Postdata.club is a new website for data journalism was recently launched in Cuba by an interdisciplinary team of five members whose objective is to make it easier to understand information of public interest that is based on data.
After its launch on Sept. 23, the team published a report about issues of identity and right to privacy, about the risks for Cubans posed by the current leak of information from the database of the state telecommunications company on the island, la Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (Etecsa).
“Postdata.club is the first project in Cuba that is fundamentally oriented to data journalism,” said founding journalist Saimi Reyes to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
The project began earlier this year as an initiative of Reyes and Yudivián Almeida, a doctor of mathematical sciences.
Both decided to join forces and disciplines to create a data journalism site where they could tell stories based on interpretation of data of social interest in Cuba.
Reyes completed his thesis on social networks, and Almeida, a graduate of Computer Science and professor at the University of Havana, heads a research group on information analysis, among other topics.
Later, reporters Ernesto Guerra, Jessica Domínguez and Aymara Vigil joined the group.
Starting six months before the launch of the site, the entire team worked on the conception, design, name and programming for the project.
“As a new project and with us entering a topic in which we don’t have much experience, we are learning every day about how to produce data journalism,” Reyes told the Knight Center.
Their main needs at this time, she said, are to obtain more knowledge and skills to perform this type of work. So, they plan to optimize and adjust the design of the site in the coming months.
“Since we work on a voluntary and collaborative basis, we don’t have a person on the team that is professionally responsible for this [technical] area,” Almeida explained to Knight Center.
It is a challenge to organize and process the information in the public databases to which they gain access. In the case of state institutions that give them access, they usually find databases without any kind of updates, order or structure.
Today, there is no law or bill in Cuba for free access to public information. Additionally, media on the island cannot be privately owned.
While there are many initiatives of independent journalists and blogger activists on the island, they only aspire, in the best cases, to be tolerated by the government. Some are blocked to internet users inside the country.
Also, Postdata,club plans to publish in the near future on topics related to baseball, medication, retail, movies and more.
“In addition, according to the news environment and the volume of data available, we will create less extensive projects, more like supplements,” Almeida said.
Regarding the readership for Postdata.club, thanks to emails, comments on their social network accounts, and statistics viewed on Google Analytics, they have noted a good reception to their site among internet users.
However, although the Cuban government has said that its goal is to provide internet to 50 percent of Cuban households and to reach 6 percent mobile penetration in 2020, Cuba continues to be the country with the least internet connectivity in the hemisphere, according to The Miami Herald.
Currently, only 25 percent of Cubans use the Internet and just five percent can access it from their homes. The network continues to be unaffordable for the average Cuban’s wallet, according to an Amnesty International report on censorship in Cuba.
Although the government has opened new points of free Wifi in some plazas and establishments through the island, and has halved the hourly rate for internet connection, access to information has remain unchanged for Cubans, who still use the internet for entertainment and to interact with family and friends on social networks, according to Diario de Cuba.
Additionally, the emergence of independent bloggers and online news sites in Cuba, according to Amnesty International, is still hampered by the authorities who continue to exert pressure on journalism that is critical of the government.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
