Opportunity for journalists: Data Journalism Awards 2016

The Data Journalism Awards are the first international awards recognising outstanding work in the field of data journalism worldwide.

Launched in 2012, it is organised by the Global Editors Network, with support from the Google News Lab and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Previous winning organisations include The New York Times, The Guardian, ProPublica and La Nación.

The prizes for the DJA 2016 are worth 1,000€ each and will be awarded at a special ceremony at the Vienna City Hall during the sixth annual GEN Summit on 16 June 2016.

Simon Rogers, Data Editor at Google, will be the DJA Director for this year's competition which will take place under the presidency of Paul Steiger, Executive Chairman of ProPublica's board of directors. Hear from both of them on what to expect from this year's competition in this interview.

You can submit your project via the GEN Community platform.

Please provide as much information as you can about your project. Include anything that you feel is relevant and can help our jury with their decision. 

You can also see last year’s winners on our DJA 2015 page.

The deadline for submissions is Sunday 10 April 2016 at 23:59 GMT. 

If you don’t have an account on the GEN Community yet, you will need to create one. It is absolutely free to join and should only take a minute. When you’re logged in, submit your DJA 2016 project by clicking on “Submit a Project” here.

Who is eligible for prizes?

The Data Journalism Awards rewards outstanding work in the field of data journalism in any media worldwide. They reward examples of data-driven investigations, data-driven applications and storytelling with data visualisation, which cover matters relevant to society and aim to have an impact at a societal level.

• Media companies, non-profit organisations and freelancers or individuals are all eligible for the Data Journalism Awards.
• Works produced by individuals or teams of staffers from media companies and non-profit organisations, as well as freelancers or individuals are all eligible for entry.
• Works that are the result of a collaboration between organisations may also be submitted.
• Those works produced by staffers or freelancers collaborating with government agencies, business or trade organisations with a stake (financial or of other nature) in the issue at hand are not eligible.
• Works that include significant input from the members of the jury will not be accepted for entry into the competition.

The DJA administrators have the final authority to determine whether an entry is eligible or not.

Categories

The Data Journalism Awards 2016 will be awarding a 1,000€ prize to each of the twelve categories below. The Global Editors Network and its jury members wish you the best of luck for this year's competition and look forward to discovering your projects.

1. Data visualisation of the year (large newsroom). Best interactive or static visualisation based on data by a newsroom/team of more than 25 editorial staff. May be self-contained or combined with a story, but must accomplish a journalistic purpose and use data significantly. A maximum of three elements per entry. 1,000€ Prize

2. Data visualisation of the year (small newsroom). Best interactive or static visualisation based on data by a newsroom/team of less than 25 editorial staff. May be self-contained or combined with a story, but must accomplish a journalistic purpose and use data significantly. A maximum of three elements per entry. 1,000€ Prize

3. Investigation of the year (large newsroom). Best data-driven investigation, which uses data collection and analysis to disclose or spotlight a significant abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest by a newsroom/team of more than 25 editorial staff. A maximum of five elements – stories and data presentations – per entry. 1,000€ Prize

4. Investigation of the year (small newsroom). Best data-driven investigation, which uses data collection and analysis to disclose or spotlight a significant abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest by a newsroom/team of less than 25 editorial staff. A maximum of five elements – stories and data presentations – per entry. 1,000€ Prize

5. News data app of the year (large newsroom). Best data journalism application by a newsroom/team of more than 25 editorial staff. Interactivity is important and the project provides both explanation of the topic and an opportunity for users to explore the topic and create their own story. A maximum of five elements per entry. 1,000€ Prize.

6. News data app of the year (small newsroom). Best data journalism application by a newsroom/team of less than 25 editorial staff. Interactivity is important and the project provides both explanation of the topic and an opportunity for users to explore the topic and create their own story. A maximum of five elements per entry. 1,000€ Prize.

7. Data journalism website of the year. Best data-based journalism website, based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered. A maximum of ten examples per entry. 1,000€ Prize

8. Best individual portfolio. Based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered. A maximum of ten examples per entry. 1,000€ Prize

9. Best use of data in a breaking news story, within first 36 hours. Best data-based journalism around a breaking news story within the first hours of the story breaking. Based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered. 1,000€ Prize

10. Open data award. Using freedom of information and/or other levers to make crucial databases open and accessible for re-use and for creating data-based stories. 1,000€ Prize

11. General excellence (Jurors’ Choice). An entry of high excellence not otherwise honored in this competition. 1,000€ Prize

12. Public choice. An entry of high excellence selected by the public. 1,000€ Prize.

The Data Journalism Awards 2016 Jury

DJA Director

Simon Rogers is a data journalist, writer, speaker. Author of Facts are Sacred published by Faber & Faber and a new range of infographics for children books from Candlewick. Now Data editor at the Google News Lab, Simon previously edited and created guardian.co.uk/data, an online data resource which publishes hundreds of raw datasets and encourages its users to visualise and analyse them – and probably the world’s most popular data journalism website. He has also been a news editor at The Guardian, and was formerly Twitter's data editor.

 President of the Jury

Paul E. Steiger is Executive Chairman of ProPublica's board of directors. Steiger was the founding editor-in-chief, CEO and president of ProPublica from 2008 through 2012. As executive chairman, Steiger remains actively involved in strategic issues, development, representing ProPublica in public venues, and consulting with management on business and editorial issues on a part-time basis. Previously, Steiger served as the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 2007. During his tenure, members of the Journal’s newsroom staff were awarded 16 Pulitzer Prizes. In addition, ProPublica reporters received Pulitzer Prizes in May 2010 and 2011. Steiger is a member of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, based in Arlington, Va., which provides free legal assistance to journalists. From 1999 to 2007, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, serving as its chairman in his final year. He is a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, based in Miami, that funds efforts to enhance journalism and the functioning of American communities.

Jury Members

   

Justin Arenstein is director of Africa's largest data journalism initiative; Code for Africa. It operates NewsLabs in five African 'hub' countries, with projects in 20 additional countries that range from camera drones and sensors to collect data, to investigative technologies and citizen reporting tools. Code for Africa also runs the $1m/year innovationAFRICA and $750,000/year impactAFRICA funds for newsroom experimentation, and offers a range of fellowships that embed technologists or other specialists into watchdog media. Prior to founding Code for Africa, Arenstein was an award-winning investigative journalist and media entrepreneur. He continues to serve on a number of media industry advisory councils in Africa, Europe, and the U.S.A. 

Peter Barron, Vice President Communications Google EMEA, has been Director of Communications for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Google since July 2013.  He joined Google in 2008 and was previously Director of Communications and Public Affairs for North and Central Europe and from 2011 Director of External Relations, EMEA. Before joining Google he was editor of BBC2's Newsnight from 2004-2008 and worked in TV News and Current Affairs for nearly twenty years. He has also been deputy editor at Channel 4 News and Tonight with Trevor McDonald and devised and edited the BBC Current Affairs drama-documentary series 'If...'

Wolfgang Blau is the Chief Digital Officer of Condé Nast International. Prior to joining Condé Nast International he has been The Guardian's Director of Digital Strategy and a member of Guardian News & Media's executive committee. At The Guardian, Wolfgang was the editorial lead for developing the award-winning new sites and apps of Guardian USA, Guardian UK and Guardian Australia and instrumental in developing the Guardian's new global strategy and its new international edition. From 2008 to 2013, he was Editor-in-Chief of Zeit Online Germany, from 1999 to 2007 he worked as a media and technology reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Wolfgang is a Vice President of the Global Editors Network.

Liliana Bounegru is Researcher and Managing Director of the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam. She is also studying data journalism as a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Groningen and the University of Ghent. Through her work as Data Journalism Program Lead at the European Journalism Centre (EJC) she established, coordinated and co-edited The Data Journalism Handbook and DataDrivenJournalism.net, and coordinated the first edition of the Data Journalism Awards, the Doing Journalism with Data MOOC, the School of Data Journalism and numerous trainings and conferences. She tweets at @bb_liliana, and more about her can be found at lilianabounegru.org.

 Alberto Cairo teaches visualisation and infographics at the School of Communication at the University of Miami. He's also the director of the visualisation program at UM's Center for Computational Science and, beginning in June 2015, he will be the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the university. Cairo is the author of the book The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization. He has been a director of infographics at several publications in Spain and Brazil, and has taught and consulted for companies and educational institutions in more than 20 countries. In 2012 he created the first journalism Massive Open Online Course in the world, titled 'Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization,' which has attracted more than 14,000 students from 100 countries in its four editions.

Reginald Chua is Executive Editor, Editorial Operations, Data and Innovation at Thomson Reuters, where among other duties, he leads development of Reuters’ computer-assisted reporting and newsroom technology capabilities. Before joining Reuters in April 2011, Chua was Editor-in-Chief of the South China Morning Post. He began a 16-year career at The Wall Street Journal as a correspondent in Manila, opened the paper’s Hanoi bureau, was the longest-serving editor of its Asian edition and then moved to New York, where he served as a Deputy Managing Editor. A native of Singapore, Chua graduated with a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago.

Kenneth Cukier is the Data Editor of The Economist and co-author of “Big Data: A Revolution That Transforms How We Live, Work and Think,” a NYT Bestseller translated into over 20 languages. He was previously the technology editor of The Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong and a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2002-04. Kenneth serves on the board of directors of International Bridges to Justice, a Geneva-based NGO fostering legal rights in developing countries. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Steve Doig holds the Knight Chair, specializing in data journalism, at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism of Arizona State University. Before joining ASU in 1996, he was research editor of the Miami Herald. Data projects on which he worked at The Herald and at ASU have won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the IRE Award, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the George Polk Award, and other recognition. He consults actively with news organizations on complex data analysis stories, and has done data workshops in 18 countries. He has been a judge for the Investigative Reporters & Editors awards and for the Phil Meyer Precision Journalism Award.

Frédéric Filloux was appointed Head of Digital Operations at Les Echos in 2012. He is also co-writer of the Monday Note, a regular contributor for Slate.fr and teaches multimedia journalism at the Sciences Po School of Journalism in Paris. Prior to that, he was working as an Editor for the international division of the Norwegian media group Schibsted ASA. In 2002, he was part of the team who launched the free daily 20 Minutes in France. He has also worked for 12 years at Libération, successively as a business reporter, New York correspondent, editor of the multimedia section, manager of online operations, and, finally, editor of the paper.

  

Joshua Hatch is the Senior Editor for Data and Interactives at 'The Chronicle of Higher Education' and 'The Chronicle of Philanthropy', where he leads a team of designers, developers and reporters in creating data-driven interactive news stories. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Online News Association, where he runs the Online Journalism Awards and the organisation’s legal committee. Before joining 'The Chronicle', Hatch was at the Sunlight Foundation and was Interactives Director at USA TODAY. Hatch also teaches data journalism and interactive multimedia at American University.

Mohamed Nanabhay works at the intersection of media, technology and entrepreneurship. As the Head of Online at Al Jazeera English he led the team that produced the award winning coverage of the Arab revolutions in 2011. During his tenure, the website has seen a colossal increase in traffic and has been recognised by the Online News Association for general exellence in online journalism. In 2006, he founded the New Media division at Al Jazeera which focused on engaging audiences through social media and emerging media technologies. During this period he pioneered and launched the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository. As an Internet entrepreneur, Mohamed has been involved with developing online properties since 1995 and is an angel investor, providing seed funding and mentorship to early stage internet companies. Mohamed was named a Creative Commons Pioneer by BusinessWeek, serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Development Investment Fund and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Media. He received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science and History at the University of the Witwatersrand where he served as the Vice-President of the Student Union, and a masters degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. He is now Deputy CEO at Media Development Investment Fund in South Africa.

Shazna Nessa is director of journalism at Knight Foundation. She was a 2014 John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University, where her work focused on visual literacy and data visualization, using human-centered approaches. Previously she was a deputy managing editor at the Associated Press in New York, creating and leading teams on innovation projects around data, interactivity, mobile and social media. Shazna has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York. As an adjunct professor at CUNY, she created and taught the school’s inaugural design course.

Angelica Peralta Ramos (Momi) is  data journalism project manager and multimedia development manager at LA NACION newspaper from Argentina. She is Computer Scientist and MBA, since 2011 she leads a team and a project of Open Data Journalism named LA NACION DATA, that includes developing data driven journalism, open collaboration and open data in a country still without FOI law. She co-founded lanacion.com in 1995 and was product and digital media manager of New media at La Nacion until 2004. Since 2006 she has been in charge of La Nación Multimedia, a research, development and training area with focus on innovation and best practices in digital media. Her team also develops customised training programs for the newsroom on digital media and data journalism and coordinates cross platform content projects.

Aron Pilhofer is Executive Editor of Digital for the Guardian, where he leads the organisation's graphics, interactive, social media, community, data reporting and audience teams. He also is part of the senior newsroom leadership team helping drive The Guardian's digital transformation. Previously, Aron was AME of Digital Strategy and Editor of Interactive News for The New York Times, where he was responsible for helping develop and execute the newsroom's approach to technology, new product, analytics, interactives and social media. Aron also co-founded two news-related startups: DocumentCloud.org and Hacks & Hackers.

Paul Radu is Executive Director of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting  Project and Co-creator of the Investigative Dashboard Concept. He has held a number of fellowships including the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship in 2001, the Milena Jesenska Press Fellowship in 2002, the Rosalyn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism in 2007, the 2008 Knight International Journalism fellowship with the International Center for Journalists as well as a 2009-2010 Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship.  Radu is the recipient of numerous awards including the Knight International Journalism Award and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 2004, the Global Shining Light Award, the Tom Renner Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 2007 and the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting in 2011.

Mariana Santos is currently a JSK Knight Fellow at Stanford University and she is Director of interactive and animation at Fusion, a venture between Disney/ABC and Univision. Santos helped create The Guardian’s first interactive team and inspired by her mentor, Alastair Dant, she decided that there should be more mentoring by tech-savvy journalists to pass their experience on and motivate others to do disruptive visual storytelling in news. After 3 years as the designer on The Guardian’s interactive team, Santos received a fellowship with the International Center for Journalists to launch Chicas Poderosas to encourage and train female journalists in Latin America. The program features a mix of talks about journalism, data and visualization along with a 3-day hackathon to develop news applications and train participants in different processes and approaches to interactive journalism that they can apply in their newsrooms. Santos graduated from the University of Lisbon with a degree in communication design and wrote her her first motivational book: “If You Don’t Believe in Yourself, What do You Believe in?” She began her career as a motion designer at Universal Music Berlin. Driven to learn more, she immersed herself in digital media studies at Hyper Island in Stockholm.  

Giannina Segnini is a data journalist and consultant. She used to be Director of the Investigative Unit at the daily, La Nación, in Costa Rica. Her team of journalists and developers worked on a very unique model of database journalism. Segnini studied journalism at the University of Costa Rica and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She has trained hundreds of journalists on computer assisted reporting and has won honors such as the Ortega y Gasset Prize: the Best Journalistic Investigation (TILAC) and a special mention in the Maria Moors Cabot awards.