The challenges and opportunities presented by the digital revolution continue to disrupt journalism. In an age of information abundance, journalists and citizens alike all need better tools, whether we're curating the samizdat of the 21st century in the Middle East, like Andy Carvin, processing a late night data dump, or looking for the best way to visualize water quality for a nation of consumers. As we grapple with the consumption challenges presented by this deluge of data, new publishing platforms are also empowering us to gather, refine, analyze and share data ourselves, turning it into information.
In 2012, there will be a
Pulitzer for "href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headlines/Article/Pulitzer-Prizes-for-Journalism-Move-to-All-digital-Entry-System--Revise-Definition-of-Local-Reporting-for-Breaking-News">real-time
reporting" and, fittingly, the href="http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/12/data-journalism.html">growing
importance of data journalism will be recognized in the href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jan/19/global-data-journalism-awards-google">first
ever international Data Journalism Awards.
The Data Journalism
Awards are organized by the Global Editors Network, Google, and the European Journalism Centre, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that has been running data journalism
workshops for years.
"Data journalism is a new, exciting part of the media industry, with at present only a small number of practitioners," said Peter Barron, Google's director of external relations, as href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/data-journalism-awards-now-accepting.html">quoted on Google's official blog.
"We are convinced that there is a bright future for journalism," href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/data-journalism-awards-now-accepting.html">said Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO of the Global Editors Network, speaking at
the announcement of the awards at Google's offices in London. "This is not just about developing new hardware like tablets. It is above all about producing exciting new content."
The jury that will choose the best data journalism of the year includes representatives from ProPublica, the New York Times, Thomson-Reuters, the Sunlight Foundation and La Nacion. Judges will select a winner for local/regional and national/international work from each the following three categories.
- data-driven investigative journalism
- Data visualization & storytelling
- Data-driven applications
A total of €45,000 (EUR) (or about $57,000) is up for distribution to the winners. The deadline for submissions is April 10, 2012. Any data journalism submitted must have been published or broadcast between April 11, 2011, and April 10, 2012. The winners of the data journalism awards will be announced at the Global News Network's World Summit in Paris on May 31, 2012.
To learn more about data journalism and the emerging newsroom stack, read more in the O'Reilly Radar.