In the final part of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project I explore the qualities that successful crowdsourcing investigations shared. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study Part 5: What are the characteristics of
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In the penultimate part of the serialisation of research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project I explore the qualities that successful crowdsourcing investigations shared. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study Part 5: What are the
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this fifth part I explore the characteristics of crowdsourcing outlined in the literature. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Part 4: The London Weekly case study What are the
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this fourth part I describe how one particular investigation took shape. Previous parts are linked below: Part 1: Investigative journalism; conceptualising Help Me Investigate Part 2: Building the site Part 3: Reflections on the Proof of Concept phase Case study: the London Weekly investigation In early 2010 Andy Brightwell and
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this third part I describe how the focus of the site was shaped by the interests of its users and staff, and how site functionality was changed to react to user needs. I also identify some areas where the site could have been further developed and improved. (Part 1 is
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Continuing the serialisation of the research underpinning a new Help Me Investigate project, in this second part I describe the basis for the way that the original site was constructed – and the experiences of its first few months. (Part 1 is available here) Building the site By 2008 two members had joined the Help Me Investigate team: web developer Stef Lewandowski and community
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As I begin on a new Help Me Investigate project, I thought it was a good time to share some research I conducted into the first year of the site, and the key factors in how that project tried to crowdsource investigative and watchdog journalism. The findings of this research have been key to the development of this new project. They
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This is the final part of a guest post by Paul Lewis that originally appeared in the book Investigative Journalism: Dead or Alive? You can read the introduction here and the second part – on the investigation of Ian Tomlinson’s death – here. Mubenga’s death had been similarly “public”, occurring on a British Airways commercial flight to Angola surrounded by passengers. As
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In a guest post for the Online Journalism Blog, Paul Lewis shows how Twitter helped the Guardian in its investigations into the deaths of news vendor Ian Tomlinson at the London G20 protests and Jimmy Mubenga, the Angolan detainee, while he was being deported from Heathrow. This originally appeared in the book Investigative Journalism: Dead or Alive?, which also includes
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When we open-sourced the code for Help Me Investigate the plan was to move from a single site to a decentralised, networked structure. Now, thanks to Andy Dickinson, it has become even easier for anyone to host their own journalism crowdsourcing platform. Since a conversation a couple of months ago, Andy has been tweaking a WordPress plugin that replicates the
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