ICFJ Knight roundup: Putting the spotlight on Coca-Cola’s sweet financial bubble

por Alyssa Mesich
Oct 30, 2018 em Investigative Journalism
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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.

ANCIR exposes Coca-Cola’s "hidden formula for avoiding taxes," ICFJ Knight Fellow Catherine Gicheru wins the National Integrity Award and more from the Knight Fellows in this week’s roundup.

Coca-Cola’s sweet financial bubble

African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), founded by ICFJ Knight Fellow Justin Arenstein, used publicly accessible data in company reports to learn more about what is (or isn’t) happening with Coca-Cola’s financial sheets. Their investigation for 100Reporters focuses on the company’s financial structure and intangible assets such as trademarks and patents, which can be undervalued to reduce or avoid taxes. Read more about the company's financial structure in "Trade Secrets: Coca-Cola’s Hidden Formula for Avoiding Taxes."

ICFJ Knight Fellow wins National Integrity Alliance award

ICFJ Knight Fellow Catherine Gicheru has been recognized for her work to expose corruption. Gicheru won the Champion of Integrity (Media Category) in this year's Integrity Champion Awards, presented by the National Integrity Alliance, a joint program by the Society for International Development, Nairobi and Transparency International Kenya. Gicheru accepted the award in Nairobi, Kenya, on Dec. 9, the International Anti-Corruption Day.

Gustavo Faleiros's openearth.net launches at the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris

If journalists want to tackle climate change, they’ll need the tools to see the issue globally. That is what former ICFJ Knight Fellow Gustavo Faleiros hopes to provide with the new environmental news platform openearth.net. The launch for openearth.net featured a panel discussion with editors from five regional Geojournalism websites: Faleiros of InfoAmazonia, David Akana of InfoCongo, Fiona McLeod of Oxpeckers, Ramesh Bhushal of The Third Pole and Clara Rondonuwu of Ekuatorial. Panelists highlighted global connections that make climate change truly an international challenge. Faleiros launched GeoJournalism.org during his ICFJ Knight Fellowship, which focused on promoting geographical data use in journalism. Read the full story and see a video of the panel discussion on the Earth Journalism Network’s site.

ICFJ Knight Fellow conducts webinar on creating a digital content supply chain for newsrooms

Running a digital newsroom is not just about keeping up with the news, it is also about constantly adopting the newest technologies to distribute news content. In the latest installment of the Dow Jones Foundation Webinar Series, ICFJ Knight Fellow Nasr ul Hadi talked about how newsrooms need to make full use of digital media tools like SproutSocial and Dataminr. During the hourlong session on Dec. 9, Hadi broke down the key features of his SPADE model, which stands for sourcing, production, assembly, distribution and extension. You can view his presentation slides here.

Open Data Party in Nigeria this weekend

Code for Nigeria's lead technologist Temi Adeoye is in Benin City for the Open Data Party Dec. 11-12. The initiative of Connected Development (CODE) brings people from all of Nigeria to discuss all things open data (while in a party mode). Follow the event with #OpenDataParty.   

Register for this Dec. 18 web panel to learn about NarcoData’s development challenges

Influence Mapping, a site created by former ICFJ Knight Fellows Miguel Paz and Friedrich Lindenberg, will host a virtual Science Fair on Dec. 18 to discuss the digital platform NarcoData, which explores organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico through a series of interactive visualizations. Digital media platforms Poderopedia and Animal Politico worked closely to produce NarcoData, which was launched October 2015. Paz, the director and founder of Poderopedia, and Dulce Ramos, the editor-in-chief of Animal Politico, will discuss story development and audience engagement challenges during the event, which you can register for here.

Go back in time to see how citizens participated in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections since 1958

We can learn so much from just one election’s metrics. Imagine the trends that appear over 50 years worth of data. Digital news portal El Cambur, a grantee of ICFJ Knight Fellow Mariano Blejman’s Media Factory, has produced just that story, featuring a series of charts that give readers a glimpse into how Venezuelans have voted for their representatives since their country ousted military ruler General Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958.

Image CC-licensed on Flickr via tanakawho