On the second day of GIJC21, journalists from Brazil, Indonesia, and The Netherlands offer tips and tools on how to cover what may be the most important story we ever dig into: how humanity copes with the unprecedented challenge of climate change.
Tracking some of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter from August 23 to 29, we found a thread by Financial Times journalist John Burn-Murdoch exploring what we know so far about the long-term effects of immunizations, a look into the pandemic’s impact on the global female workforce by The Washington Post, and an investigation into teen pregnancies in Peru by OjoPúblico.
Many reporters never notice the “inspect element” option below the “copy” and save-as” functions in the right-click menu on any webpage related to their investigation. But it turns out that this little-used web inspector tool can dig up a wealth of hidden information from a site’s source code, reveal the raw data behind graphics, and download images and videos that supposedly cannot be saved.
Homeschooling has presented many challenges to parents and legal guardians of children around the world, with many dissatisfied with the online learning experience. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 26 to May 2 found a piece by Voxeurop highlighting that most people in Europe aren’t keen on their kids continuing to study remotely even if provided with the necessary materials and support. In this edition, we also feature an interactive project by the Guardian exploring disappearing glaciers, a look at Stephen Curry’s remarkable basketball records by The Washington Post, and an archive of publications using data sonification to tell stories.
Data analysis and visualization expert Hassel Fallas explains how the visual presentation of facts provided much-needed understanding amid the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also shared some of her favorite examples of pandemic data visualization from around the world in 2020.
The US presidential election dominated the Twitter chat waves last week. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 2 to 8 found data journalists sharing live election results trackers by Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, while The Atlantic and Slate weighed in on the problems of polling. Elsewhere open source platform Mapbox is organizing an election mapping contest, and Lazer Lab created a dashboard to explore 29 million tweets related to COVID-19 shared by over half a million Americans.
Since the start of the pandemic, GIJN has produced more than 40 free webinars in 7 languages designed for journalists covering the COVID-19 crisis. Come September, GIJN will expand its online offerings on a range of new topics, with continued coverage of the pandemic.
Geospatial technologies and data can be used to contain and respond to the spread of a disease, but can also help in pre-empting and preventing them. Looking at outbreaks of malaria, SARS, H1N1 and Zika, among other viruses, Avneep Dhingra explores how maps and geospatial technology have helped during different outbreaks.
Outstanding investigative stories on subjects from land reform and roads to sexual abuse and corruption were among the finalists at this year’s Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism. Panel convener Anton Harber said the diversity of stories and media showed the core strength of South African investigative reporting, which was now being deployed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic fallout.
Misinformation has grown ubiquitous during the COVID-19 pandemic, so much so that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proclaimed: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic.” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has emerged as a favorite target of disinformation actors, according to The New York Times, that we discovered through our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 13 to 19. We also found The Economist and ProPublica examining the true impact of the pandemic by looking into “excess mortalities” such as home deaths, the Associated Press releasing and updating a coronavirus public dataset for the United States.
