Panel discussion and interactive workshop on data driven investigative reporting, providing food for thought and case studies, stories, skills, tools & teamplay for data driven science journalists.
Structure of session
Panelists to be given five questions prior to the session. These questions will form the basis of the discussion. No rigid presentations, lots of interaction with panel, the moderator and audience. The main arguments will be blogged during the session and a summary provided at the end of the conference in a document “WCSJ Helsinki 2013 data exploring, the code that underpins the future of our profession: case studies, stories, skills, tools, social media and teamplay for data driven science journalists.
Roadmap for panel discussion and workshop interaction
1.) Initial statements, case studies of panelists, 10 min.
2.) answers to 1-2 of the four leading questions sent out before hand, 20 min
3.) skype interview and statements, views John Burn-Murdoch, The Guardian, 10 min
4.) answers to 3.-4. of the four leading questions sent out before hand, 20 min
5.) answers to questions and recommendation via twitter hashtag, 20 min
6.) matchmaking between experienced and ne comers, 10 min
7.) take home messages regarding teamplay among wcsj participants and hacks&hackers
8.) handout of data journalism dossiers and link list of the panelist and data journalism handbook – list of tutorials online, “data journalism directory”, files download on wcsj2013.org or constart.com.
Leading questions in the main topics data, tools, teamplay, learnings:
1.) What does it mean to report ‘data driven’? How to get, understand data and how to find the story in the data?
2.) How to utilise software tools and social media applications?
3.) What are modes of co-creation and collaboration between journalists & hackers across countries?
4.) What are your personal lessons in life learned from successful projects and mistakes from case studies?
Three panelists, one skype interview, one moderator and an onsite science writer documenting
Raymond Joseph is a freelance journalist, journalism trainer and media consultant. He works in both mainstream and community media specialising in the launch, relaunch and editorial restructure of both new and existing publications. He has worked as a chief of bureaux; a London-based foreign correspondent; is a former editor of the Big Issue South Africa and still serves on its board of directors; has co-owned and edited a community newspaper in Jeffreys Bay; has newsedited several national and regional newspapers, including the Sunday Times, the Cape Argus and the Saturday Star. With his knowledge of the needs and shortcomings of newspapers and knowledge gained working in a wide range of newsrooms, I also specialise in practical, needs driven and outcomes based journalism training. Joseph is a a founding member and former chair of the Southern African Freelancers Associations, served on the national executive of the SA chapter of the Media Instiute of Southern Africa (MISA) and a member of the interim committee of ProJourn, a new journalists’ association. (speaker)
Brigitte Alfter is a freelance journalist in Copenhagen since 2008. Previous to that she lived in Brussels for four years working as EU-correspondent for Danish daily Information and writes in The Watchdog Blog at Euobserver.com about transparency and quality journalism in Europe. She is co-founder and Director of Journalismfund.eu and co-founded the European Datajournalism network, a data journalism project of transparency on EU funds to farming, farmsubsidy.org, currently writing a book on cross boarder journalism and hosting data journalism conferences in Brüssels. Alfter relaunched wobbing.eu, a website and meeting place for journalists, who use freedom of information acts in Europe. Teaming up with ICIJ journalists she won prices for the data driven article “Looting the Seas” such as the Overseas Press Club of America Award, the US Tom RennerAward. Since 2002 she is board member and chairperson of the Internat. Committee of the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism. As a board member German association for investigative journalism Netzwerk Recherche she was responsible for international contacts 2007-2011. (speaker)
John Burn-Murdoch is a data journalist and news reporter for the Guardian Datablog and investigations team. John is a data journalist with a wealth of experience writing news stories and producing data-visualisations for national newspapers including The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. He is currently studying for an MA in Interactive Journalism at City University, London, but is available for full- and part-time work owing to the flexible nature of the course. Financial journalism is another of John’s passions, and his work in this discipline has appeared in the finance sections of both The Daily Telegraph and Yahoo! News. John has a broad journalistic background, having written for various specialist data journalism websites as well as the aforementioned national titles. His interest in data journalism was piqued during an initial six week spell with The Guardian, although the heavily analytical nature of his BSc in Geography had sewn the seeds and helped him develop a range of skills.(interviewed via skype)
Dino Trescher is a science journalist and founder of Constart Correspondent Network, an alliance of 28 international journalists, which is predominantly reporting about topics at the interface of science, technology and society. In an editorial team with Christian Meier and Romero Aitziber he won research grants from the Science Journalism Initiative on nano materials and risk research as well as on EU research funding – courtesy of the Robert Bosch Foundation; recently his team won the journalism award Gedankenstrich for “What it means to be nano”. Occasionally he moderates techno-scientific debates, e.g on organ transplantation to point out what is of public interest. He teaches scientific writing at the Alice Salomon University, Berlin. 2010 he came 3rd in the Science Journalism Contest at the European Science Open Forum in Turin for his peace: Vikings get ahead in Science. His work has been published in publications among others: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Technology Review, Euroscientist, Message – Int. Journal for Journalism, Science Management etc. (moderator)
Lynne Smit is a veteran journalist specialising in science, as well as an author, communications strategist and social media expert. She is a mentor in the World Federation of Science Journalists’ SjCOOP programme which mentors science journalists in Anglophone, Francophone and Arabophone Africa and Secretary and founding member of the South African Science Journalists’ Association. She has 32 years’ experience as a journalist, mostly in the science and development arenas, working for a range of South African newspapers as well as The Financial Times, Guardian and Independent in London. She edited The Architect and the Scaffold, a book about science and education in South Africa, organised the ‘What is Life’ art exhibition which was used to raise awareness of the genome project in 2003; co-coordinated three large international conferences (in Egypt, Kenya and South Africa) for the Africa Genome Education Institute; managed media for the World Health Organisation’s Global Ministerial Forum for Research on Health in Bamako, Mali in 2008; runs conference newsrooms for a range of conferences including The World Diabetes Conference, the International Conference on Fertility and Sterility, the World Safety Conference, the South African Aids Conference, the World Stroke conference and a number of others. She is a social media trainer for various organisations as well as individual authors, artists, scientists and journalists. One of her latest articals on digital tools for journalists appeared on SciDev.Net http://bit.ly/T00QZp (session coordinator).
Anina Mumm
Proposed questions or discussion points
What are most successful approaches and shortcuts?
What were mistakes and what did you learn?
What are the ‘need to know’ essentials, challenges and solutions?
What are fundamental changes data driven stories bring to journalism?
How can journalists enlarge their skill set for data journalism – or how to find your own friendly geek.
On what skills and resources can science journalists build on?
How to find the story behind the data?
Most useful free tools, guides and data information hubs (statistical data)
What are fundamental aspects in data cleansing, data interpretation, fact checking?
What are the options for funding? Crowd funding, donations, corporate or government funding
Telling the tale in 140 characters or less or how to make use of social media?
What are the main differences of data journalism in different countries?
What mind set makes a good data driven science journalist?
What do media organizations have to provide to journalists to cope with the digital turn?
How to use the data for investigative purposes?
How to speed up the process from idea to data to story?
How to use the law: public information act, hacking vs. information upon public request (wobbying) Overviewof freedom of information legislation in various countries
Which challenge in data journalism you overcame or still struggle?
What is your personal lesson in live concerning data driven investigative science journalism?
