GIJN member Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) will host its seventh annual forum for Arab investigative journalists in Amman in December. The conference, whose theme is “Arab Media: The Battle for Independence,” will feature 30 + panels and trainings with speakers like Sy Hersh, Marwan Muashar, Tim Sebastian, and more.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Moving maps, corruption in banks, life on earth (again), and more! Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for October 16-24), including items from Mapacino, NiemanLab, and Simon Rogers.
At long last we can retire Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as the icons of investigative reporting. With his second book probing the dark tunnels of the so-called war on terror, James Risen has established himself as the finest national security reporter of this generation… Although parts of Risen’s new revelations have been published in the Times or elsewhere, here they are fleshed out in richly reported chapters studded with eye-popping new charges.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for October 10-16), including items from the Washington Post, Herodote, the BBC and more.
Getting hassled by authorities is nothing new for investigative journalists. But two recent incidents serve notice that some countries are cracking down with a tried-and-true technique to stop pesky foreign reporters: prosecuting them for visa technicalities. In Indonesia and Russia this week, authorities are trying to stop coverage and even training by investigative journalists.
Exposés of questionable financial transactions in Argentina, Trinidad, and Mexico led the 2014 Latin American Investigative Journalism Awards, announced over the weekend in Mexico City. Judging by the strength and breadth of the 14 finalists, investigative journalism is alive and well across Latin America. First prize went to “El señor de los hoteles y el socio de la Presidenta” (“The Lord of the Hotels and the President’s Partner”) by Hugo Alconada and Mariela Arias of Argentina’s La Nación.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for October 3-9), including items from Forbes, Visualising Data, Le Temps, and more.
I was on a call recently with some CIO’s and CTO’s from different American cities who were lamenting about the lack of political interest in open data. They complained that hackathons and data jams are succeeding in building vibrant communities of developers in their cities but that politicians just aren’t into this. They don’t see the value and they rarely show up to participate. I’ve seen the same trend in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for September 26-October 2), including items from Zeit Online, CPJ, OUseful.info, and more.
Paper trails have always been of great interest to investigative journalists. Digging into documents can tell a great deal about people, organizations, and what they’re up to. Here’s today’s Doc of the Day, a contract recently filled by the U.S. Secret Service, the law enforcement group charged with protecting the president and other political VIPs. It’s for “Dark Web Data Subscription.” More than 90% of the Web is thought to be unsearchable by Google and other common search engines. This is often called the dark or deep Web, and it includes sites behind firewalls and passwords, unusual formats, criminal and other hidden networks, and lots and lots of databases.
GIJN’s Board of Directors admitted seven new members this week, bringing our membership to a record 108 organizations in 46 countries. Please join us in welcoming: ANCIR, CORRECT!V, Dossier, IDL-Reporteros, OjoPúblico, RISE-Moldova, and WCIJ.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for September 18-25), including items from BBC, The Guardian, and JeuneAfrique, among others.
You’ve probably seen the spoof broadcasts of The Daily Show and similar “fake” TV news programs: the realistic sets, the bogus “live” shots from overseas hot spots, the absurd interviews. While steeped in wisecracks and satire, the shows have a hard political edge and often stir controversy. Increasingly, in the absence of serious news from the “real” news media, they also are getting into actual journalism, prompting one scholar to call the phenomenon “investigative comedy.”
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.
Open Data should be Open, right? When I read “Open Data” I think it means the data can be used openly by anyone for any purpose. But it ain’t so. Read the fine print in the terms and conditions and you’ll quickly realize that Open Data really means wide open liability. How on earth can Open Data restore trust in government if the governments publishing their own Open Data won’t even accept responsibility for the quality of what they publish?
The civil society movement campaigning for government openness reached a significant landmark yesterday with the Latin American country of Paraguay enacting the world’s 100th access to information law. Twenty years ago, in 1994, there were just 15 access to information laws globally. But “there are still many challenges ahead,” says Helen Darbishire of Access Info Europe. “The quality of access to information laws varies enormously. There is insufficient transparency in practice and we urgently need more comparative data on how these laws are working.”
Africa’s premier investigative journalism, Power Reporting, returns to Johannesburg, South Africa, this November 3-5. The annual event is organized by the Journalism Programme of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), a GIJN member. The three-day conference is an opportunity to learn new skills, hear about the top investigative stories and share experience on investigative techniques, data journalism, and more.
Come join us in Manila! Registration is now open for Asia’s groundbreaking first investigative journalism conference, November 22-24. Check out our new conference site, put together by GIJN and its partners, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. We have speakers from more than 15 countries and state-of-the-art panels on digging out hidden facts online, tracking money across borders, cutting-edge data analysis, funding your investigation, and much more.
“Big Data.” It seems like the phrase is everywhere. The term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, appeared in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary by 2014, and Gartner’s just-released 2014 Hype Cycle shows “Big Data” passing the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” and on its way down into the “Trough of Disillusionment.” Big Data is all the rage. But what does it actually mean? we asked 40+ thought leaders in publishing, fashion, food, automobiles, medicine, marketing, and every industry in between how exactly they would define the phrase “Big Data.” Their answers might surprise you!
Where I live, it’s common to hear people say that the U.S. government destroyed the World Trade Center. What looks to me and my reporter colleagues like a Russian invasion of Ukraine looks to them like a murky situation where no one is right or wrong. But when someone said to me over dinner that a Polish fighter plane had shot down MH17 over Ukraine, citing yet another obscure Internet “news” site, something snapped. I turned away, but the problem is still there.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for August 28- September 3), including items from Visualoop, the New York Times, and Journalist’s Resources, among others.
Behind the scenes, proponents of freedom of expression are working to ensure that independent media is for the first time a priority in the global development goals set by the UN and its member states. As part of that push, last week more than 300 representatives from media NGOs, journalist unions and associations, civil society groups, governments, and international agencies gathered for The Bali Media Forum organized by UNESCO. The three-day meeting, on August 26-28 in Bali, Indonesia, ended with a clarion call to make access to information and free media a development priority.
Norway’s Association for Investigative Journalism — SKUP — is holding its first big data conference on October 18, with top data journalists from across Scandinavia and overseas. The intensive day includes 16 sessions of 90 minutes each, ranging from basic to advanced levels. SKUP will also host the next Global Investigative Journalism Conference — in October 2015.
Even as a growing number of authoritarian regimes crack down on the political press, business news is thriving. And the coverage is more vigorous than might be expected. Enterprising journalists are exposing mismanagement and unearthing shady business deals—and even at times exposing official corruption—that otherwise might never see the light of day. While other journalists face censorship, jail, or worse, business journalists are eschewing political stories to provide news and statistics on markets, business deals, and international trade.The expansion of economic and business journalism is not a substitute
for truly free and independent media. But it is a sign that—even in the most repressive environments—the demand for trustworthy information is strong and growing.
What’s the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week’s Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for August 13-27), including items from JeuneAfrique, the NYTimes, and Medium Magazine, among others.
Who should you trust? (Or, for all you pedants out there, whom should you trust?) It’s an important question for all of us, not least when you’re buying a used car (and believe me, I know.) But it’s probably even more important for journalists, who talk to strangers on a regular basis and need to make snap judgments about how much faith we should have in what they say. So here’s the bad news: You shouldn’t trust yourself to figure out who you should trust.
