News

InnovateAFRICA: Digital Fact-checking and Watchdog Projects Win $1 Million

A pan-African fact-checking network, citizen science in Durban shantytowns and a graphic journalism hub are among the latest winners of seed grants from innovateAFRICA, the continent’s largest fund for digital journalism experimentation.

The 22 winning digital projects will receive $1 million in funding and technology support from innovateAFRICA, which is managed by Code for Africa as part of ICFJ's wider data journalism initiative in the region.

16 Free Digital Tools Created by ICFJ Knight Fellows That Any Newsroom Can Use

The ICFJ Knight Fellows are global media innovators who foster news innovation and experimentation to deepen coverage, expand news delivery and better engage citizens. As part of their work, they’ve created tools that they are eager to share with journalists worldwide.

Two ICFJ Knight Fellows, Jorge Luis Sierra and Shaheryar Popalzai, are speaking at the 2017 NICAR conference in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 2-5.

‘Salama’ App Helps to Keep Journalists Safe

From Mexico to Iraq to the United States, journalists around the world face severe threats to their physical safety and digital security every day. For this reason, I created a free risk assessment web application, called Salama, that’s designed especially for journalists and bloggers to help keep them safe on the job.

Journalists from more than 130 news organizations in Latin America, the U.S., Africa and the Middle East have conducted their first-ever risk assessment using Salama.

Why publishing more open data isn’t enough to empower citizens

When I attended the International Open Data Conference last October in Madrid, there was plenty of talk about whether open data has failed to live up to its promise. Has open data really increased transparency, improved government efficiency, brought about world peace, ended world hunger?

ICFJ Knight Fellow Janine Warner: Perfectionism is the enemy of news startups

Frustrated by the constraints of traditional media, a growing number of journalists are interested in launching their own news startups, says Janine Warner, an ICFJ Knight Fellow who helps Latin American news entrepreneurs strengthen their business models. Too often, she says, when aspiring entrepreneurs come up with a great idea, two obstacles trip them up.

One is perfectionism. “If you’re an entrepreneur, waiting until everything is perfect is a problem,” Warner said in a recent interview with Chilean website Puroperiodismo.

The basics of phishing attacks: What journalists need to know to stay safe

Unless they cover technology, most journalists probably could not explain exactly how a cyberattack happens.

What We Learned Training South Africa's New Generation of Data Journalists

When Code for South Africa launched Africa’s first data journalism academy in February this year, we were trying to address a problem facing local newsrooms. We saw that South African newsrooms lacked the internal technical skills to start wrangling datasets and using them to find stories or to complement investigations.

Global Media Innovators Share New Tools, New Thinking at U.S. Digital News Gathering

A group of journalism pioneers, working as Knight International Journalism Fellows, highlighted a range of digital innovations before an audience of U.S. newsroom leaders at the 2016 Online News Association (ONA) conference in Denver, Colorado.

How Pakistan’s Express Tribune reported its biggest online project

In 2015, ICFJ Knight Fellow Shaheryar Popalzai was embedded at The Express Tribune, one of Pakistan’s largest daily newspapers, to help them design and build data-driven online media projects.

New ICFJ Knight Fellows Foster News Innovation on Three Continents

Four media leaders have been named by the International Center for Journalists to lead projects that will bring innovations to news organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They join a team of ICFJ Knight Fellows who are advancing a culture of global news innovation, leading to better journalism and more engaged citizens.

Irshad Daftari is bringing the latest digital tools to Indian media to enhance their storytelling and audience engagement.