News

Watchdog News Sites Showcase Innovative Business Models at ISOJ 2016

One of the dirty little secrets in digital media is that the big numbers of page views and unique users touted by publishers are misleading at best. They overstate a publication's audience size and impact.

Most visitors to a publisher's content are fly-bys: They stay for only a few seconds. And even if they stay longer than that, the vast majority come to a publisher's website only once or twice a month.

Finding Solutions to Protect Journalists at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The U.S.–Mexico border is a very challenging region for journalists. They need to cover everything from a bi-national perspective; speak two languages; understand two different political, legal and judicial systems; and also take risks covering the illegal drug trade, human trafficking and the crime and violence attached to them.

Just about two hours from where I am based in South Texas, drug cartels behead people in the same way the Islamic State is doing in Syria.

Leaders at International Journalism Festival Focus on Power of Networks and Platforms

This year's International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy was dominated by two events unfolding elsewhere that demonstrated the continual reshaping of the global media landscape: the release of the Panama Papers and announcements at Facebook's F8 developer conference.

The Panama Papers was cited as an example of how a new type of collaborative reporting network could shape the global political agenda with revelations about hidden wealth and tax havens gleaned from a yearlo

ICFJ Knight Roundup: New Webinar to Offer Tips on Water, Sanitation Reporting

_As part of the Knight International Media Innovators blog, the ICFJ Knight team will round up stories focused on how their fellows are making an impact in the field.

ICFJ Knight Fellows Bring Innovative Insights to Media Party Miami

Collaboration and team building are essential elements to implementing successful news innovation projects in Latin America, according to three recent ICFJ Knight Fellows who spoke at Media Party Miami.

"Collaboration is key for the success of whatever idea you have.

ICFJ Knight Roundup: ANCIR Investigates Africans Named in Panama Papers

As part of the Knight International Media Innovators blog, the ICFJ Knight team will round up stories focused on how their fellows are making an impact in the field. Find out more about the fellows' projects by clicking here.

'Digital Fridays' Bring a Culture of Experimentation to The Hindustan Times

In 2015, ICFJ Knight Fellow Nasr ul Hadi was embedded at The Hindustan Times to drive the adoption of new digital tools and methods across departments, locations, hierarchies, even age groups.

Spain's El Diario Shows That Good Journalism Can Be Good Business

Amid all the bad news about business models for high-quality journalism, eldiario.es ("The Daily") in Spain shows that good journalism can be good business.

Its founder and CEO, Ignacio Escolar, just announced that the publication finished 2015 with revenues of US$2.6 million, up 33 percent on the year, and a profit after taxes of US$235,000.

Although the digital publication is free, its 14,500 "partners" (socios) pay at least US$66 a year to get access to the news

New Data Tools Simplify South Africa's National Budget Issues for Taxpayers

Ordinary people often struggle to get their heads around a country's budget, and they fail to understand what the government is doing with the hard-earned money they pay in taxes.

Code for South Africa set out to address this issue after South Africa's Minister of Finance presented his 2016 budget in Parliament on February 24.

Code for Africa's Dodgy Doctors Tool Spurs Societal Change in Kenya

Five years ago, reports of people masquerading as doctors were common in Kenya. It became so 'normal' that such stories either never made it into the media or if they did, they appeared as briefs in the newspapers and never made a blip on radio or television.

Today, that situation has dramatically changed. It is not that quacks or daktari bandia (Kiswahili for 'fake doctor') have gone the way of the dinosaur. There are still cases where unqualified people try to pass themselves off as doctors.