Each week as part of the Knight International Media Innovators blog, the ICFJ Knight team will round up stories focused on how their fellows are making an impact in the field. Find out more about the fellows' projects by clicking here.
A news game provides key information on political candidates, a call from Nigeria’s growing civic tech community and more from the Knight Fellows in this week’s roundup.
Yo Quiero Saber: an empowering news game for voters in Argentina
Citizens looking to compare candidates’ views on key issues in the lead-up to Argentina’s national elections this October can turn to an interactive project launched with support from ICFJ Knight Mariano Blejman’s data journalism accelerator HacksLabs. In its first 11 days of operation, the new tool, Yo Quiero Saber, reached more than 1 million visitors and 350,000 unique users.
Election vetting platform Chequeado uses visualization tool to introduce candidates
Two other projects supported by Blejman’s HacksLabs are also changing the way people vet candidates in Argentina. Chequeado, a fact-checking platform, has published campaign histories for five gubernatorial candidates for the Buenos Aires province. Using the data visualization tool Cargografias, potential voters can now evaluate candidates’ campaign statements at a glance and enter the polls more informed than ever before.
Code for Africa invites local media and civic tech partners to get involved
Code for Africa, founded by ICFJ Knight Fellow Justin Arenstein, is inviting African media and civic technologists to take advantage of its new $4.7 million data journalism initiative launched in collaboration with ICFJ. Media organizations interested in hosting technologists or working with CitizenLabs to build digital projects should register their interest here. Civic technologists or data journalists interested in applying for one of CfAfrica’s Innovation Fellowships should register their interest here.
A call to action for Nigeria’s civic tech community
Code for Nigeria technologist Temi Adeoye is encouraging Nigerians to become part of the country's civic tech community. In an article on Code for Africa’s Medium, Adeoye extends an invitation to citizens looking to get involved in hands-on community action to make public institutions work better. CfNigeria is designing and building systems, applications and other tools to help citizens and governments make better informed decisions, make government more efficient and increase transparency and accountability.
How integrated digital tools are changing environmental journalism
In a Good Magazine interview, recent ICFJ Knight Fellow Gustavo Faleiros talks about the potential of data-driven tools, like his project InfoAmazonia, to create a new kind of environmental reporting. Faleiros explains how such tools can be combined to create complex reports that address very specific issues such as forest fires with accurate, real-time solutions.
ANCIR project among finalists for Online News Association awards
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), The Huffington Post and their international media partners were named this week as finalists for the Online News Association’s Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award. The nomination is for their story Evicted and Abandoned: The World Bank’s Broken Promise to the Poor, which explains how approximately 3.4 million people have been physically or economically displaced since 2004 because of World Bank-funded projects. The African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) was among media partners that collaborated on the story.
Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via Mariano Pernicone.