The most controversial activist organisation of the 21st century, WikiLeaks has attracted strong, divergent opinions from across the political spectrum. Lauded by its supporters for its indispensable role in holding governments, corporations, and human rights abusers to account, its advocates and journalists have been excoriated by opponents as traitors, threats to legitimate governments, and misogynists. Yet so much media attention is focused upon founder Julian Assange, and his ongoing confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, that the broader dimensions of WikiLeaks are rarely aired. Especially critical in these omissions is the role of women, both in the organisation and the more general struggle for information freedom.

The protagonists of the new book:Women, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks will be in conversation to discuss the themes of their new book and show the various ways they’ve been at the forefront of such activity: acclaimed journalist and human rights advocate Sarah Harrison, Croatian-German theatre director, activist and author Angela Richter, and Renata Avila, a celebrated Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights expert. Ranging widely, from the dishonesty of the mainstream media and its contrasting treatment of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning to the terrifying monopolisation of personal data under tech behemoths such as Facebook and Google, join us for an ongoing debate around digital activism.

Link to book can be found here.

Chair

Pamela Anderson has a portfolio of work that encompasses entertainment and activism. She is a supporter of the Courage Foundation, that supports whistleblowers including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. She is a board member of both PETA and The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The Pamela Anderson Foundation  supports organisations and individuals that stand on the front lines, in the protection of human, animal, and environmental rights

Speakers

Renata Avila is a Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights expert. She has played a central role in the international team of lawyers representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his staff. An access to knowledge activist, she is on the Board of Creative Commons and is a trustee of the Courage Foundation.

Sarah Harrison is a renowned British journalist and human rights defender. A former researcher with the London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Harrison left to work at WikiLeaks during the height of its groundbreaking publication of US military and State Department documents in 2010. She is also a co-founder of the Courage Foundation.

Angela Richter is an acclaimed Croatian-German theatre director, activist and author. She founded the Fleet Street Theatre in Hamburg in 2001, and was house director at the Cologne National Theatre Schauspiel Köln from 2013 to 2016. Her interest in WikiLeaks led to the 2012 theatre piece “Assassinate Assange.” In 2015, Richter staged the large scale transmedia-project “Supernerds” in co-production with German national TV WDR, dealing with mass surveillance. The text was based on conversations with digital dissidents and whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg and Julian Assange. “Supernerds” received the Eyes & Ears Media Award, was nominated for the SXSW Innovation Award in Texas, and is nominated for the BANFF Award in Canada.

We call data journalism evidence-based journalism or precision journalism. Yes, it’s a little arrogant, but it has produced results and investigations that were not possible in the absence of data mining skills. This practical one-day workshop is designed for journalists who seek a gentle introduction into data journalism. You’ll learn how to interview digital sources using Excel, find patterns in data that lead to clues for deeper digging, how to report numbers and produce evidence-based reporting. We have conspired to get you over the technical hump in a day.

What you will cover:
● Finding data sets, quick and easy, on any website: boolean searches and advanced google searches
● Asking journalistic questions from a dataset using basic formulas. We’ll also talk about what numbers mean, how to report them and traps to avoid
● Sorting and filtering
● Mining data with pivot tables
● You will also get a taste of correlations: can data prove that poverty influences school test results, beyond anecdotal evidence?

Throughout the workshop, we will also be talking about data management, formatting, bu also legal aspects related to transparency and privacy.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: This workshop is for those with no experience in data journalism, wishing to make their first step onto the data journalism ladder. If you’re already familiar with most of the course’s content, this course is not for you.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED: To ensure you get the full benefit of the training, you will need to bring a laptop for which you have admin rights. You will need to have a version of EXCEL installed (2016 for MACs, 2010 or newer for PCs). Excel online, Excel version for tablets or Google Spreadsheets would not be appropriate for all training parts. For additional technical queries and assistance, please contact the trainer directly at @CrinaBoros on Twitter.

About the trainer:
Crina Boros is an award-winning freelance journalist and data trainer at The Centre for Investigative Journalism. She teaches computer-assisted reporting internationally. Crina has covered cartels and corruption in the fishing industry for Greenpeace UK, women’s rights and climate change for The Thomson Reuters Foundation, abuse of migrant workers for BBC, murky money for ICIJ’s Swiss Leaks team, money laundry for OffshoreAlert and public funding and asylum seekers for Exaro News among many.

Spreadsheet journalism, also known as data journalism or computer-assisted reporting, is catching fire across Europe, yielding evidence-based news and investigations that were not possible in the absence of data mining skills.

This practical and bespoke one day hands-on workshop is designed for journalists who seek a gentle introduction into data journalism. You’ll learn how to interview digital sources using the power of Excel, find patterns in data that lead to clues for deeper digging, how to report numbers and produce evidence-based reporting. We have conspired to get you over the technical hump in class.

What you will cover:

• Finding data sets, quick and easy, on any website
• Asking journalistic questions from a dataset
• You’ll learn maths for journalists, as well as what numbers to report and traps to avoid
• Cleaning and formatting dirty data, and curating your own spreadsheet reporting
• Exploring patterns in datasets
• Mining data with pivot tables
• How to spot red flags, discover, ask and negotiate for data
• You will discover correlations and learn how to verify whether one fact influences another.

About the trainer:

Crina Boros is an award-winning freelance journalist and data trainer at The Centre for Investigative Journalism who teaches computer-assisted reporting internationally. She has covered cartels and corruption in the fishing industry for Greenpeace UK, women’s rights and climate change for The Thomson Reuters Foundation, abuse of migrant workers for BBC, murky money for ICIJ’s Swiss Leaks team, money laundry for OffshoreAlert and public funding and asylum seekers for Exaro News among many. She is also part of Investigate Europe consortium of cross-border journalists and has organised the Computer-Assisted Reporting training at Data Harvest 2016.

What you’ll need:

This course teaches strategic skills for journalists for data analysis in a spreadsheet. To ensure you get the full benefit of the training, you will need to bring a laptop with Excel 2007 or Excel 365 for PCs, Excel 2016 for MACs and an inquisitive mind. Excel online, Excel version for tablets or Google Spreadsheets would not be appropriate for all training parts.

For additional technical queries and assistance, please contact the trainer directly at @CrinaBoros on Twitter.

Spreadsheet journalism, also known as data journalism or computer-assisted reporting, is catching fire across Europe, yielding evidence-based news and investigations that were not possible in the absence of data mining skills.

This practical and bespoke one day hands-on workshop is designed for journalists who seek a gentle introduction into data journalism. You’ll learn how to interview digital sources using the power of Excel, find patterns in data that lead to clues for deeper digging, how to report numbers and produce evidence-based reporting. We have conspired to get you over the technical hump in class.

What you will cover:

• Finding data sets, quick and easy, on any website
• Asking journalistic questions from a dataset
• You’ll learn maths for journalists, as well as what numbers to report and traps to avoid
• Cleaning and formatting dirty data, and curating your own spreadsheet reporting
• Exploring patterns in datasets
• Mining data with pivot tables
• How to spot red flags, discover, ask and negotiate for data
• You will discover correlations and learn how to verify whether one fact influences another.

About the trainer:

Crina Boros is an award-winning freelance journalist and data trainer at the Centre for Investigative Journalism who trains computer-assisted reporting internationally. She has covered cartels and corruption in the fishing industry for Greenpeace UK, women’s rights and climate change for The Thomson Reuters Foundation, abuse of migrant workers for BBC, murky money for ICIJ’s Swiss Leaks team, money laundry for OffshoreAlert and public funding and asylum seekers for Exaro News among many. She is also part of Investigate Europe consortium of cross-border journalists and has organised the Computer-Assisted Reporting training at Data Harvest 2016.

What you’ll need:

This course teaches strategic skills for journalists for data analysis in a spreadsheet. To ensure you get the full benefit of the training, you will need to bring a laptop with Excel 2007 or Excel 365 for PCs, Excel 2016 for MACs and an inquisitive mind. Excel online, Excel version for tablets or Google Spreadsheets would not be appropriate for all training parts.

For additional technical queries and assistance, please contact the trainer directly at @CrinaBoros on Twitter.

Acts of journalism should be shielded from targeted surveillance, data retention and handover of material connected to confidential sources. This is a key early finding from a recent study commissioned by UNESCO on the state of journalistic source protection in 121 countries.

Early findings from the study, Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age, authored by Australian journalist and journalism academic Julie Posetti, indicate that legal source protection frameworks in many of the countries studied are outdated and need strengthening. It also shows that they are being eroded by national security and anti-terrorism legislation; undercut by surveillance – both mass and targeted; and jeopardised both by mandatory data retention policies and pressure applied to third party intermediaries to release data.

UNESCO commissioned the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) to undertake the study and Posetti led the project in her capacity as WAN-IFRA Research Fellow.

In an event in partnership with the Foreign Press Association, we will be joined by the author of the study and other experts to discuss the implications of the findings and what needs to be done to ensure journalists can fully protect their sources.

Chaired by journalist, writer and Foreign Press Association President, Paola Totaro.

The panel:

Julie Posetti is an Australian journalist and journalism academic. A former news editor, presenter and political reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Posetti is currently based in Paris as a research fellow with the World Editors Forum and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. She is completing a PhD on “The Twitterisation of Journalism” at the University of Wollongong, Australia, where she teaches social journalism, radio, TV and multimedia storytelling. She recently completed a major UNESCO-commissioned study of journalistic source protection in the digital era in 121 countries for WAN-IFRA.

Gavin Millar QC has a broad practice spanning media, information, public, criminal, employment and discrimination law. He is a noted specialist in all areas of media law including defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, publishing contempts and reporting restrictions. He often represents media outlets, journalists and politicians in both civil and criminal proceedings.

Jonathan Calvert is the longest serving editor of the The Sunday Times’ Insight team in its 50 year history, having held the job for a decade. His first scoop for the team was exposing the cash for questions scandal as an undercover Insight reporter in 1994, and he soon after became investigations editor at The Observer where he oversaw a string of major exclusives. Since returning to The Sunday Times he has headed a long line of exclusives – most recently the Fifa files investigation which made waves around the world.

Paul Myers is a BBC internet research specialist. He joined the BBC in 1995 as a news information researcher. He also runs The Internet Research Clinic, a website dedicated to directing journalists to the best research links, apps and resources. His role in the BBC Academy sees him organise and deliver training courses related to internet investigation, data journalism, freedom of information, reporting statistics, working with social media, web design and image production. He has worked with leading programmes like Panorama, Watchdog, national news bulletins, BBC Online, local & national radio and the World Service.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Dan Knowles, Nicola Hughes and Michael Blastland discuss data journalism

Blastland, along with fellow data journalists Mona Chalabi of The Guardian’s Datablog, Dan Knowles of The Economist and Nicola Hughes of The Times, chaired by Conrad Quilty-Harper of Ampp3d and formerly The Telegraph, had been brought together by Grapevine to give aspiring journalists an insight into the industry. The evening was a follow up on the organisation’s first event in April 2013 which brought together the country’s top student newspapers.

Read highlights of the second panel discussion here.

It's a full house #fbj pic.twitter.com/QeLUOOZdNz

— Max Benwell (@Max_Benwell) January 23, 2014

Quilty-Harper started the discussion by asking Blastland how data journalism had changed since he published his book The Tiger That Isn’t in 2008.

Blastland:

“The origin of the data does get better, we have a lot more people watching it for a start…[but] there’s huge amounts of uncertainty in recording numbers, there’s great difficulty in the interpretation numbers that go up and down all the time…there’s a lot of data.”

Hughes said that part of a data person’s job is trying to find out where problems can arise and to be constantly asking questions.

“A data person would be able to see whether the numbers are telling the truth or has an agenda. It’s about really understanding the integrity.”

http://twitter.com/bspeed8/status/426445622871605248

Knowles said that a lot of his job is looking at data, which has already been told, and debunking it:

“Mostly it’s just how do you get past the headline statistic and digging through spread sheets and finding a trend that nobody’s spotted… You have to self police and make sure that something that looks brilliant and gives you a fantastic statistic isn’t actually a blip.”

Quilty-Harper added:

“Interrogating the data is an intrinsically journalistic activity. You’re checking verifying, finding out whether it’s true essentially.”

Chabali said that the key to data journalism is going deeper into the story than just the data and interviewing people on the ground:

“They provide us with the backstory of the ‘why’ because so much of what we do is just describing ‘what’.”

http://twitter.com/kathryn42/status/426451235781488640

Knowles added:

“You have to combine it with interviews, it’s not enough to have a spread sheet and go ‘oh this is really interesting’… you have to start with the spread sheet but…then you go visit somewhere and you interview people and then you write the story.”

Oliver Franklin of GQ in the audience asked how has the Internet and social media changed the representation of data?

There are many more ways to tell it Knowles replied:

“The freedom of the internet is that you have an unlimited amount of space. You can have this story told through data visually as well as the text underneath it.”

But with so many ways of representing the data do all journalists need to be able to handle data to some degree?

Hughes:

“What you need is more data journalists to let you deal with the raw ingredients and not wait for the press release or the end result statistics…what they’re [organisations] doing now is they’re releasing the data raw… saying ‘we’ve done what we said we’d do we’re not hiding anything’. The problem previously was access to the data, now it’s too much data.”

The initial problem was that data was inaccessible, now it's that it's overwhelming. #fbj

— Hari Sethi (@Hari_Sethi) January 23, 2014

http://twitter.com/MirrenGidda/status/426450151918813184

Quilty-Harper ended by asking the panel, what are their dos and don’ts for those wanting to get into data journalism?

Chabalis:

Do have an instinct to not merely describe – also analyse why.
Don’t be afraid of being able to master different things, you can’t just be a good writer, you can’t just be familiar with spread sheets, you need to know the basics of coding, you need to know several different tools (or know someone who does).
Do not be arrogant – not only checking other people but check yourself.

Knowles:

Learn to use the ONS (Office for National Statistics) website – that will give you an advantage.
Learn how to find statistics quickly.
Learn how to pick a statistic that’s valid and that can debunk or prove a story.

Hughes:

Do not feel you need to be taught something to be able to do it, do not rely on anyone else to teach you – Google it. There are so many free resources.

Blastland:

“Don’t be seduced by the glamour of exciting flashy stuff, remember that you can produce rubbish very easily and seductively with all those techniques. If you do not have the skills of statistical inference to make sure that you are saying something legitimate, all the rest is rubbish. Exciting rubbish.”

Following the success of their events, Grapevine are launching a data-focused site in the coming months. Get in touch with Harry Lambert (@harrylambert1), Max Benwell (@maxbenwellreal) or Rebecca Choong Wilkins at contact@grapevinevents.co.uk.

Watch and listen back:

This workshop is intended to give a comprehensive introduction to the theory and techniques of modern data-driven journalism.

Combining theoretical elements, practical exercises and a bespoke online learning resource, this two-day workshop seeks to give you tangible data analysis skills that can be immediately applied to your journalism.

Despite being pitched at an introductory level this course will take you to a fully self-sufficient level. All the software used during the course will either be freeware or the commonly available versions of Microsoft Office. This course would particularly suit freelance journalists or journalists looking to establish a data analysis team within the context of a more traditional news room.

What you will cover:

• You will be introduced to the potential of data journalism within modern journalistic practice.
• Find the “So what?” within data journalism.
• Differentiate between good and bad data sources.
• Familiarise yourself with the full life cycle of data journalism from finding data, analysing data and then finally presenting data in a meaningful way.
• Use the web for collecting data in a more relevant way – meta search engines, data scraping and exploiting social networks.
• Analysing data – basic descriptive stats, social network analysis, quantitative vs qualitative analysis.
• Ethics and pitfalls of data journalism – what is legal and what is not?
• Get a practical introduction to more advanced techniques such as data mining and programming.

About the instructor:
Stewart K. Bertram is a career analyst, combining professional experience in Military and Cyber Intelligence with an MSc in Computing and an MLitt in Terrorism Studies from St Andrews. Prior to his current role as a freelancer, Bertram managed a cyber underground research team looking at the threats from cyber terrorism, cyber crime and cyber espionage. Learning his analytical skills in UK military intelligence he is keen to impart his skills to those with an interest in data and transparency.

What you’ll need:
This course is highly practical in nature and adopts the “talk a bit, do a bit” approach to learning. As such, each student will need their own computer with a copy of Microsoft Office (Excel and PowerPoint minimum).

A reception and two discussions about the future of British journalism was held at the Fronline Club on April 17, 2013.

Sam Coates, Banking Editor at The Times, hosted the first panel of young journalists and addressed the audience of representatives of 35 of the country’s best student papers:

“I wanna give you a flavour about what is brilliant about journalism. About why it is the best job. It’s a job that my friends now are jealous of.”

Joshi Herrmann, Lucy Fisher and Jennifer O’Mahony were giving helpful advice to student reporters.

The panel included James Ball, data journalist at The Guardian and City tutor, Joshi Herrmann, feature writer for The Evening Standard, Lucy Fisher, world affairs journalist for The Sunday Times and Jennifer O’Mahony who works at the Online News Desk for The Telegraph.

All four got into full-time journalism jobs through different paths: Fisher “jumped at every internship opportunity and slept on friends’ couches,” O’Mahony started blogging in France, interned in Malta and in the US then got into freelancing, Ball worked for a small trade publication in Crawley and Herrmann edited The Tab in Cambridge.

Advice to journalists who think it's cute not to understand data from @jamesrbuk "if you don't know numbers, piss off right now" #FBJEvent

— Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) April 17, 2013

Herrmann recommended:

“I think there is a slight danger in student papers when they are commenting on national events(. . .). When you show your cuts in an interview, editors often want to see what things you have discovered in your university. That shows that you could transfer that skill. If your portfolio only shows opinion pieces about the Middle East, that will have less appeal for editors because they already have people who are great at that.”

When the discussion was opened up to the packed forum, a member of the audience asked if and how the interests of owners and advertisers affect their jobs.

The panel agreed they have never been told what to write or when to be kind to people, although Ball addressed a more subtle problem:

“When you do a story, you want it to get as much space as possible. You are always serving a particular readership. I know what story would go on page one and what would go down on page seventeen, and that affects what story I chose.”

When Ball asked Fisher whether the only future for print will be the Sunday papers, Fisher replied:

“I definitely think that Sunday journalism will and should remain in print because part of the joy of the Sunday Times is that it’s got these beautiful supplements. (…) The photography is world-class, and it’s just not the same even on a shiny new iPad. I think in terms of daily journalism, there is more need for it to be 24-hour online, whereas weekly journalism is much more investigative.”

Relating to the value within online journalism, a student raised the controversial question about whether the future are pay walls. O’Mahony summarised:

“We [The Telegraph] have gone into a system that is very similar to the New York Times: You get 20 articles for free and then start to pay. Before working for a a national paper, I was coming from a blogging background. A lot of the time that’s people who are very committed to open-source and who want all content for free. I no longer believe that’s right. I don’t see why my colleagues in Syria who are risking their lives every day should come for free. I hope that people always pay for quality.”

Ball ended the first discussion with optimistic closing remarks:

“Today, more people are reading journalism than ever before by a huge number. We’re not diminishing, we’re growing. We just have to work out a way how to not run out of money”

Been on a panel with @samcoatestimes @LOS_Fisher and @jamesrbuk at the Frontline Club. Now the big dogs are up. pic.twitter.com/koHK79ind4

— Joshi Herrmann (@joshi) April 17, 2013

After a break for drinks, nibbles and networking, the second panel discussion began. Hosted by Steve Richards, chief political commentator at The Independent, a team of editors from the UK’s most influential papers came together to discuss issues such as the funding of investigative reporting and the future of magazine publishing.

 John Witherow, Editor of The Times, said:

“I think this is a fantastic age for journalism. People are under such scrutiny now, people who know a lot more about you as a journalist and are gonna comment on it. So all the time, standards are rising in the quality of what you’re reading about. (. . .) I don’t think people realise that newspapers today are so much better than 50 years ago. Back then, they were pretty mundane.”

Addressing some of the problems of investigative journalism, Ian Katz, Deputy Editor of The Guardian, concluded:

“Investigative journalists produce a relatively small amount of words per year but often they are the most important ones. But they need a lot of legal and expert support. The big challenge is how we fund that. What we see around the world now is that there are a lot of non-profit foundations who support the work of these journalists. It must be at the core of what we do.”

Steve Richards, Ian Katz, John Witherow and Sarah Baxter were addressing issues like pay walls, funding of investigative reporting and ways into the industry.

Sarah Baxter, Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine was asked about whether magazine journalism was as vulnerable as the rest and how its future looked, particularly online:

 “I think it’s one of the great myths that people don’t enjoy long pieces on the web. One of our exposés about Goldman Sachs had a great impact in America, that wouldn’t have been possible without the web. (. . .) I find it’s a great test. If a story keeps me me engaged on my iPhone, I know it’s a winner. It’s either good journalism or it isn’t and I don’t think we should worry too much about platforms.”

The event was sponsored by City University London, Cardiff University , Teach First and Orillo. It was organised by Grapevine Events.

Watch both discussions here:

This one-day workshop will help you achieve this, guiding you through the essentials of data journalism; from spreadsheet basics, finding stories within the numbers, to eventually building them into a visual representation.

The morning sessions will be covering the basics of data journalism and spreadsheets, with the afternoon being spent mapping the stories found within the data.

Participants will be required to bring their own laptop with a pre-installed copy of a spreadsheet software.

The workshop will be facilitated by data journalist and editor of The Guardian Datablog and Datastore, Simon Rogers. He is also author of Facts are Sacred: The Power of Data.

10-11.30: Introduction to data journalism
11.30-11.45: Coffee break
11.45-1.15: Spreadsheet basics
1.15-2.15: Lunch Break
2.15-3.45: Representing data part #1
3.45-4pm: Coffee Break
4-5pm: Representing data part #2 and questions

The workshop will be held in the Forum on the second floor of the Frontline Club,13 Norfolk Place, London, W2 1QJ.

Image Credit: Oxford Internet Institute, (Dr Mark Graham, Scott A. Hale and Monica Stephens)

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Data is the future, if it’s not already the present.