.”
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 15 to 21 finds an interactive @voxdotcom piece on American districts which are reducing or perpetuating racial segregation in schools, several data-related good book recommendations by @stephencredmond and @Gapminder and a podcast discussion of memorable visualizations between @michelle_borkin and @datastories.
Emerson College’s Catherine D’Ignazio says defining story “problem” — that is how to tell it and on what platform — from a systems perspective can help journalists and news organizations understand their role within those systems and what form their intervention might take.
Last August, Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit research and advocacy group for gun control, launched the Gun Law Navigator, an exploratory data visualization tool explaining how states in America regulate guns. The project, developed by the Boston-based creative digital studio Upstatement, received lots of attention not only for examining such a sensitive topic, but also for successfully telling a visual, data-driven story about a complex subject: legislation.
Graffitied pigs, a viola player, a painting of a war zone, underground music, a president as a clown. These are just some of the subversive art works that in the last year have resulted in artists’ imprisonment, prosecution, bans and threats.
When Glenn Simpson was an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he was among the best in the biz in following dirty money. Now the US Congress has released Simpson’s testimony on his private investigative firm’s role in digging into Donald Trump, and it’s a case study in sources and methods, showing how the firm tracked Trump’s investments and Russian ties using interviews, public records and smart detective work.
Governments have arsenals of weapons to censor information. The worst are well-known: detention, torture, extra-judicial killing or surveillance. Another form of censorship gets limited attention, a kind of quiet repression: the travel ban.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 8 to 14 finds free font-for-numbers by @InVisionApp, a William Playfair biography book review for @WSJBookReviews and @PublicDataLab’s just-released full version of its fake news field guide.
In 2007, Jordan became the first country in the Middle East to enact freedom of information laws — and Musab Al-Shawabkeh is the award-winning journalist who has been taking full advantage of it.
Journalism collaborations across news organizations have reaped countless benefits in recent years, resulting in more accurate and impactful reports, offering protection for professionals in danger and making possible stories which would have been impossible stories to do alone. Here is top notch advice, crowdsourced from collaborations with more than 500 journalists around the world.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 1 to 7 has data journalism and data visualization roundups by @ddjournalism and @flowingdata, podcasts by @datastories and @fabrider, as well as an analysis on prices corresponding with ski resort altitudes by @duc_qn.
After the 2008 economic crisis, western media companies sold their interests in the Czech Republic’s biggest media houses, radio stations and newspapers to Czech and Slovak billionaires. But the concentration of media in the hands of a few powerful owners has had an unexpected, positive impact. It has led to the emergence of smaller, independent investigative journalism sites, as well as new initiatives to fund them.
For generations, the workers in the Brazilian Amazon who cut the palm straw used for brooms have been functionally enslaved by a system of loans provided by the bosses. Thais Lazzeri, an investigative reporter for Repórter Brasil, had to win their trust as she delved deeply into this topic for her October 2017 article, “100 Years of Bondage” which was beautifully illustrated with photographs by Fernando Martinho.
Verifying videos is important, but first you have to find them. This Bellingcat guide will provide advice and some tips on how to gather as much video as possible on a particular event, whether it is videos from witnesses of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.
