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Getting Started in Online, Open-Source Investigations

At First Draft, we frequently receive emails from a whole range of people asking how they can start doing the sort of online open-source investigation and verification that they’ve seen us doing. The skills and methodologies used are all something that can be learnt through a little persistence, but here are a few pieces of advice to get you started.

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Freedom of Expression: Asia Pacific Round-Up

Threats to NGOs and civil society actors have escalated in a number of countries across Asia and the Pacific, among them the arrests of activists opposing the referendum in Thailand and supporters of the West Papua freedom movement in the Pacific.

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Digital Self-Defense for Journalists: An Introduction

Digital self-defense is becoming an important part of the journalistic toolkit. Beyond risks to everyone’s digital lives—webcam hacking, email breaches, identity theft—people who work in newsrooms have even more at stake. Newsrooms are some of the biggest targets in the world for state-sponsored digital attacks, as well as more routine threats.

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Top Ten #ddj: The Week’s Most Popular Data Journalism Links

What's the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for Aug 2-8: poverty redefined (@nytimes); Spain's elections (@politibot); Nigeria's debts (@BudgITng); subway directions, shown above (@nicolaskruchten); PokemonGo social divide (@lemondefr); 3D incident reconstruction (@TB_Times); & more.

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Seven Things You Need To Know about Non-Profit Journalism

There is a silent crisis afflicting our democracy: the implosion of journalism as we have known it. Its most obvious symptom is the tens of thousands of journalists who have lost their jobs in the last decade. Those jobs were never refilled. Economists may call this destruction of traditional journalism “creative” but it is nothing less than a pressing matter of national security.

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The Digital Journalist’s Toolbox: Video

Engaging and interactive journalism is still possible even without an extensive knowledge of coding. But how? We’ve taken the guesswork out, scouring the internet to find the most accessible tools to create multimedia content. Below, you’ll find a collection of completely free applications that will do all the work for you — no coding required. This week: video.

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Top Ten #ddj: The Week’s Most Popular Data Journalism Links

What's the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for July 25-Aug 1: terrorism deaths (@guardiandata); US demographics (@jh_viz); global science collaboration (@storybench); China's Africa aid (@EvaConstantaras); Alcohol use (@data_match); Nigerian money (@smartmonkeytv); & more.

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A New Era for Storytelling

In everyday journalism, to get the public to pay attention to your story, to make it not only truthful, but also credible and attractive, is a hard task. And it has become even harder in the digital era. Information flows constantly through our portable electronic devices, like a river of muddy waters, dragging the authentic pieces of story-telling together with the fake; the verified; and the gossip. So if journalists want to have any chance at succeeding in this battle, they must not only find good stories, but must also elevate their story-telling to an art.