This post is written by Anastasia Valeeva, data journalist and member of Open Knowledge Russia, one of the local groups in the Open Knowledge Network.
European Youth Press is organising a week-long intensive training on data journalism funded by Erasmus+. It is aimed at young journalists, developers and human rights activists from 11 countries: Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Armenia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Slovakia, Denmark or Latvia.
Together we will explore how to create a data-driven story step-by-step.
If you have always wanted to learn more about what it means to be a data-driven storyteller, then this is an opportunity not to miss! Our course was designed with wanna-be data journalists in mind and for people who have been following others’ work in this area but are looking to learn more about actually making a story themselves.
Modern journalism now requires considerable cross-border communication and collaboration. Examples of TheMigrantsFiles and Panama papers are impressive; but how do you become part of such teams?
In this course, we are combining best practices of learning and doing.
You will have classes and workshops along the data pipeline: where to get the data, what to do to make it ‘clean’, and how to find a story in the data. In parallel to the training, you will work in teams and produce a real story that will be published in the national media of one of the participating countries.
The general topic of all the stories produced has been chosen as migration/refugees. Data journalism has a reputation to be a more objective kind of journalism, opposed to ‘he said – she said’ narratives. However, there is still great potential to explore data-driven stories about migrants and the effects of migration around the world.
Praising the refugee hunters as national heroes; violence targeting international journalists and migrants; sentimental pleas with a short-time effect – those are few examples of media coverage of the refugee crisis. The backlash so far to these narratives has mostly been further distrust in the media. What are the ways out of it?
We want to produce more data-driven balanced stories on migrants. For this training, we are inviting prominent researchers and experts in the field of migration. They will help us with relevant datasets and knowledge. We will not fix the world, but we can make a little change together.
So, if you are between 18 and 30 years old and come from Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Armenia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Slovakia, Denmark or Latvia, don’t wait – apply now (deadline is 11 Sept):
http://www.youthpress.org/call-participants-data-driven-journalism/
Oscar Montiel is the international community coordinator at Open Knowledge Foundation
