ICFJ Knight Fellowships

Why publishing more open data isn’t enough to empower citizens

When I attended the International Open Data Conference last October in Madrid, there was plenty of talk about whether open data has failed to live up to its promise. Has open data really increased transparency, improved government efficiency, brought about world peace, ended world hunger?

ICFJ Knight Fellow Janine Warner: Perfectionism is the enemy of news startups

Frustrated by the constraints of traditional media, a growing number of journalists are interested in launching their own news startups, says Janine Warner, an ICFJ Knight Fellow who helps Latin American news entrepreneurs strengthen their business models. Too often, she says, when aspiring entrepreneurs come up with a great idea, two obstacles trip them up.

One is perfectionism. “If you’re an entrepreneur, waiting until everything is perfect is a problem,” Warner said in a recent interview with Chilean website Puroperiodismo.

The basics of phishing attacks: What journalists need to know to stay safe

Unless they cover technology, most journalists probably could not explain exactly how a cyberattack happens.

What We Learned Training South Africa's New Generation of Data Journalists

When Code for South Africa launched Africa’s first data journalism academy in February this year, we were trying to address a problem facing local newsrooms. We saw that South African newsrooms lacked the internal technical skills to start wrangling datasets and using them to find stories or to complement investigations.