Blog Post

Journalists Can Now Use OpenData Latinoamérica to Find, Share Reliable Data

We can’t do data journalism without reliable data. Accurate source data is just as important to data journalism as a reliable human source is to a reporter’s interview. We need a central repository where you can share the data that you have already proved to be reliable. Our answer to this need: OpenData Latinoamérica, which we are leading as ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellows.

How Journalists in High-Risk Situations Can Encrypt Their Documents

In high-risk situations, it is essential that journalists develop skills to protect their information. This is especially important for those who obtain sensitive or confidential data. The data stored by investigative journalists often show evidence of corruption by public officials or matters related to organized crime. For this reason, those who seek to attack journalists usually go after their computers or their mobile devices such as phones or tablets.

HackDash Helps Global Media Innovators Organize Teams and Projects

The concept behind HackDash is simple yet powerful: a web platform that brings people and ideas together and allows anyone to know the state of a project.

Site on Latin America’s Rich and Powerful Gives Users its Content

Poderopedia is a platform that reveals the relationships among elites in a country or region, especially in places where power is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

After winning the Knight News Challenge in 2011, we launched Poderopedia in Chile last fall.

Tsinghua University Forges Bloomberg Staff, Alumni Networks

May 8 (On Bloomberg) -- Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler spearheaded a groundbreaking project in China when in 2007 he set up a Bloomberg terminal lab at Tsinghua University.

Pakistan's Rural Reporters Use Social Media to Cover the Elections

ICFJ recently conducted a program training rural Pakistani journalists how to cover the country's upcoming general elections with the aim of highlighting issues important to rural citizens. As the country prepares for its first democratic transition of power May 11, the program provided almost 40 rural journalists with mobile devices, their own wireless "hotspots," and taught them to use Facebook and Twitter to cover issues important in their communities.

Tools From SXSW That Could Improve Access to News and Information

For the past two years, I’ve gone to South By Southwest’s (SXSW) Interactive Festival in search of ideas and tools to bring to journalism.

How to Create 'A Vibrant Space for Media Innovation'

We invited everyone who wanted to rethink journalism to our city’s first Hacks/Hackers event, and drew about 120 people.

Less than two years later, at 1,700 members strong (and growing), we’ve held more than 20 events and a Media Party with keynotes, workshops and a hackathon. Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires has become a vibrant space for media innovation. We believe many people in Latin America would benefit from participating in Hacks/Hackers, so I'm helping drive its expansion in the region as part of my Knight International Journalism Fellowship.

Tips for Effective Coverage of Immunization

Reporting on efforts to prevent infectious diseases through immunization is a key part of health coverage. Journalists play an important role in examining public health efforts, and in helping readers and viewers understand how and why vaccines are used.

Choices and Consequences in Kenya’s Election

Kenya’s national election resulted in victory for Uhuru Kenyata, a man charged with crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. His top rival, Raila Odinga, has petitioned the Kenyan Supreme Court challenging the election. As the nation waits for the court’s ruling, Knight Fellow Joseph Warungu reflects on the election’s implications.

“Choices have consequences.”

That warning to Kenyans, issued almost a month before the election by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, played on the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots on March 4.