Data Journalism Awards in Paris on 30 May 2012

The Data Journalism Awards, a sort of Pulitzer Prize for data journalism, will take place in Paris during the News World Summit 2012 at the opening gala dinner on 30 May 2012. The jury is chaired by Paul Steiger, managing editor of top investigative journalism newsroom ProPublica (www.propublica.org).

Last month, the 58 semifinalists were introduced at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia – including two Italian projects:  Toxic Europe - , about toxic waste trafficking in Europe, and Peoplemovin on migration flows. A few days ago the finalists were also announced, including Peoplemovin by Carlo Zapponi. There three nominations are a great success for the Italian journalism community, particularly given their independent nature in a context where most other projects are proposed by large news organizations.


In any case, as Nelson Mauro points out in his Digital First, some of them are quite interesting ideas and provide good insights also for Ahref’s iData project.

For instance, Riot Rumors (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/07/london-riots-twitter) how misinformation spread on Twitter during a time of crisis (The Guardian) helps to quickly find and fix inaccurate news that spreads so quickly in current events, such as in the London riot last August.

Country equivalents – interactive comparisons (The Economist) provides an interactive map of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data across the world – a useful tool in the on-going discussion about the GDP role for  actual development and prosperity in any given country.

Every death on every road in Great Britain 1999-2010 (BBC) offers an interactive map covering 36,000 accidents that occured in the last ten years in the UK, with descriptions, icons, and other clickable options – something that would be very useful in Italy too.

Your School (The Australian) lists over 10,000 National schools with related performances, equipment and other specific data. Last but not least, Phone-hacking scandal: Who’s linked to who? (BBC News), an interactive map of people, events, and timeline about the scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch and News of the World. A similar project would be crucial to expose the economic and political intrigues that characterize the Italian scene since a long time ago.