For his work as a Knight International Journalism Fellow, Harry Surjadi has won the 2013 Communications for Social Change Award. He developed a groundbreaking news channel in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, using mobile and FrontlineSMS texting. He also trained hundreds of indigenous citizens to be reporters for this new platform.
We invited everyone who wanted to rethink journalism to our city’s first Hacks/Hackers event, and drew about 120 people.
Less than two years later, at 1,700 members strong (and growing), we’ve held more than 20 events and a Media Party with keynotes, workshops and a hackathon. Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires has become a vibrant space for media innovation. We believe many people in Latin America would benefit from participating in Hacks/Hackers, so I'm helping drive its expansion in the region as part of my Knight International Journalism Fellowship.
Reporting on efforts to prevent infectious diseases through
immunization is a key part of health coverage. Journalists play an
important role in examining public health efforts, and in helping
readers and viewers understand how and why vaccines are used.
Kenya’s national election resulted in victory for Uhuru Kenyata, a man charged with crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. His top rival, Raila Odinga, has petitioned the Kenyan Supreme Court challenging the election. As the nation waits for the court’s ruling, Knight Fellow Joseph Warungu reflects on the election’s implications.
“Choices have consequences.”
That warning to Kenyans, issued almost a month before the election by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, played on the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots on March 4.
In Chile, a website called Poderopedia has recently been launched by Knight International Journalism Fellow Miguel Paz. A crowdsourced map of business and political power, Poderopedia aims to make connections between people more transparent. Paz explains how some of the powerful people profiled are also some of the site's best contributors, during this interview for the U.S.
In Ethiopia, where journalists usually vie to cover the economy, crime and entertainment, a new collective of 100 journalists and communicators is shining a spotlight on an often-neglected beat: health.
Ethiopia’s first organization of health journalists, the Addis Ababa Health Journalists Initiative, formed last month with the goal of boosting the quality and breadth of health coverage in the country.
Election campaigns in Kenya are normally noisy, lively and bloody. But this one had a difference. Instead of the usual three or four presidential candidates, there’ve been eight. There’s also been less bloodshed, but certainly more money spent in wooing the voter.
And for the first time ever, all candidates seeking the keys to State House – seven men and one woman – appeared together in public debates. There were three in February, broadcast live on radio and TV and streamed on the Internet.
Just 10 years ago, creating an interactive online map was complicated, if not impossible, for most Web users. Now, journalists can design attractive maps in the cloud and publish them in minutes.
And in recent years, the news industry has seen exciting opportunities for Web-based maps beyond Google. The two-year-old company MapBox is an important driver of this development.
A product of the Washington-based company Development Seed, MapBox gives newsrooms and bloggers the ability to control how maps look and what data appears on these maps.
Knight International Journalism Fellow Gustavo Faleiros is tapping ordinary, environmentally concerned citizens in the Amazon region to help contribute data and information to InfoAmazonia, his digital mapping project that tracks deforestation. Faleiros says "citizen science" movements like this one can be a powerful force for connecting communities, for telling stories about the environment and health, and for helping explain the problems and issues to policymakers.
