Build a real-time dataviz bot (for free!)

When it’s not busy playing host to cryptocurrency scams, Twitter remains a widely adopted platform for the distribution of bite-sized information. For that reason alone, it’s well-suited to sharing real-time data—especially via charts and graphics.

Getting started as an independent journalist

Hannah Yoon, independent visual journalist, Mason Trinca, documentary and editorial photojournalist, Sarah Fritsche, independent food writer and editor, and Maddie McGarvey, independent photographer,  joined our discussion on how to succeed as an independent journalist. We talked about healthcare, building your client base, making time for personal projects, invoicing & contracts, how to prepare for slow months … Continued

Facing the pressure to unpublish

This project represents my commitment to helping the industry solve a problem that editors say is rising in importance: how to respond to requests by members of the public to “unpublish”—typically meaning deleting or significantly altering—online news content that identifies them in a way that they would rather forget. Often, but not always, the request … Continued

Redefining local journalism: What is news?

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reynolds Journalism Institute or the University of Missouri. Since the advent of the Internet, many people have increasingly wondered: What is “news” in a universe of infinite information? What is a journalist’s role when anyone … Continued

5 lessons from creating my first AMP story

Caroline Watkins is the RJI Student Innovation Fellow at the Chatham News + Record in North Carolina. This summer our student fellows will be sharing dispatches from their fellowships in newsrooms across the country as a part of Innovation in Focus.  As part of my RJI Student Innovation Fellowship, I created my first-ever AMP story for The Chatham News + Record. I … Continued

How racism and discrimination affect Latino journalists

As human rights activists and journalists, we have worked for several decades to defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Latin American countries experiencing authoritarian regimes. We have struggled to overcome these challenges and gain fundamental rights and freedoms. Our RJI fellowship, an institutional fellowship with our organization, Fundamedios, in Washington D.C. … Continued

The promise of environmental data journalism

Over the course of this RJI fellowship, I’m working with the nonprofit environmental magazine Grist to think through what it’d mean to build out a national environmental data-journalism unit—and, in turn, to take what we learn at Grist and translate these lessons into guides for other small or nonprofit newsrooms that might find themselves interested in similar work. 

Interactive experiences: personalization and revisit value

For this Innovation in Focus, we spoke with Financial Times Data Reporter, David Blood, and Senior Developer, Ændrew Rininsland, to learn about how their interactive work has progressed, lessons learned, and see where they’re headed next. Greenway: How did you get started with interactive experiences? Rininsland: I’m a life-long web nerd and have been building web pages … Continued