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Thoughts from the Global Investigative Journalism Conference

 

OPEN SPENDING.ORG –  by 

This post is by Lucy Chambers, community coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Friedrich Lindenberg, Developer on OpenSpending. They recently attended the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2011 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and in this post, bring home their thoughts on journalist-programmer collaboration…

The conference

The Global Investigative Journalism Conference must be one of the most intense yet rewarding experiences either of us have attended since joining the OKF. With topics ranging from human trafficking to offshore companies, the meeting highlighted the importance of long-term, investigative reporting in great clarity.

With around 500 participants from all over the globe with plenty of experience in evidence gathering, we used this opportunity to ask many of them how platforms like OpenSpending can contribute, not only to the way in which data is presented, but also to how it is gathered and analyzed in the course of an investigation.

Spending Stories – the brainstorm

As many of you will be aware, earlier this year we won a Knight News Challenge award to help journalists contextualise and build narratives around spending data. Research for the project, Spending Stories, was one of the main reasons for our trip to Ukraine…

During the data clinic session as well as over drinks in the bar of “Hotel President” we asked the investigators what they would like to see in a spend analysis platform targeted at data journalists. Cutting to the chase, they immediately raised the key questions:

HOW WILL IT SUPPORT MY WORK?

It was clear that the platform should support the existing journalistic workflow through publishing embargos, private datasets and note making. At the same time, the need for statistical and analytical heuristics to dissect the data, find outliers and visualize distributions was highlighted as a means to enable truly data-driven investigations of datasets. The goal in this is to distinguish anomalies from errors and patterns of corruption from policies.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR MY READERS?

With the data loaded and analyzed, the next question is what value can be added to published articles. Just like DocumentCloud enabled the easy embedding of source documents and excerpts, OpenSpending should allow journalists to visualize distributions of funds, embed search widgets and data links, as well as information about how the data was acquired and cleaned.

WHAT DO I NEED TO LEARN TO DO IT?

Many of those we spoke to were concerned about the complexity required to contribute data. The recurring question was: should I even try myself or hire help? It’s clear that for the platform to be accessible to journalists, a large variety of data cleansing tutorials, examples and tools need to be at their disposal.

We’ve listed the full brainstorm on the OpenSpending wiki

You can also see the mind map with concrete points below:

Hacks & Scrapers – How technical need data journalists be?

In a second session, “Data Camp” we went through the question of how to generate structured data from unstructured sources such as web pages and PDF documents. [Read more…]

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The Data Journalism Handbook: Teaching the World how to work with data [VIDEO]

This video is cross posted on DataDrivenJournalism.net, the Open Knowledge Foundation blog and on the Data Journalism Blog.

The Data Journalism Handbook is a project coordinated by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation, launched at the Mozilla Festival in London on 5 November 2011.

Journalists and experts in data gathered to create the first ever handbook to data journalism over a two-days challenge.

Read more about the Data Journalism Handbook in this article by Federica Cocco.

What data tool or great example of data journalism would you add to the handbook? Let’s make this comments section useful!

Every contribution, big or small, to the Data Journalism Handbook is very much appreciated. So use this space to give us links and examples to what you think should be included in the manual.

And if you feel more chatty, email us at editor@datajournalismblog.com

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Hacks and hackers gather to write the first Data Journalism Handbook

By Federica Cocco

This article is cross posted on DataDrivenJournalism.net, the Open Knowledge Foundation blog and on the Data Journalism Blog.

Ravensbourne college is an ultramodern cubist design school which abuts the O2 arena on the Greenwich peninsula. It is perhaps an unusual and yet apt setting for journalists to meet.

Members of the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre saw this as a perfect opportunity to herd a number of prominent journalists and developers who, fuelled by an unlimited supply of mocacchinos, started work on the first Data Journalism Handbook.

Data Journalism Handbook

The occasion was the yearly Mozilla Festival, which acts as an incubator to many such gatherings. This year the focus was on media, freedom and the web.

The manual aims to address one crucial problem: “There are a lot of useful resources on the web,” Liliana Bounegru of the EJC said, “but they are all scattered in different places. So what we’re trying to do is put everything together and have a comprehensive step-by-step guide”.

In data journalism, most people are self-taught, and many find it hard to keep up-to-date with every tool produced by the industry. “It could be vital having a handbook that really explains to journalists how you can approach data journalism from scratch with no prior knowledge, ” says Caelainn Barr of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Friedrich Lindenberg of the OKF believes there is a real urgency in making newsrooms data-literate: “If journalists want to keep up with the information they need to learn coding, and some bits of data analysis and data-slicing techniques. That will make much better journalism and increase accountability.”

And who better than the New York Times’ Interactive Editor Aron Pilhofer, The Guardian Data Blog’s Simon Rogers and others to lead the ambitious efforts?
In charge of sorting the wheat from the chaff, around 40 people joined them in the sixth floor of the college, for a 48 hour session.

The first draft of the handbook should be ready in the coming months, as other contributions from every corner of the web are still working on making an input.
Of course the first data journalism handbook had to be open source. How else would it be able to age gracefully and be relevant in years to come?

Workshops of this sort represent a decisively different break from the past. Aspiring data journalists will know that hands-on sessions are a cut above the usual lectures featuring knowledgeable speakers and PowerPoint presentations. Discussing the topic and citing examples is not enough. After all, if you give a man a fish you have fed him for a day. But if you teach a man ho w to fish, you have him fed for a lifetime.

Jonathan Gray concurs: “Rather than just provide examples of things that have been done with data, we want to make it easier for journalists to understand what data is available, what tools they can use to work with data, how they can visualise data sets and how they can integrate that with the existing workflows of their news organisations.”

At the event itself, after a brief introduction, the crowd split into five groups and began collaborating on each chapter of the handbook. Some were there to instill knowledge, others were there to absorb and ask questions.

“I like the fact that everyone is bringing a different skillset to the table, and we’re all challenging each other”, one participant said.

Francis Irving, CEO of ScraperWiki, led the session on new methods of data acquisitions. He believes the collaboration between journalists, programmers, developers and designers, though crucial, can generate a culture clash: “When working with data, there’s a communication question, how do you convey what you need to someone more technical and how do they then use that to find it in a way that’s useful.”

“A project like this is quite necessary,” noted Pilhofer, “It’s kind of surprising someone hasn’t tried to do this until now.”

The free e-book will be downloadable from the European Journalism Centre’s DataDrivenJournalism.net/handbook in the coming months. If you want to follow our progress or contribute to the handbook you can get in touch via the data journalism mailing list, the Twitter hashtags #ddj and #ddjbook, or email bounegru@ejc.net.

Watch here the full video report from the Data Journalism Handbook session at the Mozilla Festival, 4-6 November in London.

The organisers would like to thank everyone who is contributing to the handbook for their input and to Kate Hudson for the beautiful graphics.

 
About the author: Federica Cocco is a freelance journalist and the former editor of Owni.eu, a data-driven investigative journalism site based in Paris. She has also worked with Wired, Channel 4 and the Guardian. 

 

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The Data Journalism Handbook at #MozFest 2011 in London

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation.

With the Mozilla Festival approaching fast, we’re getting really excited about getting stuck into drafting the Data Journalism Handbook, in a series of sessions run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre.

As we blogged about last month, a group of leading data journalists, developers and others are meeting to kickstart work on the handbook, which will aim to get aspiring data journalists started with everything from finding and requesting data they need, using off the shelf tools for data analysis and visualisation, how to hunt for stories in big databases, how to use data to augment stories, and plenty more.

We’ve got a stellar line up of contributors confirmed, including:

Here’s a sneak preview of our draft table of contents:

  • Introduction
    • What is data journalism?
    • Why is it important?
    • How is it done?
    • Examples, case studies and interviews
      • Data powered stories
      • Data served with stories
      • Data driven applications
    • Making the case for data journalism
      • Measuring impact
      • Sustainability and business models
    • The purpose of this book
    • Add to this book
    • Share this book
  • Getting data
    • Where does data live?
      • Open data portals
      • Social data services
      • Research data
    • Asking for data
      • Freedom of Information laws
      • Helpful public servants
      • Open data initiatives
    • Getting your own data
      • Scraping data
      • Crowdsourcing data
      • Forms, spreadsheets and maps
  • Understanding data
    • Data literacy
    • Working with data
    • Tools for analysing data
    • Putting data into context
    • Annotating data
  • Delivering data
    • Knowing the law
    • Publishing data
    • Visualising data
    • Data driven applications
    • From datasets to stories
  • Appendix
    • Further resources

If you’re interested in contributing you can either:

  1. Come and find us at the Mozilla Festival in London this weekend!
  2. Contribute material virtually! You can pitch in your ideas via the public data-driven-journalismmailing list, via the #ddj hashtag on Twitter, or by sending an email to bounegru@ejc.net.

We hope to see you there!

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Data-Driven Journalism In A Box: what do you think needs to be in it?

The following post is from Liliana Bounegru (European Journalism Centre), Jonathan Gray (Open Knowledge Foundation), and Michelle Thorne (Mozilla), who are planning a Data-Driven Journalism in a Box session at the Mozilla Festival 2011, which we recently blogged about here. This is cross posted at DataDrivenJournalism.net and on the Mozilla Festival Blog.

We’re currently organising a session on Data-Driven Journalism in a Box at the Mozilla Festival 2011, and we want your input!

In particular:

  • What skills and tools are needed for data-driven journalism?
  • What is missing from existing tools and documentation?

If you’re interested in the idea, please come and say hello on our data-driven-journalism mailing list!

Following is a brief outline of our plans so far…

What is it?

The last decade has seen an explosion of publicly available data sources – from government databases, to data from NGOs and companies, to large collections of newsworthy documents. There is an increasing pressure for journalists to be equipped with tools and skills to be able to bring value from these data sources to the newsroom and to their readers.

But where can you start? How do you know what tools are available, and what those tools are capable of? How can you harness external expertise to help to make sense of complex or esoteric data sources? How can you take data-driven journalism into your own hands and explore this promising, yet often daunting, new field?

A group of journalists, developers, and data geeks want to compile a Data-Driven Journalism In A Box, a user-friendly kit that includes the most essential tools and tips for data. What is needed to find, clean, sort, create, and visualize data — and ultimately produce a story out of data?

There are many tools and resources already out there, but we want to bring them together into one easy-to-use, neatly packaged kit, specifically catered to the needs of journalists and news organisations. We also want to draw attention to missing pieces and encourage sprints to fill in the gaps as well as tighten documentation.

What’s needed in the Box?

  • Introduction
    • What is data?
    • What is data-driven journalism?
    • Different approaches: Journalist coders vs. Teams of hacks & hackers vs. Geeks for hire
    • Investigative journalism vs. online eye candy
  • Understanding/interpreting data:
    • Analysis: resources on statistics, university course material, etc. (OER)
    • Visualization tools & guidelines – Tufte 101, bubbles or graphs?
    • Acquiring data
  • Guide to data sources
  • Methods for collecting your own data
  • FOI / open data
  • Scraping
    • Working with data
  • Guide to tools for non-technical people
  • Cleaning
    • Publishing data
  • Rights clearance
  • How to publish data openly.
  • Feedback loop on correcting, annotating, adding to data
  • How to integrate data story with existing content management systems

What bits are already out there?

What bits are missing?

  • Tools that are shaped to newsroom use
  • Guide to browser plugins
  • Guide to web-based tools

Opportunities with Data-Driven Journalism:

  • Reduce costs and time by building on existing data sources, tools, and expertise.
  • Harness external expertise more effectively
  • Towards more trust and accountability of journalistic outputs by publishing supporting data with stories. Towards a “scientific journalism” approach that appreciates transparent, empirically- backed sources.
  • News outlets can find their own story leads rather than relying on press releases
  • Increased autonomy when journalists can produce their own datasets
  • Local media can better shape and inform media campaigns. Information can be tailored to local audiences (hyperlocal journalism)
  • Increase traffic by making sense of complex stories with visuals.
  • Interactive data visualizations allow users to see the big picture & zoom in to find information relevant to them
  • Improved literacy. Better understanding of statistics, datasets, how data is obtained & presented.
  • Towards employable skills.
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OKCon 2011: Introduction and a Look to the Future

OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION – By Rufus Pollock

This is a blog post by Rufus Pollock, co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation.

OKCon, the annual Open Knowledge Conference kicked off today and it’s been great so far. For those not here in Berlin with us you can follow main track talks via video streaming:http://www.ustream.tv/channel/open-knowlegde

Below are my slides from my introductory talk which gives an overview of the Foundation and its activities and then looked to what the challenges are for the open data community going forward.

OKCon 2011 Introduction by Rufus Pollock

View more presentations from okfn
Looking to the Future

The last several decades the world has seen an explosion of digital technologies which have the potential to transform the way knowledge is disseminated.

This world is rapidly evolving and one of its more striking possibilities is the creation of an open data ecosystem in which information is freely used, extended and built on. [Read more…]

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€20,000 to win in The Open Data Challenge: Get crackin’!

So you are a data enthusiast? Here is a great opportunity to get noticed…

The Open Data Challenge is a data competition organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation, in conjunction with the Openforum Academy and Share-PSI.eu.

European public bodies produce thousands upon thousands of datasets every year – about everything from how our tax money is spent to the quality of the air we breathe. With the Open Data Challenge, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Open Forum Academy are challenging designers, developers, journalists and researchers to come up with something useful, valuable or interesting using open public data.

Everybody from the EU can submit an idea, app, visualization or dataset to the competition between 5th April and 5th June. The winners will be announced in mid June at the European Digital Assembly in Brussels. A total of €20,000 in prizes could be another motivator if you’re not convinced yet.

All entries must use or depend on open, freely reusable data from local, regional or national public bodies from European member states or from European institutions (e.g. Eurostat, EEA, …).

Some starting points for you to get data are http://publicdata.eu or http://lod2.okfn.org. The organisers are focused on solutions that are reusable in different countries, cover pan-European issues and use open licenses for any code, content and data. Get all the info about the competition and on how to join here.

We are very eager to see what you come up with so share your work with us in the Data Art Corner or in the comments!

 

 

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#opendata: What is open government data? What is it good for? [VIDEO]

#opendata film

[vimeo 21711338]

This short film by the Open Knowledge Foundation deals with the raise of open government data and can be found on the Open Government Data website. Open data is changing the relationship between citizens and their government. People are now more aware of government’s spending, who is representing them, and the companies that do business with the government. Some say that open data is bringing a global social change, that it is modifying the way society works.Watch this film and tell us what you think…

 

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#ijf11: the raise of Open Data

source: Joel Gunter from Journalism.co.uk

Picture: "Where does my money go?" by the Open Knowledge Foundation

The open data movement, with the US and UK governments to the fore, is putting a vast and unprecedented quantity of republishable public data on the web. This information tsunami requires organisation, interpretation and elaboration by the media if anything eye-catching is to be made of it.

Experts gathered at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia last week to discuss what journalistic skills are required for data journalism.

Jonathan Gray, community coordinator for the Open Knowledge Foundation, spoke on an open data panel about the usability of data. “The key term in open data is ‘re-use’,” he told Joel Gunter from Journalism.co.uk.

Government data has been available online for years but locked up under an all rights reserved licence or a confusing mixture of different terms and conditions.

The Open Knowledge Foundation finds beneficial ways to apply that data in projects such as Where Does My Money Go which analyses data about UK public spending. “It is about giving people literacy with public information,” Gray said.

The key is allowing a lot more people to understand complex information quickly.

Along with its visualisation and analysis projects, the Open Knowledge Foundation has established opendefinition.org, which provides criteria for openness in relation to data, content and software services, and opendatasearch.org, which is aggregating open data sets from around the world.

“Tools so good that they are invisible. This is what the open data movement needs”, Gray said.

Some of the Google tools that millions use everyday are simple, effective open tools that we turn to without thinking, that are “so good we don’t even know that they are there”, he added.

Countries such as Itlay and France are very enthusiastic about the future of open data. Georgia has launched its own open data portal, opendata.ge.

The US with data.gov, spend £34 million a year maintaining that various open data sites. Others are cheap by comparison, with the UK’s data.gov.uk reportedly costing £250,000 to set up.