Through our data journalism program, Microsoft has worked with more than 100 partners to help them towards their goals to share more transparent storytelling, data-backed reporting, and interactive visualizations so that readers can at once grasp the big picture and also delve into what is important to them.
We’re happy to share in the announcement of our data journalism grant partnership with the Knight Center of the Americas at the University of Texas, Austin. Chosen from a contest open to journalists in Latin America who had previously taken a Knight Center course, an investigative project delving into Mexico’s missing girls and women will received $10,000 in financing and hands-on (virtual) training.
Journalist Itxaro Arteta from Mexico-based news site Animal Político will spearhead the project in a country where official counts say 19,450 girls, adolescents and women are reported missing. Half are between the ages of 10 and 24. “It tells us that maybe it has to do with violence against women,” Arteta said. “And that is an issue that has been paid a lot of attention in the last year, and there is still a lot of resistance in Mexico.”
“This funding and training initiative is a reflection of Microsoft’s and the Knight Center’s shared commitment to delivering free training to help newsrooms achieve more and better serve their audiences. It’s also a reflection of the need for journalists to develop data journalism skills,” said Mallary Tenore, Knight Center’s associate director. “We are happy to be teaming up with Microsoft to support Itxaro Arteta and Animal Político at a time when the need for data journalism training in Latin America has never been greater.”
While it had no bearing on the competition, we’re thrilled that Animal Político is among the 1,200 MSN partners representing 4,500 brands around the world. “Last year, Microsoft President Brad Smith listed safeguarding and empowering journalism as one of the top 10 challenges for the next decade, and our partnership with the Knight Center, Animal Político, and Ms. Arteta is an expression of our commitment to tackling that challenge,” said Ben Rudolph, Managing Director of Microsoft News Labs. “By empowering journalists with technology and training, we can augment their creativity and curiosity, enabling them to more effectively tell stories that move the world forward.”
Read more about Arteta’s project here.
See past examples of data journalism projects including:
