News & Analysis
Credibility Is the New Currency. And that’s Good for Independent Media
Communications lecturer and former Columbus Dispatch business journalist James Breiner on how credibility works to the advantage of independent media.
Communications lecturer and former Columbus Dispatch business journalist James Breiner on how credibility works to the advantage of independent media.
It’s been a year of great reads on GIJN, from “how they did it” to the best tips and tools on everything from mojo to mapping. Here’s a curated list of top ten reader favorites from stories published in 2017.
The creative use of social media has given journalists new ways to solicit tips as well as tap readers’ expertise, opinions and personal experiences. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh has rounded up some of the best examples of community engagement in stories as well as a list of resources and ideas for crowdsourcing.
The GIJN report “Investigative Impact: The Role of Investigative Journalism in Fostering Change – and How to Measure It,” is being released today at #GIJC17 in Johannesburg. Here is an excerpt from the report.
There is power in a crowd, and harnessing crowd contributions have become increasingly useful in investigative journalism. New York-based ProPublica shows how newsrooms are integrating crowdsourcing as a routine reporting tool, using it for data collection and to connect with and gather personal stories from readers.
When ProPublica reporters published a questionnaire in February reaching out to women who had experienced life-threatening complications in childbirth, they only expected a few hundred responses. Instead, they received thousands — and the structured call-out became the basis of their maternal mortality series.
Here are top data journalism tweets for Apr 24-30, per our NodeXL mapping: draw it yourself interactives (@br_data); visualizing Google searches (@albertocairo); opinion polls analysis (@SZ); Politibot’s graphics (@politibot); French election (@BIQdata); ProPublica jobs (@ProPublica); and more.
It’s been a busy first quarter of 2017 for GIJN members — from picking up Pulitzer Prizes to launching crowdfunding campaigns. There have also been new projects and new collaborations forged. Here are some noteworthy splashes made by GIJN members around the world.
This is a list of winning stories drawn from 16 major global or regional journalism awards given in 2016, which hopefully might serve as a source of inspiration for you to find original stories, to innovate in how to tell them, or to find a thread to develop a fresh angle. Take heart that the quality of work by solo reporters or fledgling investigative teams can sometimes stand out as much as that of huge media outlets.
As journalists who analyze data for stories, we strive to hold ourselves accountable to a high standard of accuracy. But checking our work is rarely a straightforward process. Newsroom editors and fact-checkers might not have enough data expertise. Often, we need an outside opinion. Ideally, we could ask each other for advice, or even turn to experts in other fields for help. In academia, asking for outside comment before publication is broadly referred to as “peer review.”