What has the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd been tweeting about all year long?? What are the most popular hashtags? The most searched domains? The top mentions? We look back on…a year of “things” (BBC), guesting with strangers in à la Airbnb (Le Temps), all of history in “one click” (Herodote.net), the genius of Edward Tufte, and so very much more!
More than 320 journalists from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf met in Amman in early December for the 7th annual Forum for Arab investigative journalists, the largest ever. The ARIJ annual meeting has become the main networking forum for investigative journalists across the Arab world. In spite of an increasingly hostile media environment, many Arab journalists are still engaged in in-depth reporting, pushing against the narrowing borders of free reporting, and raising standards for documentation.
In today’s globalized, interconnected world, free and unfettered information is more essential than ever. It’s essential for markets and for trade. And it’s essential to empowering the emerging community of global citizens and ensuring that they are able to participate in a meaningful way in the decisions that affect their lives. Likewise, those who are deprived of information are essentially disempowered. We live in a world in which the abundance of information obscures the enormous gaps in our knowledge
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for Dec. 10-18). Among the items: Zeit Online’s Year in Infographics, new prints by Edward Tufte, and the NYT’s @harrisj on “the wave of bullshit data” coming your way.
Journalists from 33 countries streamed into Manila last month for Uncovering Asia: The First Asian Investigative Journalism Conference. The organizers — GIJN, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) — hoped for at least 150 people, but more than 300 came, full of energy, from Japan to Mongolia. The video above captures the spirit and drive that marked this groundbreaking event. As PCIJ director Malou Mangahas told attendees, “Asia is ready!”
From the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in 2011 to the groundbreaking YanukovychLeaks project this year, Ukraine has become a key link in international investigative reporting. So it should be no surprise that the annual Ukrainian investigative journalism conference is growing into a regional event.
Telling us that traffic accidents happen on streets over time is nice, but it’s just the beginning of an Open Data Odyssey that governments, civil society, and other organizations must begin together to document and describe the tertiary impacts of these events, and many other events, on our collective experiences and lives in large urban ecosystems like New York.
Open Knowledge, the UK-based nonprofit that focuses on unlocking data around the world, has released the latest version of its Global Open Data Index. The index attempts to make sense of the explosion in open government data portals, which have grown from just a handful three years ago to nearly 400 worldwide. The good news: the number of entries and data sets is growing. The bad: only 11% of the datasets surveyed are deemed open by the index.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for December 1-9), including items from Stimme.de, Arnaud Wery, Datawrapper, The Economist, and m0le.net. Thanks to Marc Smith of Connected Action for gathering the links and graphing them.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network has joined a growing chorus of media organizations, human rights groups, governments, and others around the world calling for the immediate release of journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Ms. Ismayilova was arrested on Friday and imprisoned for at least two months on charges that are widely seen as part of a campaign to silence independent media and civil society in Azerbaijan.
Journalist Khadija Ismayilova, a Radio Free Europe/OCCRP reporter, was taken into custody yesterday in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the latest of a series of legal moves to put pressure on her. Ismayilova, known for her investigations into the business interests of the family of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, is charged in the latest case of inciting a man to commit suicide
The majority of the Arab press — whether available in print or online — depends largely for their news on what national or international press agencies produce. The only real investment is placed in supporting columnists whose opinions and analysis reflect the particular editorial line of the publisher and the owners of that outlet. This disproportionate support for columnists rather than reporters can best be seen when you ask any follower of Arab media to name a particular news reporter or investigative journalist connected with a particular journal.
New corruption rankings were released this week by Transparency International, and they find the world steeped in corrupt practices, regardless of economic growth. More than two thirds of the 175 countries ranked scored under 50, on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Denmark grabbed the top score, with 92, while North Korea and Somalia notched last, with an 8 score.
The lights of free speech are being steadily extinguished across the Arab world, heralding a new era of ignorance, intolerance, and repression. Saddest of all, the majority of Arabs — who saw free speech as the only gain from the Arab Spring upheavals – now seem willing to accept the loss of this universal human right, in return for promises of stability and economic prosperity.
What does it mean to be a professional journalist in a Syria fragmented by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, the interim Syrian government and Syrian Opposition Coalition groups, not to mention being under the mercy of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its likes. The straight answer is: “An assumed agent”, “traitor,” or “spy for the crusaders” and deserving death, whether the journalist is Arab or foreign.
Journalists from 14 countries in West Africa have called for creation of a regional Centre for Investigative Journalism and for African media to use investigative techniques to expose corruption and illicit trafficking, which they say are impeding human development and worsening security. The declaration came after a one-week conference organized by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Twenty-five years ago, the term “investigative reporting” was little known in Asia. The media landscape was dominated by pliant newspapers, insipid TV news programs, and journalists who saw themselves as mouthpieces of government. Today journalists throughout Asia are using freedom-of-information laws, data analysis, social media, collaborative tools, and the latest in digital technology. They are writing about corruption, human slavery, dirty money, and environmental problems. We’ve come a long way.
With robust data journalism hands-on training and many presentations focusing on covering mining and oil issues, the 2014 Power Reporting Conference in Johannesburg drew over 350 participants from 19 African countries.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for November 7-15), including items from Data Le Temps, Morgenpost, and Open Data City, among others.
In 2009 the European Parliament proposed to start a research grant scheme for investigative journalists who plan to investigate cases that affect at least two member states, or the EU as whole. EUR 1.5 million was allocated for this purpose in the EU’s 2010 budget. In 2010 a pilot project defaulted due to an unresolved administrative issue. Then, from 2012 on, the pilot project was turned into a preparatory action and an external consultant was hired for about a quarter of a million euros to figure out how the administrative problem could be solved. The feasibility study was drafted in 2013, yet the Commission felt it could not implement the program in 2014, because the necessary legislation would not go through, they said, due to administrative difficulties. So they didn’t do anything.
At the Google Investigathon on Nov.12, GIJN premiered its latest project, Investigative Impact: How Investigative Journalism Fights Corruption, Promotes Accountability, and Fosters Transparency around the World. GIJN director David Kaplan and board chair Brant Houston showcased the project before nearly 100 people at the New York event, demonstrating through video, graphics, data, and a new website the extraordinary global impact of investigative reporting. The project includes case studies of high-impact reports, video interviews with journalists in 20 countries, infographics, and a resource library.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for October 30- November 7), including items from Zeit Online, PBS Media Shift, and CORRECT!V, among others.
In just over two weeks we’ll convene Uncovering Asia, the region’s first investigative journalism conference. We’ve got an extraordinary array of the best journalists from Japan to Pakistan heading to Manila for what will be a World’s Fair of muckraking from Nov. 22-24. So why is GIJN heading to Asia? That’s easy. It’s where 60% of humanity lives, and the demand for watchdog reporting is enormous. The region has long been the weak link in our global community of investigative journalists — but that’s changing quickly.
Governments may have begun Open Data, but the next wave is People Data. Any group in any part of the world can self-organize to collect data about their community and publish it on the cloud to effect change. This is an incredibly powerful development.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? A politician and his shadow (data, that is), New York City taxis, DataFest, and more! Here are the week’s Top Ten Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for October 24-30), with items from Der Spiegel, the Guardian, and the Financial Times.
