Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://gijn.org/tag/education/)
Journalism has taken Bektour Iskender through revolutions, death threats and even a crowdfunded space venture. Along the way, he’s trained dozens of teenage investigative journalists in Kyrgyzstan.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 26 to December 2 finds @VRCCrimCam mapping London’s medieval murder hotspots, @geckoboard illustrating common data fallacies to avoid, @ddjournalism teases the beta launch of the Data Journalism Handbook 2.0, and @GoogleNewsInit displays its data journalism courses.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 5 to November 11 finds employment problems in the UK from @FinancialTimes, Polish data counter-narratives with @gazeta_wyborcza, cool geospatial analysis toys from @Uber, plus the launches of new data labs with @AlterEco_, data articles with @fstalph and @eborgesrey and data newsletters with @voydorg_en.
The extractives sector (oil, gas, and mining) continues to be an important subject for journalists, particularly in developing countries. Revenues from oil, gas and mining contribute substantially to GDP and in many cases make up the bulk of government revenue. Indeed, among 29 nations that in 2011 were implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), 10 reported extractives revenues totaling over one-quarter of their respective government budgets (six of which were actually over 50%).
Education is the path to development. It creates choices and opportunities for people in terms of access to employment, reduces the twin burdens of poverty and disease, and empowers people. For nations as a whole, education produces a more skilled and competitive workforce that can attract better quality foreign investment, thus opening the doors to economic and social prosperity for society as a whole.
However, people often do not see how these global goals can be translated to local realities. The media plays a key role in forming opinion, helping to ensure that citizens and politicians alike recognise that there is no room for complacency in tackling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to education.
To Hermilio, a working day is no less than 12 hours. In return, he receives a wage that does not guarantee that his two children, who are six and seven years old, have food three times a day, nor does it prevent them having to walk miles to reach the nearest school. This is the reality in the Cusarare community in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, and in many other parts of the world. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—which underpin an alliance between governments and society geared at eradicating marginalisation—were created up in response to the suffering of Hermilio and the billions of others like him around the world.
Editor’s Note: For the next two weeks, GIJN is running a series drawn from the newly released Reporter’s Guide to the Millennium Development Goals: Covering Development Commitments for 2015 and Beyond, published by the International Press Institute. Agreed to in 2000, the UN Millennium Goals comprise an ambitious agenda to improve quality of life around the world, focusing on such issues as poverty, gender equality, and education.
Journalists face some unique problems keeping their data and communications secure in the digital environment. This tends to be especially true when doing investigations, working in war zones or traveling in unfamiliar terrain. If these are concerns for you, The Journalist Survival Guide has your back — or, more precisely, offers insights and expertise on how you can protect yourself, your sources, your data and digital equipment. Good stuff to know about because it can get dangerous out there.
If you want to study journalism, you have more choices today, at lower cost, and of higher quality than ever. Sometimes you will get that at a university and sometimes not. That represents a challenge for universities. In a lecture at a journalism conference in Puebla, Mexico, I described a personal experience taking a course in data visualization from one of the world leaders in the field, Alberto Cairo, author of “The Functional Art.” This kind of course represents a major challenge for universities, because their monopoly on expertise and certification is eroding. Just as occurred in the news business, competitors are emerging who are offering attractive alternatives.
