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.
#GIJC15 next week, ICFJ Knight Fellow Mariano Blejman offers insights on how to build a media company, and more from the Knight Fellows in this week's roundup.
ICFJ Knight heads to Norway for GIJC
The ninth annual Global Investigative Journalism Conference will be held Oct. 8-11 in Lillehammer, Norway.
Follow #GIJC15 to track conference highlights, including:
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ICFJ's Vice President of Programs Patrick Butler will moderate "Investigative Reporting in Repressive Regimes" on Oct. 10
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Khadija Sharife, investigative editor at the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), will offer insights at three sessions on Oct. 8 and 9: "Investigating the Italian Mafia in Africa", "Finding Africa's Missing Money" and "Building Your Own Research Database"
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Follow the ICFJ Knight team on Twitter to stay informed: @pbutler50, @justinarenstein, @ChrisRoper, @cgicheru1 and @cguess
Chequeado wins innovation category of Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Prize
The Argentina-based fact-checking organization Chequeado has been has received the innovation award for Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Prize. More than 1,300 organizations from 30 countries across Latin America applied for the prize. Chequeado Executive Editor Laura Zommer and her team are receiving recognition for their work to increase access to data on public issues such as government spending. Blejman's data journalism incubator HacksLabs has supported two of Chequeado's projects, El Chequeador and Dato CHQ, that have helped them become more data-driven. Congrats, Chequeado!
Mariano Blejman writes, "If you want to advance journalism, don't hire journalists (for a while)"
In a new post on Medium (Spanish), ICFJ Knight Fellow Mariano Blejman offers guidance to journalists, technologists and media startup entrepreneurs on how to build a successful media company. Going beyond journalistic principles, Blejman discusses what is needed to sustain a journalistic company, touching on concepts like team and financial management.
How civic tech can escape the pitfalls of top-down development
Code for Africa's web developer and advocate Serah Rono highlights issues tackled in last month's African Open Data Conference, including Code for Africa's mission to promote a "citizen-first" philosophy over a more top-down approach. Rono's Medium blog post highlights how civic tech and open data can lead the way in empowering grassroots communities to use data about issues that matter to them. Look at these two Storify posts to learn more about the conference and the pre-conference events.
Mariana Santos discusses her ideas about interactive journalism on Medium
Former ICFJ Knight Fellow Mariana Santos, the interactive and animation director for Fusion, recently joined Florida International University as its new Knight Innovator in Residence. In this interview on Medium, she lays out her vision for interactive journalism, and how it can transform audiences from readers and viewers to active participants in the news-making process.
In case you missed it: Chris Roper at Digital Edge
Chris Roper, an ICFJ Knight Fellow and data editor for Code for Africa, spoke at the seventh Nedbank Digital Edge Live 2015 in Johannesburg on Sept. 9. ICFJ Knight Impact Intern Sophie Westover created this Storify of highlights from Digital Edge.
This post is also published on IJNet, which is produced by ICFJ.
Main image: The team at Chequeado, via Twitter.