Data journalism can show trends, maps, and patterns, highlighting whether violence has gone up or down in a region, where conflict is located, and how this relates to conditions on the ground that impacts civilians, such as migration or refugees. Here’s more on how you can use it in your next investigation.
Would you board a night train instead of a plane in order to help protect the environment? European policymakers hope more and more citizens will do so. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 3 to 9, found an article by Bloomberg analyzing a plan to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by rolling out more cross-border rail lines. In this edition, we also feature a multimedia project looking at an architectural phenomenon linked to apartheid in South Africa, a Washington Post story about the true toll of the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico City, and a guide on using data in conflict reporting.
At the recent NICAR21 data journalism conference, organized by Investigative Reporters and Editors, experts shared dozens of new tools and plugins that can save time or add efficiency and insight to any investigation.
No law enforcement agency announced any criminal investigation into the attempted murder of Russia’s leading opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, after he was poisoned with a chemical weapon in Russia last year. Instead, investigative journalists stepped forward. In a GIJN webinar, journalists from Bellingcat and Russia’s The Insider explained how, and why, they used black market data to help expose the true culprits behind that attack.
In this excerpt, drawn from “The Data Journalism Handbook,” GIJN’s Eunice Au and sociologist Marc Smith explain how the widespread use of the #ddj hashtag among data journalism communities has made it a prominent resource for sharing projects, as well as the ability to track the evolution of data journalism work.
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.
After going through “seven minutes of terror,” NASA’s Perseverance rover managed to successfully touch down on Mars last week. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 15 to 21 found reporting by The Wall Street Journal and Al Jazeera, which offers more insight into the rover’s journey to the red planet. In this edition, we also feature a story about the boom in independent journalism in Russia, an analysis of the future of South Africa’s coal mining industry, and a critique of data visualization’s ability to fully convey the realities of large-scale tragedies.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 25 to 31 found interactive projects by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Guardian analyzing these events. In this edition, we also feature environmental reporting by The New York Times and The Economist, a Wall Street Journal story on the GameStop Reddit mania that shook stock markets, and a visual representation of 2020 using Lego bricks.
In an ambitious nationwide investigation, Pulitzer-winning journalists served as instructors to 270 students across seven universities who had teamed up to cover homelessness in the United States.
For our series on journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke to Alberto Cairo, head of visualization at the University of Miami’s Institute for Data Science and Computing. Cairo shared several user-friendly tools and core principles to help investigative reporters shape their data visually to create new insights for audiences.
