Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/coronavirus/page/4/)
The COVID-19 outbreak has sparked a new wave of Chinese muckraking, despite years of suppression of investigative reporting. GIJN’s Chinese Editor Joey Qi speaks with Chinese journalists on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak about their tips for reporters around the world covering the pandemic.
As countries rapidly spend billions of dollars to fight the coronavirus pandemic, digging into government contracts is taking on a new urgency.
The crisis poses new challenges. Officials are using emergency purchasing procedures, creating barriers to public disclosure, and slowing down their handling of requests under freedom of information laws.
For inmates in Canada, risk assessments can determine which type of prison they are sent to and their chances of successfully reentering society. But an investigation by The Globe and Mail revealed that these assessments are biased against Indigenous and Black inmates. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 24 to 30 also found an interactive project by The New York Times recreating the Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma destroyed in 1921, and data-driven reporting on the influence of big money in soccer, the cost of Italy’s vaccination campaign, and police violence during the recent protests in Colombia.
Four of the world’s most influential technology companies are based on the US West Coast. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have had an enormous impact on our daily lives. But how did Big Tech get so big? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 19 to April 25 found a piece by The Washington Post showing how the success of these behemoths has been fueled by hundreds of acquisitions of smaller companies over the past decade. In this edition, we also feature an investigation into faulty vaccine data publicized by the Indian government, a list of the world’s top 1,000 climate scientists by Reuters, and a look at Europe’s growing rail network.
Driving an electric car and buying solar panels are things individuals can do to help slow climate change. But according to a new study, most people don’t realize that achieving a real impact on greenhouse emissions requires significant lifestyle sacrifices. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 12 to April 18 found a story by the Financial Times showing that the best way in individual can reduce their carbon footprint is to have one less child. We also feature an explainer of Ramadan fasting by Al Jazeera, a look into China’s polysilicon factories by Bloomberg, and Chinese tycoon Jack Ma’s jet-setting ways.
On the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 crisis being declared a global pandemic, outlets around the world looked back on how the coronavirus has transformed our lives. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 8 to 14 found a comprehensive summary of how the health crisis unfolded in the United States by The Washington Post, and a look at the COVID-19 crisis in Hungary. In this edition, we also feature The Economist’s interactive tool estimating the risk posed by COVID-19 based on a person’s health, a story about the ghost towns in Fukushima by NPR, and an analysis of the future of electric cars by The New York Times.
How can we get students and teachers safely back into classrooms? For many months, this has been a key question for public authorities, school leaders, and parents around the world. This topic and others topped the data journalism stories on Twitter from February 8 to 14. Check out #ddj stories from The New York Times, NPR, the Financial Times, FiveThirtyEight, and The Pudding.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 25 to 31 found interactive projects by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Guardian analyzing these events. In this edition, we also feature environmental reporting by The New York Times and The Economist, a Wall Street Journal story on the GameStop Reddit mania that shook stock markets, and a visual representation of 2020 using Lego bricks.
For those unfamiliar with GIJN’s Top 10 Data Journalism roundup, each week we select the most popular data journalism items on Twitter. We do this by using NodeXL to map use of the terms #ddj and data journalism, and then add a bit of old-fashioned human curation to highlight the most compelling items. At the end of the year, we survey the entire period and pick the best from hundreds of tweets. This year — the year of the pandemic — in which the coronavirus dominated public conversation and news headlines, our mapping reflects that reality.
Despite government restrictions, journalists around the world are using freedom of information laws to understand the COVID-19 pandemic and the response of international, national, and local authorities. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh outlines how to craft an effective freedom of information request and provides tips and suggestions on where to make requests and important questions to ask.