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_Successful_Data_Journalism Defining and Designing Successful Data Journalism Initiatives in Developing Countries
http://sched.co/TciVZg

Eva Constantaras
Data Journalim Advisor, Internews
@evaconstantaras
evaconstantaras@gmail.com
#OKFestDDDJ


Who is here?
Eva Constantaras, Internews, @evaconstantaras
Leo Mutuku, iHub, @C_Leo_patra
David Tarrant, Open Data Institute (UK), @davetaz

SESSION TAKE-AWAYS

  1. Sustainable data journalism activities require the buy-in of journalists, developers, editors and publishers
  2. Finding good matches between media outlets, CSOs and developers all committed to data are key to productive collaborations
  3. How people consume information should dictate narrative or visual form of data products
  4. Data journalism requires teamwork, whether inside or outside of the newsroom
  5. Mentoring and consulting data experts can help avert mistakes in data analysis and interpretation
  6. Storytelling to convey data helps people understand and connect with the issue
  7. Not a lot of resources are available for data journalism tailored to developing country contexts
  8. Data integrity is an emerging issue of concern as data journalism increases in popularity
  9. Topics, projects or speciific production goals can help make data journalism activities more realistic and acheivable 
  10. Sharing lessons learned is essential to designing more effective data journalism activities

Challenges


Goal

To develop first a list of best practices, and then hopefully a full guide, for how to design and implement effective data journalism activities in developing countries.

Activity

Please share one success and one failure, each

1. What did you try?

2. Did it work?

3. How do you know?

4. How would you fix it/make it better?


TEAM 1 - @davetaz

Example 1
What did you try?
Stories around government budgets  (Tools: many eyes, nice and easy to use and embed.)

Was it successful?

No

How do you know?

As only one person learnt many eyes (the toolkit), so the knowledge wasn't transferred. 

How would you change?

Not every story needs a visualision. You can do jounalism without it. It might be a blocker. Need to understand the story to start with. We had the data but there was no clear direction.

Example 2

What did you try?
Opinion polls. Do you support what the gov is doing on this issue?

Partnership between NGO and newspaper. NGO developed an opinion pool tool to produce reports. 
No point in publishing report, take the data to the media and get them to write the stories arround the data.

Did it work?

Yes (but with qualifications). It made some front page stories.

Why?

Because it was simple data. Also Tanzania has never had live opinion polls.

How would you fix it/make it better?

It is very dependant on the NGO to provide the service. Could be doing more interesting things via the website, where the barcharts are not even published

Example 3 - http://hela.code4kenya.org

What did you try?

Project to help citizens understand how the government spends donor money in order to uncover corruption. And report it.
15m to agriculture and the visualisations. Data from trasuring. e-promis.code4kenya.org, hela.code4kenya.org

Did it work?

No

Why?

It was overly complex in it's presentation. It didn't reach 90% of the population who the data affects. A lack of understanding in the work that was done. A fear of how the data is presented. Like putting the wanted 

What would you change?

Simplify.  Talk to people and ask them what they want. What are the questions?

Example 4 - http://followthemoneyng.org/ - OKFest14 - Partnership for Open Data Winner

What do you do?
Nigeria - Follow the money!
Follows money that are meant for local communites and find if the money reached these communities?

Did it work?

Yes

Why?

It was focussed and emotional. About access for children to health. Before they didn't have access, now they do.

Communitcated the story over the radio. The Nigerian governement and policy makers are affraid of the media. 

We kept the story alive and didn't just make a one offer visualisation. 

NGOs with journalists. 

What would you change?

Want to scale it and have a dedicated radio programme. Bring about more education and change and have more journalists. Use international collaborations where applicable. 

Bringing together a civil society organisation and the media who may be more objective. You need the partnership and passion to make the story come to life and last. 
Keep it simple, relevant and connected to your audience. 

TEAM  1 Presentation - graphic - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1VBoooQ3X5jbzUyZkdiVy05NmM/edit?usp=sharing



TEAM 2

1. What did you try?
Mapping Nigeria kidnapping based on a data from Global Database of Events, Language and Tone

2. Did it work?

Unfortunately yes for the general public, no for the data journalism community

3. How do you know?

The data collected does not measure what the story said it measured: number of media mentions of kidnapped girls vs number of kidnapped girls

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

Cross-referencing data set.  Investigate methodology.  Slow Down!

1. What did you try?

Infoamazonia showing media coverage and environmental data

2. Did it work?

Yes!

3. How do you know?

Replicated, crowd sourcing platforme, scalible, multilingual approach

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

Increase responsiveness.  Recognize it doesn't work in all visual literacy contexts.

TEAM 3

1. What did you try?

Mentoring program for Science Journalists Cooperative

2. Did it work?

Seems to be

3. How do you know?

Positive feedback ffrom mentors and mentees, program growing

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

Stronger focus on data, scaling up to different regions, sharing lessons learned

1. What did you try?

6 Month internship program for Code for South Africa

2. Did it work?

No

3. How do you know?

One intern dropped out, another was frustrated by multitude of demands for web products, perception of newsroom indifference or hostility towards outsiders. Data journalists couldn't be found to be fellows, newtrooms didn't provide mentoring environment.  The program was expensive and resource heavy.

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

Better mentoring, choosing the right partners, being more proactie with support, Partnering closely with publishers and working only on one project, target editors and publishers

TEAM 4





Great post by Matt Waite on why journalists should overomce their fear of math:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/11/matt-waite-how-i-faced-my-fears-and-learned-to-be-good-at-math/

Example 1


1. What did you try?

One-week, one-off data journalism bootcamp

2. Did it work?

No!

3. How do you know?

Only a few participants ever published a data-driven story in their media.

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

Open a competition for small reporting and mentoring grants to support the production of their first story so they have editorial and technical assistance when they run into inevitable challenges.


Example 2

1. What did you try?

5-month fellowship for journalists, graphic designer and a developer with the Internews in Kenya Data Journalism Team

2. Did it work?

Yes!

3. How do you know?

Participants produced investigative stories that led to policy change, public debate and reform of social service delivery.  Fellows received promotions, awards and space to do data journalism fulltime (or almost fulltime) within their newsrooms.

4. How would you fix it/make it better?

In most developing countries, media outlets can't spare staff for five months.  I would explore spreading out the fellowship over a year with a commitment of perhaps only a few days a week.


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Notes

































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 Background
 
The OKCast: 
OKFestival 2014 – Eva Constantaras, Defining and Designing Successful Data Journalism Initiatives in Developing Countries – Presenter Mini-Interview http://bit.ly/1mg8gUa
 
“Developing Data Journalism in the Developing World,” https://source.opennews.org/en-US/learning/developing-data-journalists-developing-world/ Knight Mozilla Source.
 
“Kenyan data journalism fellows shed light on complex health issues,” http://schoolofdata.org/2014/03/07/kenyan-data-journalism-fellows-shed-light-on-complex-health-issues/ School of Data.
 
“Optimizing a Crash Course in Data Journalism,” http://schoolofdata.org/2013/09/06/optimizing-a-crash-course-in-data-journalism/ School of Data
 
“Lessons Learned from A Collaboration Without Borders in Latin America,” http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/01/lessons-learned-from-a-collaboration-without-borders-in-latin-america010.html 

"Colaboración sin Fronteras: Exploring the potential of collaborative multimedia cross-border investigative reporting in Latin America." http://cobciber3.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/livro-de-atas-iii-cobciber-constantaras.pdf 


Recent Research

The Art and Science of Data Driven Journalism
http://towcenter.org/blog/the-art-and-science-of-data-driven-journalism/


Understanding Data. Can News Media Rise to the Challenge?
http://cima.ned.org/publications/understanding-data-can-news-media-rise-challenge

Resources

Non-Profit Journalism: Issues Around Impact
http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/about/LFA_ProPublica-white-paper_2.1.pdf


What We Talk about When We Talk About Impact
http://chalkbeat.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Chalkbeat-White-Paper-on-Impact-042914.pdf

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AFTER THE FESTIVAL

## What did you learn and/or make?

## How/what could you teach others?