Data Journalism

How They Did It: Developing a Data-Driven Navigator on Gun Laws

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Last August, Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit research and advocacy group for gun control, launched the Gun Law Navigator, an exploratory data visualization tool explaining how states in America regulate guns. The project, developed by the Boston-based creative digital studio Upstatement, received lots of attention not only for examining such a sensitive topic, but also for successfully telling a visual, data-driven story about a complex subject: legislation.

How They Did It

How They Did It: The Azerbaijani Laundromat

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In September, the Danish national newspaper Berlingske, in partnership with the OCCRP and other international media partners, exposed a complex money laundering scheme led by Azerbaijan’s elite. The stories revealed that, between 2012 and 2014, $2.9 billion connected to the country was siphoned through European companies and banks. Here’s how they got the story.

Methodology

How They Did It: Building a Visual Story with a Non-Visual Piece

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Australian journalist Rick Feneley wrote a powerful investigative piece about a string of gay hate crimes that plagued Australia’s eastern border. But before “The Gay Hate Decades” was published, Feneley was left with one last hurdle: Creating a digital element to accompany his work. And that’s where SBS web developer Ken Macleod came in.

collaboration

How They Did It: ProPublica’s Engagement Journalism

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There is power in a crowd, and harnessing crowd contributions have become increasingly useful in investigative journalism. New York-based ProPublica shows how newsrooms are integrating crowdsourcing as a routine reporting tool, using it for data collection and to connect with and gather personal stories from readers.

FOI

How They Did It: Reuters’ Database of Taser Deaths

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A team of Reuters reporters, editors and data analysts reviewed the results of hundreds of autopsies and filed hundreds of public records requests involving deaths by Taser in the US. The result? Not only did the investigation catalogue 1,005 deaths, but it ended up building the most comprehensive database ever on Taser-related deaths.

animation

How They Did It: Enslaved Land Investigation

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More than 20 journalists worked across four countries to uncover the hidden abuses behind the production of sugar, cacao, bananas, coffee and African palm with slave-like conditions for workers, illegal business practices and sustained environmental damage. Here’s how they did it.

How They Did It

How Univision Revealed Flaws in Costa Rica’s Judicial System

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Four years of work and 8,000 judicial rulings later, the team at Univision Data shows how in Costa Rica, a person is more likely to be convicted of a crime if they are assigned a public defense attorney than if they have a private one. Their methodology included web scraping, R and logistic regression — a statistical method common in social sciences but practically unexplored in newsrooms.