Tagged: bureau of investigative journalism

When data goes bad

Bad data on sex trafficking: flow chart
Image by Lauren York on the Data Journalism Blog

Data is so central to the decision-making that shapes our countries, jobs and even personal lives that an increasing amount of data journalism involves scrutinising the problems with the very data itself. Here’s an illustrative list of when bad data becomes the story – and the lessons they can teach data journalists:

Deaths in police custody unrecorded

This investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism demonstrates an important question to ask about data: who decides what gets recorded?

In this case, the BIJ identified “a number of cases not included in the official tally of 16 ‘restraint-related’ deaths in the decade to 2009 … Some cases were not included because the person has not been officially arrested or detained.” Continue reading →

Has investigative journalism found its feet online? (part 1)

Earlier this year I was asked to write a chapter for a book on the future of investigative journalism – ‘Investigative Journalism: Dead Or Alive?‘. I’m reproducing it here. The chapter was originally published on my Facebook page. An open event around the book’s launch, with a panel discussion, is being held at the Frontline Club next month.

We may finally be moving past the troubled youth of the internet as a medium for investigative journalism. For more than a decade observers looked at this ungainly form stumbling its way around journalism, and said: “It will never be able to do this properly.”

They had short memories, of course. Television was an equally awkward child: the first news broadcast was simply a radio bulletin on a black screen, and for decades print journalists sneered at the idea that this fleeting, image-obsessed medium could ever do justice to investigative journalism. But it did. And it did it superbly, finding a new way to engage people with the dry, with the political, and the complex.
Continue reading →

Investigate your local election campaign expenses

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YeYn--rnIY]

Last week Channel 4 and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism “raised questions” over the election campaign expenses of Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, specifically the practice of claiming partial expenses on the grounds that ‘not all material was used’.

The response from Goldsmith and the Conservative Party seemed to argue that this was standard practice. “The examples raised could be seen in the returns of other candidates.” (see video above)

So I decided to obtain the expenses receipts for two of the most closely-fought campaigns in Birmingham, and put them online, with the invitation for others to take a look to see if that is indeed true.

And now the receipts for the election campaigns of Gisela Stuart (Lab) and Deirdre Allen (Con) for Edgbaston can be found at EdgbastonElectionExpenses.posterous.com

Here’s the plan:

But that’s only part of the story. I want to help repeat this in other cities and towns. And it’s quite simple: start your own investigation into your own local election candidates. by following the instructions here.

Remember, finding nothing is still a finding, as it challenges Goldsmith’s story.

FAQ: How would paywalls affect advertisers? (and other questions)

More questions from a student that I’m publishing as part of the FAQ section:

1. If News Corp starts charging for news stories, do you think readers would pay or they would just go to different newspapers?

Both, but mostly the latter. Previous experiments with paywalls saw audiences drop between 60 and 97%. And you also have to figure in that a paywall will likely make content invisible to search engines (either directly or indirectly, because no one will link to them which will drop their ranking). Search engines are responsible for a significant proportion of visits (even the Wall Street Journal receives a quarter of its traffic from Google). Still, some people will always pay – the question is: how many? Continue reading →

Managing Editor wanted for Bureau of Investigative Journalism

These days any journalist job ad is news, but this one is particularly worth blogging about. The recently formed Investigations Fund has in turn launched the Bureau of Investigative Journalism with a £2million grant from the David and Elaine Potter Foundation, and they’re looking for a Managing Editor.

Here’s the PDF of the job ad. The closing date is actually August 17 and not the 7th as stated in the ad. Although the job ad doesn’t particularly reflect it, the Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism Gavin Macfadyen expresses a desire for the Bureau to experiment with new media: Continue reading →