tips & tools

GIJN Launches Help Desk

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From GIJN’s earliest days, its global community has been rooted in a collaborative and generous spirit, with journalists around the world sharing ideas, sources, and stories. To help deal with the growing demand for assistance, GIJN has created a formal Help Desk to better marshal its resources and tap the expertise of its global network. The staff reached out to hundreds of trainers and experts who have spoken at GIJN conferences to create an international database of experts on investigative and data journalism.

Nonprofits

Research Desk: Data on Human Rights, Corruption, Terrorism

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Time for a new collection of tools and reports. This week we’ve got a human rights database, file conversion for 208 formats, and nine new reports from research organizations, ranging from terrorism and corruption to European migration. Got a suggestion for The Research Desk? Write me at gprice@mediasourceinc.com.

Research

The Research Desk: The Latest Databases and Int’l Reports

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It’s time for another roundup of resources and research reports that we’ve curated from around the web. Most of these selections are new on the web in the past few weeks. Several of the reports listed below are full of data including visualizations and can be thought of as reference tools for both current and future research.

Data Journalism

Nils Mulvad: Data Journalism Is the Punk of Our Times

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You couldn’t work as a journalist, if you were not able to do an interview. The same applies to data journalism in the age of digitization” – says Nils Mulvad, a world renowned data journalist, editor at Kaas & Mulvad and associate professor at The Danish School of Media and Journalism during the Data Harvest 2014 conference.

Data Journalism

Investigative Apps: Useful Tools, if Rough on the Edges

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There are a lot of websites out there that can help you find hidden information. But there are also software applications and browser plug-ins that can be of use to investigative journalists. Created by up-and-coming developers and enthusiasts on a budget, many of these programmes are rather unsophisticated, so don’t expect slick interfaces and 24-hour help desks. That said, if you can get past the jargon and rough-and-ready feel, you’ll find nifty little apps that can help you discover nuggets of information which would be unavailable through conventional means.

General

Covering the Money behind the Millennium Development Goals

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There are the two essential questions a reporter covering business, the economy, or just about any topic should always ask: ‘How much does it cost?’ and ‘Where will you get the money from?’. These simple questions are not only key to gaining information about your current story’s topic, but they offer greater insight into reasons for decisions that have a direct impact on a country and its citizens.

General

Global Is Local, Local Is Global: Tips on Covering the Environment

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The environment is the overarching issue of the 21st century for two reasons:
1. The environment includes and touches everything: air, water, food, health, climate, energy, development, poverty, economics—the list could go on without end.
2. Nearly every major environmental indicator is in decline.
We are pushing up against the limits of the Earth’s ability to support us. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen pollution are moving toward crisis levels, according to recent studies. There is little public awareness of this reality, which means journalists covering the environment have a plethora of important stories to cover.

General

One Problem, Many Dimensions: Tips on Covering Poverty

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There are many different concepts and definitions of poverty. According to the Oxford University Poverty and Human Development Initiative, ‘Poverty is often defined by one-dimensional measures, such as income. But no one indicator alone can capture the multiple aspects that constitute poverty. Multidimensional poverty is made up of several factors that constitute poor people’s experience of deprivation–such as poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standard, lack of income (as one of several factors considered), disempowerment, poor quality of work and threat from violence.’

Methodology

Paper Trails: Following the Civil Rights Movement’s Records

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Here, from 58 years ago this week, is the police report on Rosa Parks, the African-American woman who refused to move to the back of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest helped spark the U.S. civil rights movement and began the end of apartheid in the American south.

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