45 - Data Journalism by, about and for Marginalized Communities

Summary

Abstract

Data journalism has a role to play in empowering marginalized communities to combat injustice, inequality and discrimination.

Keywords: data journalism, marginalized communities, injustice, inequality, discrimination, empowerment

I do data journalism in countries where things are widely considered to be going badly—as in not just a rough patch, not just a political hiccup, but entire political and economic systems failing. In such places, one reads that corruption has paralyzed the government, citizens are despondent and civil society is under siege. Things are going terribly. Producing data journalism in some of the most impoverished, uneducated and unsafe parts of the world has brought me to an important conclusion. Injustice, inequality and discrimination are ubiquitous, insidious and overlooked in most countries. Journalists I work with have unflinchingly embraced new tools to, for the first time, measure just how bad things are, who is suffering as a result, whose fault it is and how to make things better. In these contexts, journalists have embraced data as a means to influence policy, mobilize citizens and combat propaganda. Despite the constraints on free press, data journalism is seen as a means to empowerment.

This chapter explores data journalism by, about and for marginalized communities. By attending to different aspects of injustice, inequality and discrimination, and their broader consequences on the lives of marginalized communities, we render them visible, measurable and maybe even solvable. These stories engage journalists deeply rooted in marginalized communities. They tap into issues that groups which face institutional discrimination care about to foster citizen engagement. They are disseminated through local mass media to reach large numbers of people and pressure governments into making better decisions for the whole country. In what follows I will discuss five kinds of data journalism stories that attend to the interests and concerns of marginalized communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and the Balkans.

Why Are People Going Hungry if Our Country Has Enough Resources to Feed Everyone?

In Kenya, donors were funding exactly the wrong food programmes. A 12-minute television story by NTV's Mercy Juma about Turkana, an isolated, impoverished region of Northern Kenya, revealed that malnutrition in children is a growing problem as drought and famine become more frequent and intense.