In this week’s Top 10 in Data Journalism, GIJN looks into stories about Latin American deforestation, Twitter’s censorship compliance, and the toxic legacy of bankrupt coal mines in the US.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 13 to 19 finds the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposing how Africa’s richest woman really made her fortune, The Washington Post using satellite imagery to show the disappearance of an entire lake in the Philippines, El País sharing the behind-the-scenes process of their work, and Mike Reilley curating a mega list of useful data journalism tools.
About a third of all countries in the world now require officials to publicly disclose their assets. Institutions like the World Bank and the OECD see this as a good thing. Asset declarations, they say, are crucial tools for fighting corruption and holding officials accountable. As an investigative journalist in the Philippines, I found asset statements vital to digging into conflicts of interest and the illegal accumulation of wealth by those in public office. But pushback on official disclosures is coming from an unlikely quarter.
