Blog Post

How To Make Open Data Relevant to the Public

It’s time to transform open data from a trendy concept among policy wonks and news nerds into something tangible to everyday life for citizens, businesses and grassroots organizations. Here are some ideas to help us get there:
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To Cover Health Effectively, Journalists Must Look at the Big Picture

When a new health initiative is announced, journalists too often think they have an easy story to tell. They can quote officials on what the project will do and how quickly they expect it to eradicate a disease or improve the health of the people.

But if reporters think they are telling the whole story, they need to think again. These initiatives do not exist in isolation. Placing the new plan in context, and especially explaining where it fits within the overall health system, is critical to informing the public.

Women in Tech Seek Solutions to Shortage of Drinkable Water

There is nothing more essential to life than water. Yet in Costa Rica, potable water is in short supply, even for people living close to the country’s world-famous beaches.

I thought, what better way to help the media find out why water-distribution systems fail and identify solutions than by bringing journalists, data-visualization experts and developers to a place that struggles to maintain a regular supply of clean water? So we held Chicas Poderosas on the Beach, a meetup in Nicoya, Costa Rica.

Brazilian Data Journalists Shed Light on Amazon Rainforest Development

The prediction of two icons of the communications field—that journalists would become data wranglers—is rapidly becoming a reality.

Why Journalists Need to Understand “The Data on our Data”

Now that we know that Dropbox snoops in our files and that Google shares our data with the NSA and the FBI, journalists must acquire new skills to avoid leaving a trace behind or let others track anonymous sources.

Why Data Ownership Matters to Journalism

The narrative about big data often focuses on their vigor and potential. The possibilities of using big data for civic good are, in fact, exciting. Big data are used for everything from improving crisis response during natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy to providing mobile banking to Africa’s poorest citizens.

Citizen Journalism Gives the People of the Niger Delta a Voice

Somewhere far from the capital city, far from most newsrooms, and, for that matter, most news consumers, a dilapidated hospital stops functioning. Maybe it happened because the faltering power system failed, or maybe the unpaid staff members finally quit. Either way, the result is the same: people in a remote place just lost their access to healthcare.

In the city, people start noticing when the lines at the local health facility grow longer with people from the countryside who have come because they have nowhere to go for treatment back home.

Reporting Contest Leads to Rise in Polio Vaccines in Ethiopia

At a health center in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, a mother carries her child while waiting in line for him to receive a meningitis vaccine. “I have heard from the media about meningitis that it can physically disable or kill a child,” says the mother, Seble Yihun. Previously, she might have waited for a health extension worker to come to her home with the vaccine. But, she said, “I also heard health care centers are getting short of vaccines.

Empowering Women in Journalism and Tech in Latin America

Working in newsrooms with a multidisciplinary team of developers, journalists and designers became my everyday life when I was part of the Guardian Interactive team over the last three years.

This began with my former boss, Alastair Dant, who had the vision not only to start the Guardian Interactive team, but who recognized the need to place a woman in a key position on his team. This changed my life.

How Costa Rica’s La Nación is Telling Stories Visually

When U.S. President Barack Obama visited San José, Costa Rica this spring, he brought along the biggest security operation in the country’s history.

Costa Rica’s La Nación newspaper knew its audience would be keenly interested in the logistics of a visit that would affect traffic throughout the city that day.