ICFJ Knight Fellowships

How To Make Open Data Relevant to the Public

It’s time to transform open data from a trendy concept among policy wonks and news nerds into something tangible to everyday life for citizens, businesses and grassroots organizations. Here are some ideas to help us get there:
**1.

Make Data Come Alive with Free, Simple Tool

To sustain user attention and drive audience engagement, journalists and news organizations should learn to use data visualizations.

Data visualizations let you explain a set of data simply with an infographic, an interactive application or a chart. With multiple stories competing for users' attention on the boundless Internet, data visualizations are a creative way to interest users in your content and add context or a different perspective to your story. Leading media organizations are using Datawrapper, a simple and free tool, to improve their storytelling.

To Cover Health Effectively, Journalists Must Look at the Big Picture

When a new health initiative is announced, journalists too often think they have an easy story to tell. They can quote officials on what the project will do and how quickly they expect it to eradicate a disease or improve the health of the people.

But if reporters think they are telling the whole story, they need to think again. These initiatives do not exist in isolation. Placing the new plan in context, and especially explaining where it fits within the overall health system, is critical to informing the public.

Brazil Knight Fellow Helps Kenyans Track Oil and Water Profits

In Kenya's poor, dry Turkana region, recent discoveries of water and oil could change the lives of residents who depend on food aid for survival.

In March 2012, the country's President Mwai Kibaki announced that oil had been discovered in Turkana after exploratory drilling by an Anglo-Irish oil firm. And last year, UNESCO announced that large reserves of groundwater had been discovered in the drought-ridden area.