Motion graphics has become an increasingly popular way to present data in a compelling visual form. In a series of videos guest contributor Sihlangu Tshuma outlines his workflow process for managing a motion graphics video project, the results of which are shown at the end. All 13 videos are also available in this playlist.
Cross-posted from Help Me Investigate
The Stirrer was an independent news website in Birmingham that investigated a number of local issues in collaboration with local people. One investigation in particular – into the employment of CCTV cameras in largely muslim areas of the city without consultation – was picked up by The Guardian’s Paul Lewis, who discovered its roots in anti-terrorism funds.
The coverage led to an investigation into claims of police misleading councillors, and the eventual halting of the scheme.
As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate, founder Adrian Goldberg – who now presents ‘5 live Investigates‘ and a daily show on BBC Radio WM – talks about his experiences of running the site and how the story evolved from a user’s tip-off.
Neil Smith is an investigative researcher and open source intelligence trainer. In this interview, originally posted on the Help Me Investigate blog, he gives his tips for using online sources to follow people and verify information.
There’s something almost seminal about this video promoting The Guardian’s ‘open journalism’. I’m not sure whether it’s the unusually honest acknowledgement that news is more complicated than it is often presented; the way that the video itself plays with our preconceptions, drawing attention to them in the process; or the portrayal of a production process in which non-journalists are a vital part.
I lie, of course: it’s all of those things. It’s an image of journalism utterly different from how it presented itself in the 20th century, different – if we’re honest – from the image in most journalists’, and most journalism students’, minds.
I expect I’ll be showing this a lot. Watch it.
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229ThreeLittlePigs-16x9.mp4 autoplay='false']
PS: If you have another 3 minutes, here’s Alan Rusbridger giving a slightly less dramatised angle on the same topic:
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229OpenAlanRusbridger-16x9.mp4]
…And then move on to these videos linked from this page on how to get involved: from head of news Ian Katz:
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229OpenIanKatzEdit-16x9.mp4]
…and on sports journalism:
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229OpenSeanIngleEdit-16x9.mp4]
…and culture reporting:
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229OpenCatherineSEdit-16x9.mp4]
…and comment:
[flv:http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove/2012/2/29/120229OpenBeckyGardinerEdit-16x9.mp4]
The following 3 videos first appeared on the Help Me Investigate blog, Help Me Investigate: Health and Help Me Investigate: Welfare. I thought I’d collect them together here too. As always, these are published under a Creative Commons licence, so you are welcome to re-use, edit and combine with other video, with attribution (and a link!).
First, Heather Brooke’s tips for starting to investigate public bodies:
Her advice on investigating health, welfare and crime:
And on using the Data Protection Act:
At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev earlier this year I interviewed four individuals whose work I admire: Stephen Grey (talking about internet security for journalists), Luuk Sengers and Mark Lee Hunter (on organising your investigation), and Bo Elkjaer (on investigating networks).
I’ve been publishing these videos individually on the Help Me Investigate blog, but thought I would cross-publish them as a group here.
Here’s Mark Lee Hunter with his tips on gathering information before speaking to sources:
Stephen Grey on internet security considerations for journalists:
Luuk Sengers on organising your investigation:
And Bo Elkjaer on how he used computer technology to follow the money through network analysis:
Last month I invited Tim Ireland to take questions from students at City University about his experiences in SEO and related issues. One particular section, when he spoke of the role of networks in the legend of Paul Revere, and the significance of the Daily Mail’s false Amanda Knox report, struck me as particularly interesting, so I’m republishing it here.
The video is Creative Commons licensed – feel free to remix it with other video.
In September I spoke at the Balkan Investigative Reporters Network (BIRN) Summer School in Croatia. I took the opportunity to film brief interviews with 4 journalists on their tips for investigating companies, bribery and corruption, and finding and analysing data and experts.
These were originally published on the Help Me Investigate blog, but I’m cross-posting them all here for those who don’t follow that.
As always these videos are published under a Creative Commons licence, so you are free to re-edit the material or add it to other work, with attribution. (In fact, these videos were actually re-edited from the original uploads on my own YouTube account – adding simple titles and re-publishing on the Help Me Investigate YouTube channel using the YouTube editor).
Sunny Hundal is the publisher of the UK political blog Liberal Conspiracy. Two weeks ago I hosted a 30 minute Q&A session between Hundal and students at City University, and also interviewed him briefly myself.
3 video clips of the interview (1-2 minutes each) and one of the Q&A (around 30 minutes) are embedded below. These are also published under a Creative Commons licence so you can remix them if you wish (please let me know if you do).
Something interesting happened to journalism when it moved from print and broadcast to the web. Aspects of the process that we barely thought about started to be questioned: the ‘story’ itself seemed less than fundamental. Decisions that you didn’t need to make as a journalist – such as what medium you would use – were becoming part of the job.
In fact, a whole raft of new decisions now needed to be made.
For those launching a new online journalism project, these questions are now increasingly tackled with a content strategy, a phrase and approach which, it seems to me, began outside of the news industry (where the content strategy had been settled on so long ago that it became largely implicit) and has steadily been rediscovered by journalists and publishers.
‘Web first’, for example, is a content strategy; the Seattle Times’s decision to focus on creation, curation and community is a content strategy. Reed Business Information’s reshaping of its editorial structures is, in part, a content strategy:
I’ve written previously about the style challenge facing journalists in a multi platform environment: where before a journalist had few decisions to make about how to treat a story (the medium was given, the formats limited, the story supreme), now it can be easy to let old habits restrict the power, quality and impact of reporting.
Below, I’ve tried to boil down these new decisions into 4 different types – and one overarching factor influencing them all. These are decisions that often have to be made quickly in the face of changing circumstances – I hope that fleshing them out in this way will help in making those decisions quicker and more effectively. Continue reading