The use of open source tools, user-generated content, and advanced search filters has allowed reporters to break major stories on the COVID-19 pandemic from home quarantine. In a recent GIJN webinar, three investigative researchers shared key insights on the tools and techniques that have unearthed facts and visuals beyond the reach of traditional field reporting.
GIJN asked investigative journalists around the world to look ahead at what’s in store for 2020. Here are the trends, key forces, and challenges they expect will affect investigative and data journalism in the coming year, as well as the new skills and approaches we should be thinking about.
Throughout this year, we’ve brought you weekly “snapshots” of the Twitter conversation surrounding data journalism. But this week, we look at what the global data journalism community tweeted about the most during all of 2019. Below you’ll find links to stories from Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, the US, and elsewhere.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 25 to December 1 finds The New York Times profiling Bellingcat and its use of OSINT techniques; the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Stanford University collaborating to employ artificial intelligence to solve a journalistic problem; and the Science Communication Lab creating a beautiful interactive scientific poster to explore the world’s oceans.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from September 9 to 15 finds ProPublica open-sourcing its collaborative reporting software; CityLab interviewing Mark Monmonier, author of “How to Lie With Maps,” on Donald Trump’s deceptive hurricane map; Al Jazeera surveying South Sudan’s citizens on displacement; and Reuters visualizing just how bad the Earth’s problem is in terms of single-use plastics.
Sharing is caring. The Financial Times created templates for different types of digital stories and has now shared them on GitHub so that other newsrooms can adapt them.
What’s the best way to protect you and your sources from commercial spyware? When the actual systems and applications used in everyday communications aren’t transparent and lack adequate security measures, using open source programs with encryption can be the best line of defense. Katarina Sabados rounded up some options for open source digital security for GIJN.
Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, was recently named one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers for 2019. The New Arab recently talked to Higgins about what motivated him to start the website and the role of developing technology in countering disinformation and fake news.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 14 to 20 finds a @FinancialTimes exposé of possible electoral fraud in Congo, @sxywu’s beautiful visualization of interaction data between a museum and the public, and @maartenzam’s the ultimate data visualization list to end all lists.
With the backlash against democracy and anti-press sentiment growing, the need for investigations around issues such as corruption and climate change continues to rise. GIJN asked the leaders of our global community about what they see happening in investigative journalism around the world in 2019. Here’s what they told us.
