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Reporting Tools & Tips
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Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips
Research Desk: Databases on Ag, Insider Trading; Reports on Migration, LGBTI, Food Supply
The Internet is an amazing research resource but often discovery of quality reference tools and reports can be challenging, especially when you think about how quickly new resources appear and often disappear. I hope that these columns not only alert you to useful material but will help you build up your own collection of reference resources, which you can save on your own computer, or utilize a tool like The Wayback Machine to archive it for yourself and others.
Resource
Research Desk: Data on Human Rights, Corruption, Terrorism
Time for a new collection of tools and reports. This week we’ve got a human rights database, file conversion for 208 formats, and nine new reports from research organizations, ranging from terrorism and corruption to European migration. Got a suggestion for The Research Desk? Write me at gprice@mediasourceinc.com.
Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips
Research Desk: Nuclear, Health Databases, New Int’l Reports
Time for a new collection of resources and research reports. Today’s roundup features two online databases — one on nuclear reactors, the other on health — and the latest international research reports from Brussels, London, and Washington. Global Health Facts from the Kaiser Family Foundation is an organized and frequently updated collection of browsable and searchable data.
Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
On the Ethics of Web Scraping and Data Journalism
Web scraping is a way to extract information presented on websites. As I explained it in the first installment of this article, web scraping is used by many companies. It’s also a great tool for reporters who know how to code, since more and more public institutions publish their data on their websites.
With web scrapers, which are also called “bots,” it’s possible to gather large amounts of data for stories. But what are the ethical rules that reporters have to follow while web scraping?
Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Web Scraping: A Journalist’s Guide
$8 billion in just a few hours earlier this year? It was because of a web scraper, a tool companies use—as do many data reporters. A web scraper is simply a computer program that reads the HTML code from webpages, and analyze it. With such a program, or “bot,” it’s possible to extract data and information from websites.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Sustainability: Tips on Holding Live Events That Support Journalism
Just as an article or a gallery of photos can shine a light on an issue for the public, so can these in-person gatherings. Some media organizations are putting on full-fledged festivals in the same vein as South by Southwest and TED. These gatherings include panels of experts, one-on-one conversations with major newsmakers and presentations that explore ground-breaking topics. In other words, they’re an entirely new way of informing and providing information — undoubtedly journalistic functions.
Resource
The Research Desk: The Latest Databases and Int’l Reports
It’s time for another roundup of resources and research reports that we’ve curated from around the web. Most of these selections are new on the web in the past few weeks. Several of the reports listed below are full of data including visualizations and can be thought of as reference tools for both current and future research.
Reporting Tools & Tips Safety & Security Teaching & Training
Data at Risk: How To Protect Your Sources and Your Work
Information stored on your computer or mobile is at risk. You could leave it on a train; it could be seized at an airport security checkpoint; or by the police or courts. And of course hackers can access your data. You need to be aware of all the risks and ways to protect your information, your sources and yourself.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips Teaching & Training
Environmental Investigative Reporting: Resources & Methods
In this just-released video, investigative reporter Mark Schapiro goes in-depth on how to use investigative techniques in probing often complex environmental issues. Schapiro, a veteran of the original Center for Investigative Reporting, gave this talk in Hamburg at NR15, the July 2015 annual conference of Netzwerk Recherche, Germany’s investigative journalism association.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Eight Practices of Successful Entrepreneurial Journalists
For the last seven years I have been interviewing and profiling successful entrepreneurial journalists in various countries of various socioconomic classes. I’ve talked to publishers and editors with staffs of as many as a hundred as well as some one-man/one-woman bands. The ones that survive and thrive after several years share some common practices.
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The Research Desk: Drones, Cool Tools, Green Companies
The latest tools and resources from the Research Desk: new world of drones databases available, reports from the European Parliament Research Service, Top Green Companies in the World 2015, a handy free extension to download entire pages or individual files, and more.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Drones in Media Bring New Perspectives, Ethical Issues
We’re already seeing the use of drones proliferate across a whole variety of stories — from incredible imagery of the vastness of the natural world to investigations that couldn’t be told with conventional cameras, to views of the inaccessible right under our noses. So how are the drone journalists of the future being trained for their work?
Reporting Tools & Tips
The Research Desk: A Roundup of Tips & Tools from IRE 2015
I am back from Philadelphia, where I attended my first annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the world’s largest and oldest association of investigative journalists. The conference featured plenty of research resources and other useful online tools. Here’s a roundup featuring some of the highlights.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Brussels Brainstorming: Media Start-Ups Share Strategies
Journalism start-ups from throughout Europe gathered at DataHarvest 2015 in Brussels on May 8, for a roundtable discussion on possible cooperation and collective needs. With journalism increasingly seeking new business models and investigations coming out of non-traditional media outlets, there is much to gain by fledgling publishing platforms, investigative centers and non-profit organizations in sharing knowledge and strategies.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips Teaching & Training
Online Research Tools and Investigative Techniques
Search engines are an intrinsic part of the array of commonly used “open source” research tools. Together with social media, domain name look-ups and more traditional solutions such as newspapers, effective web searching will help you find vital information. Many people find that search engines often bring up disappointing results from dubious sources. A few tricks, however, can ensure that you corner the pages you are looking for, from sites you can trust. The same goes for searching social networks and other sources to locate people.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How Can Online Research Tools Help Investigative Reporters?
How can online research tools aid the work of investigative reporters and others looking into transnational financial flows, corporate structures and other illicit activities of organized crime and global business? Google and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) brought together a small group of investigative journalists and technologists from around the world to examine the answers to this question at their first Investigathon in London last month.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Thoughts from a Journalism Trainer
For the past seven and one-half years, I have spent large portions of each year doing media-development work–most of it training of journalists or journalism students–in four countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and in Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Inevitably, my own experiences and observations about what works and what doesn’t, and what is really important in this work, have passed through my mind while researching and writing this report. None of them is unique, but it may be useful to list what I consider my three strongest lessons from nearly a dozen different training projects.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Digital Digging: How To Use Twitter without the Clutter
GIJN is excited to introduce Digital Digging, a new feature by acclaimed Internet search expert Henk van Ess. In this inaugural story, Henk sets sail to a world without selfies or cat pictures, showing readers how to stay on top of Twitter by changing their workflow. Here’s part one of a series of three.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating with Drones, Stone Tablets, and LinkedIn
This video was taken by a drone and then posted on a popular web portal in China. It provides an aerial view of the luxurious home of the son of Zhou Yongkang, the country’s security chief. There’s not much commentary here, just tracking shots of a white, two-story mansion built in the traditional style. But the real evidence showing corruption in the Zhou family wasn’t dug up by drones. Instead, it was names etched on tombstones in a village in China’s Jiangsu Province that allowed reporters to find the corruption trail.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Holding Big Fish Accountable: How to Uncover Corruption
In a 2011 Transparency International survey, more than 3,000 business executives from around the world were asked to assess the effectiveness of various approaches to weeding out corruption. The result: nearly half (49%) indicated that investigative journalism played a critical role. Respondents from Pakistan (73%) and Brazil (79%), countries where the press reports fiercely on suspected acts of corruption, placed particular faith in the media’s ability to uncover wrongdoing. Why did the participants feel so strongly that journalists can help?
Reporting Tools & Tips
The Art of the Interview
The interview is one of the—if not the—most important tools we as journalists have to obtain information, to expand on information we may have from other sources, and to clarify facts and see things from different perspectives. We use the interview to expand upon the basic “who, what, where, how, when and why” of newsgathering. This is true whatever beat we may be covering: health, economics, politics, or issues having to do with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Reporting Tools & Tips
People Problems in a Small Media Organization (Part 2)
In People Problems Part 1, we talked about two common kinds of complaints that you as a manager might hear. “I don’t think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work.” “The technical staff is being rude to our salespeople.” Here is a method for developing your colleague’s problem-solving skills, followed by how to apply it in these two cases. If you focus on developing your people, your organization will develop far more rapidly than if you focus on just the num.
Reporting Tools & Tips
People Problems in a Small Media Organization (Part 1)
If you are leading a team in a small media organization, you need to get the best out of your people. Everyone has to be a contributor. This is not just a selfish thing. You get the best out of people by helping them develop their own talents, overcome obstacles and reach their own professional goals.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Research Tools for International Business Investigations
Investigative stories are just a click away. But to find them, you need to look in the right place. Marty Steffens, from the University of Missouri, and Paul Radu, from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in Romania, presented some of the best search tools on the Internet other than Google at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference. They are often used as the starting point for almost all research on international business.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative Dashboard Relaunches
Participants at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference last week got a preview of the newly redesigned Investigative Dashboard, a research tool to help journalists get access to business records around the world. Developed by GIJN member Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, this week OCCRP formally launched ID at the Conflict in a Connected World conference sponsored by Google Ideas, which has supported development of the new tool.
Resource Tipsheet
Investigative Photography: Supporting a Story with Images
There’s nothing like a good photographer to bring alive an investigative story. One of the worst crimes that investigative journalists commit is spending months on a great story, and then only minutes on the presentation. Working with photojournalists who know their craft (along with designers and graphic artists) can be one of the real pleasures of putting a big project together. We’re fortunate that a new handbook on using photography for investigations was just published: Investigative Photography: Supporting a Story with Pictures, by CJ Clarke, Damien Spleeters, and Juliet Ferguson.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Innovative Tools and Resources for Global Mapping
Nearly 15,000 people from a wide range of professions and industries are attending an annual global mapping conference in San Diego, California in the U.S. But only a few dozen journalists are there, despite the numerous ideas, methodologies, data, and potential sources that are available. Known as the ESRI International User Conference, it provides many of the presentations online.