ICFJ Knight Fellowships

Mozambique Newspaper Monitors Polling Places With New Citizen Reporting Tool

The editorial team at Mozambique's @Verdade newspaper is gearing up to report on the country's municipal elections in November and national elections next year. With 2,500 polling stations across the country to monitor, it’s a tough job for any newsroom, and especially for @Verdade’s, which has just an 11-person editorial staff.

That's where an innovative citizen reporter network comes into play.

For the first time ever, citizens are helping @Verdade to report on the election process.

Why Indonesia’s Farmers Are Using Cell Phones to Report the News

When a company in Indonesia reduced a passable village road to a pool of mud, local farmers reported the damage by text message to a local TV station, and the company was forced to fix the road.

Until recently, incidents like this usually went unreported by the media. The country's farmers were frequently forced off their property due to violations by hundreds of plantation companies, environmental journalist and media trainer Harry Surjadi told The Jakarta Post.

A Tribute to Sputnik Kilambi

Sputnik Kilambi, a tireless and passionate journalist and former Knight International Journalism Fellow, died on July 6 after a battle with liver cancer. She was 55.

A veteran broadcaster, Sputnik had worked in Africa, Asia and Europe covering wars and humanitarian crises. She also trained teams of reporters dedicated to journalistic excellence and promoting peace in countries wracked by violence and poverty.

How Newsrooms Can Use Data to Meet Community Needs

To cultivate a loyal audience in today's media environment, newspapers must do more than simply churn out stories.

Editors and their newsrooms should create usable products, like data-driven news and information tools, to serve their readers, said Knight International Journalism Fellow Justin Arenstein at the World Editors Forum in Bangkok during his master's class for editors.