Investigation Keeps Work of Silenced Journalists Alive

When journalists are killed or threatened for investigating environmental crimes, the story can go cold. But the Paris-based Forbidden Stories nonprofit brought together 40 journalists in 15 countries with the aim of completing the work local reporters could no longer pursue. The result is the Green Blood project.

Times of India newspaper on Indian newsstand

How Advertising Fuels Media Capture in India

The roots of today’s increasingly captured media in India lie deep and go back a couple of decades to the seemingly innocuous newspaper business practices of India’s largest media company, Bennett Coleman & Company, founded in 1838. The resulting, industry-wide cap on newspaper subscription prices in India has, over time, created a very unhealthy, near 100-percent dependence on advertising.

How Local Reporters in India Exposed the Pandemic’s True Death Toll

Local reporters have been finding innovative ways to report on the death and devastation caused by India’s devastating second wave of the coronavirus – even as the authorities tried to downplay the severity of the crisis. Bhavya Dore speaks to reporters who staked out the banks of the river Ganges and stationed themselves outside morgues and hospitals to investigate what was really happening.

ProPublica illustration for The Secret IRS Files'

Data Journalism Top 10: Secret Tax Files, India’s Faltering Vaccines, Western Drought, Argentina’s News Deserts, The Gambia’s Toxic Water

Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 7 to 13, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, focused in on this major investigation by ProPublica, which offers an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of US billionaires. In this edition, we also feature a detailed look at India’s faltering vaccination campaign, a data project exploring Argentina’s news deserts, and an investigation of The Gambia’s water paradox.

Data Journalism Top 10: The Rise of Big Tech, India’s Bad Vaccine Data, Why Data Journalists Need Safeguards

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.