Investigative Journalism

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Investigative Journalism

Investigative Journalism: The futureThe view from a little newsroom

The landscape todayThe present is exciting and the future is thrillingDigital media give us a wonderful story-telling platform and new tools to conduct our journalismStatic, one-dimensional presentations of stories evolve into multi-dimensional and sophisticated packages which allow the reader or online user to explore your own understanding of the truthNew media is breathing new life into journalism and is making new styles of investigative reporting possibleWith new media it is possible to amplify stories like never before

The impact for usDaily Dispatch sort of stumbled onto a style of investigation which has become our ownFor lack of a better term I call it social investigation We have found that new media is not just an important element of this story-telling but it is a cornerstone for it Our learning curve has been steep and continues

2011Our timeline20102009200920092009200820072009

Its a very short timeline: we havent been doing this for terribly long at allOur approach has been to experiment and try and answer a few questions along the wayDue to our own limited resources we use open source or free web tools where ever possibleWe build our packages using Wordpress which is easy to use

2011

July 2007: Dispatch team broke Frere Baby Death storiesOur first big investigation in years BUT although we had shot sneaky video and had other multi-media elements we had never conceived or properly thought of the online elements of the story20102009200920092009200820072009

20112008: At the beginning of 2008 we relaunched a website which had a lot more functionality and potential for us to do more interesting journalism.Began a discussion in the newsroom around:

How can we tell stories differently and better using online tools and platform. How do we move beyond offering video and pictures as added value to what is essentially just print journalism online?20102009200920092009200820072009

2011End 2008/2009:Began work on our Somali Dying to Live (funded by Taco Kuiper grant)Was conceived from the beginning as an online/print projectAnd it turned out to be very different from anything we had done before20102009200920092009200820072009

2011

March 2009: Reporters lived with Somali refugees, blogging about their lives and experiences, did powerful video interviews and packages as well as slideshows. For the first time we thought about the online story and its elements BEFORE we began and not after

20102009200920092009200820072009

2011

March 2009:Used timelines and maps to add more to the storyAll of these are free tools on the web:Dipity for timelinesGoogle Maps for the maps20102009200920092009200820072009

July 2009: Did another major project looking at the failure of housing delivery within the province again conceived as an online/print entity from the beginning.

20102009200920092009200820072009

A strong element of all of these projects has been living there, really steeping ourselves in the story and its material and then trying to make this material live again for our readers

November 2009: Investigation into slumlords in our community which has involved reporter living undercover for two months in these slums. He has identified some of the key slumlords and has a pile of great material from inside these hovels.Will be our most sophisticated web package yet20102009200920092009200820072009

Lessons learnedThe heart of investigative reporting hasnt changedIts still about a journalist working hard and digging deep in a search for truth and answering the same questionsOnline and new media tools give us powerful story-telling techniques which make ALL journalism better but this is just the beginning

The futureThe future of investigative reporting and journalism is here alreadyDigital tools are opening up entirely new areas of journalism and there is a lot of learning aheadSome of these techniques have been around for decades but technology and the web is allowing this potential to explode

Where we will goThree major new areas:1. Data visualisation as a mainstream journalism tool2. GIS or geo-located information3. Crowd-sourcing: investigation and collaborative work between users and news professionals

Data visualisationOnce a hard-core science tool now becoming mainstream, easier to use and accessMany Eyes by IBM Google FusionSwivelAdobe Flux and Flare open source

Data visualisation using Many Eyes to show TB deaths globally

Teenage pregnancy higher in US states where religion is very important (Swivel chart)

GIS information about placeHuge possibilities for us to understand layers of information and how it relates to a geographic contextSimple ways of using it and plenty of open source technologyEasiest is Google Maps but plenty of more sophisticated stand-alone and open source options

GIS the potentialMany obvious applications to give us great story leadsCrime stats versus household incomeDisease and illness stats in areas versus public health spending etcFood prices layered on poverty stats do the poor pay more for food? These representations give us fresh starting points for investigative reporting

CrowdsourcingThe Telegraphs amazing investigation into MPs expenses led to an enormous crowdsourcing investigative reporting project by the Guardian

CrowdsourcingSites like HelpMeInvestigate recruits users to assist make investigations possible and produced a brilliant investigation into the most ticketed streets in BirminghamOther models from Spot.Us brings readers in by asking them to sponsor reporting projects community-funded reportingPotentially allows journalists to access voices and sources like never before as well as recruiting non-conventional partners in our investigations

The Future?My crystal ball shows me..Data visualisation allows us to generate story foundations and simply depict information for readersGIS or mapping technologies allows us to see nuances and relationships between information and placeCrowdsourcing brings armies of assistants into playOnline platforms allow us to tell deep and media rich stories

But the story only lives when reporters do what they have always doneGetting their hands dirty, with old-fashioned reporting out in the field

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