News

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.

ICFJ Knight Roundup: impactAFRICA Launches Contest for 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. Find out more about the fellows' projects by clicking here.

Push App Helps Azerbaijan's Meydan TV Go Mobile

Azerbaijan is a pretty terrible country to be a journalist in these days. The Committee to Protect Journalists named it last year as one of the 10 countries iin the world where the media face the most restrictions.

Meydan TV, the last independent news outlet in the country, is trying to do something about that. According to their internal statistics, Meydan TV reached one-sixth of the country's population last month. One-third of every person in Azerbaijan on Facebook has "liked" them.

Washington Post's Emilio Garcia-Ruiz Shares Tips for a Successful News Business Model

The vision of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is that a news organization has to make its work available free, everywhere. Bezos is urging the publication's journalists to adopt the principles of retail sales that he has learned over the years in running Amazon, America's largest online retailer of practically everything.

ICFJ Knight Roundup: Knight Fellow's Media Party to Return to Miami for Two-day Event

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.

ICFJ Knight Fellows Showcase Open Source Newsroom Tools for NICAR 2016 Conference

During their fellowships, the ICFJ Knight Fellows help spur a culture of media innovation and experimentation.

Is Your Physician a Dodgy Doctor? Nigerians Can Now Find Out

Since the beginning of the year, Nigerians can use a simple tool on a major news site to find out if their doctors are licensed practitioners or con artists preying on the sick.

ICFJ Knight Fellows Justin Arenstein and Temi Adeoye have partnered with one of the country’s most popular news sites to make the tool available to millions of Nigerian citizens.

ProPublica Founder Offers Advice For Effective, Fair Investigative Journalism

Given all the trash, half-truths and outright lies published on digital media, people are placing a higher value on news outlets that verify information and demonstrate high ethical standards.

Paul Steiger, founder and executive chairman of ProPublica, tells of a major donor to his online publication who "absolutely hated" an investigative story they had published about a group "near and dear to the donor's heart." Steiger told the donor that the information was verified, and the story was fair.