As tablets and e-readers become a growing trend for news consumers, the newspaper O Globo launched the first digital edition in Brazil designed for iPad, “O Globo a mais,” on Jan. 30. The initiative is a sign of the news industry’s interest in developing new platforms for its content.
The first time my wife sent me a Facebook IM asking if I wanted to go out for lunch, I realized – with some hesitant nostalgia – that we were about to cross another threshold into the age of digital communication. I was sitting at my computer in my home office and my wife was 20 feet away, sitting on the couch with her laptop. I could have (and perhaps should have) turned to her and nodded “yes, dear, let’s go hunt for sandwiches,” but instead I dutifully took the plunge with her into the next level of cyberdom by typing: “Si amor, vamos.”
Poderopedia, a way to look for and spread information about who has the power in Chile, has received $200,000 as one of the 16 winning projects of the Knight News Challenge 2011. Created by journalist Miguel Paz, assistant editor of El Mostrador, and by web developer Héctor Vergara, Poderopedia aims to be a database that will serve as a map of Chilean elites. The website will investigate and illustrate the connections among people, companies and institutions with the end goal of shedding light on any possible conflicts of interest. The information for the database will be obtained via collective participation, simila
Discussions of innovations in media, technology, languages and platforms were just some of the central themes when journalists from throughout Brazil gathered June 30–July 2 in São Paulo at the 6th International Congress of Investigative Journalism organized by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. The program covered dozens of topics, ranging from the format of news on tablets to the practice of independent journalism on the web.
Tools for managing, visualizing, and distributing data was a recurring theme in the 16 vanguard media projects that will share $4.7 million in funding from the 2011 Knight News Challenge. Since it began in 2006, the initiative, primarily funded by the John S. and James L Knight Foundation, has given out $27 million to 76 projects to promote journalistic innovation.
Inspired by the recent protests in Spain that, since March, have demanded economic and electoral system changes, filmmaker Raquel Diniz, 31, created a collaborative map to pinpoint cases of corruption in Brazil, according to Folha de S. Paulo.
”Crowdfunding”, a term used to describe networking, usually via the Internet, to pool money and resources, is starting to take off in Brazil. An explosion of crowdfunding websites, like Catarse, Multidão, Movere and Benfeitoria, are just some to come on the scene.
Five years after its creation, a Portuguese version of the micro-blogging service Twitter is in the works, the site announced. According to Terra, the site is looking to crowdsource the translation to volunteers.
Violence in Saltillo has increased in recent months, putting us in new risky situations where social media is a way to break the silence enforced by criminal groups. It is not the best substitute, but considering the lack of protection journalists in Coahuila state have, there is no other option.
The Brazilian online site Journalists on the Web has published a virtual interactive map with information about urban massacres -- particularly in schools -- from around the world. The map was launched one day after the April 7 school shooting in Río de Janeiro, in which 12 people died.