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Newsrooms Rethink a Crime Reporting Staple: The Mugshot

Keri Blakinger

February 11, 2020 |

The Marshall Project |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

Around the United States, news organizations are taking a new approach to the use of mugshots in their crime reporting. While still the norm in many places, newsrooms like the Houston Chronicle have stopped publishing the common “mugshot slideshow,” and some, including Connecticut’s New Haven Independent, have stopped publishing them altogether. The practice, often used to generate page views, depict people at their worst, doing more harm than anything else.

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How Finland starts its fight against fake news in primary schools

Jon Henley

January 29, 2020 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Finland, Helinski

Building successful resistance to fake information begins with primary education. Finland’s national school curriculum encourages information and media literacy along with critical thinking. The pilot program consists of training teachers, journalists, civil servants, and others in information literacy. The curriculum emphasizes three categories of fake news: misinformation (mistakes), disinformation (lies), and malformation (conspiracies).

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A year after Denver Public Library ended late fees, patrons — and their books — are returning

Elizabeth Hernandez

December 28, 2019 |

The Denver Post |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Eliminating overdue fines at libraries allows low-income patrons to reengage with public resources. The Denver Public Library replaced fines with a lending restriction, meaning that patrons could only check out new items once overdue items had been returned. After doing away with late fees, the Denver Public Library has seen a return of its patrons who had previously stopped using the library’s services.

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'You Are Killing Us? We Will Make You a Joke.' Meet Ahmed Albasheer.

Tina Rosenberg

December 26, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Haven, Connecticut

Ahmed Albasheer is an Iraqi journalist who uses a combination of humor and grassroots organizing to teach youth in Iraq and across the world about their government's corruption with his show, "The Albasheer Show.” He has been compared to Jon Stewart in how his weekly series airing on YouTube and satellite television engages young people through his comedic timing and straight-forward manner of speaking. As a result, protests have erupted, and the government has killed protesters in response, but Albasheer continues to boost morale and amplify their voices in solidarity.

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How They Did It: Investigating a Country with 2,000 Clandestine Graves

Catalina Lobo-Guerrero

December 17, 2019 |

Global Investigative Journalism Network |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Mexico

A nearly two-year investigation of Mexicans who had gone missing, and presumably murdered, produced a series of stories based on the database of at least 2,000 graves across Mexico. A group of independent reporters and photographers called “¿A dónde van los desaparecidos?” (where do the disappeared go?) supplied victims' families with information that previous government and private efforts had not, and that fueled demands for definitive information on their loved ones' deaths. More than 40,000 people have been reported missing in Mexico since 2006 amid drug-related violence.

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In Memphis, a Lab Experiment for Local News

James Fallows

November 08, 2019 |

The Atlantic |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Memphis, Tennessee

Over the past dozen years, The Commercial Appeal, once the top morning newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee, slowly succumbed to the same ownership changes and downsizing that has plagued numerous other local papers across the country. Hungry for local news after The Commercial Appeal had left a gap, Eric Barnes and Andy Cates created the Daily Memphian. The paper is an online-only, subscription-based service owned by a new 501(c)3 non-profit, Memphis Fourth Estate Inc., which has no editorial control over the paper's content.

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How the Texas Tribune, one of local journalism's greatest success stories, really got started

Barbara Allen

November 08, 2019 |

Poynter |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Austin, Texas

Non-partisan, watchdog journalism has formed a financially healthy platform for Texas Tribune in its first decade, filling a public-interest gap left by shrinkage in the number of statehouse reporters from 95 in 1989 to about 30 in 2008. By hiring an aggressive team of journalists and diversifying its revenue streams, the Tribune turned seed-money grants into a self-sustaining online publishing business whose serious coverage of neglected policy stories inspired Texas lawmakers to coin the term "the Trib effect" for the changes in capitol behavior when it's clear "someone is always watching."

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Investigative journalists combat Colombia's muzzled press with The League Against Silence

Megan Janetsky

November 06, 2019 |

Poynter |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Colombia

La Liga Contra El Silencio is an alliance of 16 news organizations and hundreds of journalists in Colombia. It protects journalists against threats, which have the effect of censoring reporting on certain topics. La Liga pools resources for in-depth investigative reporting on stories many journalists fear covering and publishes them using the organization’s name in the byline to protect journalists. About 70 stories that brought to light violence and corruption were published in 2018 and 2019, yet the group has not faced any major threats. It could offer a model for how to report under threat worldwide.

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‘We're Doing It for Love of Community'

James Fallows

October 16, 2019 |

The Atlantic |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Harvard, Massachusetts

All over the country, budgets for local newspapers are drying up and these small institutions are dying with them. But in Harvard, Massachusetts (which has no connection with the university), one local paper may have found a solution for survival. The Harvard Press operates on a shoestring budget with borrowed and donated equipment and a volunteer labor force. The paper also trains students and young people from the community in order to increase its presence throughout Harvard.

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Spread the word: the Iraqis translating the internet into Arabic

Olivia Cuthbert

October 08, 2019 |

The Guardian |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: Iraq, Mosul

Disseminating knowledge means making websites, articles, and books available in more languages beyond English. A partnership between students at the University of Mosul and the nonprofit, Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB), is working to make more content available to Arabic speakers. IBB partners with several universities across Iraq and since launching in 2017 has expanded from translating Wikipedia articles to books and now includes languages such as Farsi and Kurdish.

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