Criminal activity tends to thrive where state oversight is weakest. So it’s no wonder that cryptocurrencies are the financial tool of choice for criminals around the world, which makes insightful coverage of them increasingly important for investigative journalists.
Even for journalists who feel they have a good grasp on crypto technology and economics, covering the beat has been undeniably difficult. With over a decade of articles, videos, and podcasts in the rear-view mirror, now is a great time to reflect on some of the hard-learnt lessons of covering the industry.
This week’s data journalism roundup highlights a New York Times investigation into the energy and environmental impacts of bitcoin mining, Reuters’ look at anti-homosexuality laws across the African continent, mapping of Switzerland’s residential density, and a visualization of Lionel Messi’s decorated football career.
There is one key reason why reporters should start learning about cryptocurrencies, according to the OCCRP’s Jan Strozyk, and that is because their investigative targets are already using them to hide their crimes and finance their future operations.
Tracking the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter from August 30 to September 5, using NodeXL mapping and our own human curation, we found a series of infographics by Al Jazeera illustrating the scale of the looming crisis. In this edition, we also feature a New York Times investigation into Bitcoin’s energy use, an examination of the Black mortality gap in the United States by The Marshall Project, and a look at the varying successes of the actors who have played James Bond by The Times (UK).
In this edition of Data Journalism Top 10, we look at the history of Eurovision, a Financial Times analysis of how much energy is needed to mine bitcoin, a piece on wildlife trafficking in Hong Kong by GIJN member Oxpeckers, and a piece looking at how American families spend their monthly budgets.
How do you track cryptocurrency transactions? Brenna Smith, an undergraduate researcher at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Investigations Lab, who specializes in investigating disinformation and the illicit use of cryptocurrencies, has created a tutorial using Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ bitcoin funding campaign as a case study to show you how.
