PCIJ finalist in 1st Data Journ Awards

THE PHILIPPINE CENTER for Investigative Journalism has been selected as one of 57 finalists in the running for the first international Data Journalism Awards (DJA) held by the Global Editors Network (GEN) and Google.

The awards are an international competition “to recognize outstanding work in the growing field of data journalism,” said award organizers.

The story Opaque LGUS the norm in NCR published on July 27, 2011, was selected by a panel of three external experts out of 300 submissions from over 60 countries. The story was based on research done by PCIJ editors and interns on the freedom of information practices of local government units in the Philippines’ National Capital Region, or NCR.

The selection puts the PCIJ in the running for the final round of judging, to begin in the middle of this month. A jury of data journalism experts will select six winners based on the following categories:

• data-driven investigative journalism, nationa/international
• data driven investigative journalism, local/regional
• data visualization, national/international
• data visualization, local/regional
• data-driven applications, national/international
• data-driven applications, local/regional

The six winners will be announced during the DJA ceremony at the News World Summit in Paris on May 31, 2012.

“We’re excited to see so many and such high quality entries for the first global data journalism awards,” said Peter Barron, Director of External Relations of Google, one of the sponsors of the award. “It’s clear that working with data is quickly becoming an important part of the journalist’s toolkit.”

“The entries to the Data Journalism Awards give you a rich cross-section of what is going on in this nascent field,” added Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator for the Open Knowledge Foundation.

The list of finalists may be viewed here:

datajournalismawards.org:
http://datajournalismawards.org/nominees/