Member Profiles
Civio: Data Journalism Pioneer in Spain, Still Pushing For Greater Transparency
The organization has one guiding principle: “Let the data speak.” But sometimes getting hold of the information they need is an uphill battle.
Tag
Access to information
12 posts
News & Analysis Press Freedom
How Salvadoran Journalists Fight for Public Information Despite Increasing Obstruction
In El Salvador, the government has increasingly failed to honor public access to Information laws, forcing journalists to obtain data through other channels to hold power to account.
News & Analysis
Should Journalists Do Advocacy? Here’s a Unique Approach Out of South Africa
An investigative outfit with an advocacy program may raise eyebrows. But in South Africa, amaBhungane has scored major wins for transparency and free speech.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Journalism’s Deep Web: 7 Tips on Using OCCRP Data
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.
FOI’s Man in the Middle East
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.
News & Analysis
Iraqi Muckraking: Investigative Journalism in One of the World’s Most Dangerous Countries
A study by Iraqi professor Dr Bushra Al-Hamdani found that journalists in Iraq are often targeted by either pro-government militias or militant opposition groups and have little protection against threats. They also face legal obstacles and a lack of government transparency.
News & Analysis
FOI Requests in 11 Countries: Implementation Is Key
With freedom of information statutes in over 100 countries today, the laws have become a key tool for journalists from India to Mexico. But their success depends on how they’re used and implemented, as Swiss scholar Vincent Mabillard explores in his recent paper, Freedom of Information Laws: Evolution of the Number of Requests in 11 Jurisdictions. We are pleased to present highlights from his paper from the University of Lausanne.
Resource
A Media Resource Center for the Rio Olympics
On Thursday, June 30, a group of journalists met at a house in Botafogo in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro for a full day of training in the city’s access to information laws, followed by a debate on transparency in the context of the upcoming Olympics. “We wanted to do something before the Olympics on access to information, because so many people don’t know how the system works,” explained Mariana Simões, manager of Casa Pública.
News & Analysis
UN’s New Global Goal: Ensuring Public Access to Info
On September 25, world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a United Nations summit. The new goals commit all 193 UN member states to an ambitious development agenda that calls for poverty eradication, environmental protection, gender equality, disease prevention, universal schooling, ‘inclusive’ growth, and good governance – and includes, for the first time a commitment to public access to information. This new commitment has potentially transformative implications for the free flow of information and independent media development worldwide.
News & Analysis
What If We Disclose Everything?
From my experience of more than eight years managing transactions and capacity building programs in Latin America and Africa, a radical approach to transparency is the key to enable public-private partnerships to deliver more and better infrastructure services. The crude truth is that opaque policies serve a lot of interests, but almost none of them benefit service users or taxpayers.