Check Your Facts

Bettina Figl is a reporter at Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung. But she is also a research fellow at The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. There she published a paper about data journalism and small newsrooms.

She talks with us at Check Your Facts podcast about how she managed to find her way into Oxford University and what she found out researching several newsrooms. This may help you implementing or strenghten data driven modules in you newsroom as well.

When Bettina is not writing papers on digital journalism or working for Wiener Zeitung she is organising an event in Vienna called „Aufmacher“ („lead story“). She and her colleagues invite journalists to talk — very casually — about their job. The best thing: it is free and open for everyone.

As usual we also talk about the media landscape and current issues in the guest’s homecountry which is Austria this time.
Again, you will find many insights on our guest and her work — and even more.

We spoke with Taja Topolovec, the co-founder of Pod črto (in Eng., ‘The Bottom Line’). It is a Slovenian independent and non-profit media outlet focusing on investigative reporting, data journalism and in-depth stories, founded in September 2014.

Their projects include in-depth analysis of the prevalence and reasons for violent crime in Slovenia, uncovering corruption among Slovenia’s mayors and investigating fraud, mismanagement of European funds, illegal gathering of personal information by Slovenian police (last story), environmental issues, systematic analysis of health system and poverty in Slovenia.

Because investigative journalism in Slovenia could be also translated as “researching”, Pod črto journalists were at first perceived as scientists. So first they had to launch a communication campaign explaining what investigative journalism is and what they intend to do.

What did we talk about:
• history of Pod črto and how did their crowdfunding campaign go
• the problem with inv

Federica Cherubini is the International Head of Knowledge Sharing at Condé Nast International. Her role leverages and supports the exchange of knowledge, ideas, contacts and best practice cases between editorial, commercial and product teams of the CNI's portfolio across eleven countries.

Previously, she was part of the Digital News Project team at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, for which she wrote, together with Director of Research Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the report Editorial analytics: how news media are developing and using audience data and metrics. She was also one of the co-authors of the reports The future of online news video and The Rise of Fact-Checking Sites in Europe.

From 2010 to 2016 she worked for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) on projects focused on examining how journalism's present will lead to its future.

She is one of the co-organisers of Hacks/Hackers London, which brings together journalists (“hac

Marc and David met for the first time on a conference in Budapest, here is a quick dispatch, a proper episode coming next week.

We spoke to Adam Thomas, the still new director of The European Journalism Centre (EJC). We talked about his interesting journey to journalism, what EJC is doing at the moment and also touched upon the topic of the role of Facebook and Google towards journalism.

Adam is an award-winning journalism and technology leader. In his previous role as Chief Product Officer at Storyful, he was responsible for the vision and delivery of over 20 innovative journalism products to 150 of the world’s biggest media organisations. Adam joined Storyful in July 2013 as director of Business Development. The company was acquired by News Corp in December 2013, and has grown from 27 people to over 120 in New York, Hong Kong, London, Sydney and Dublin.

Previously, he was Head of Communications at the international nonprofit Sourcefabric, where he managed communications strategy and community growth. Adam has worked on media development projects in over 50 countries worldwide. His teams and projects have w

Thanks for tuning in. We will come back with new fresh interviews next week. We are preparing interviews with industry leaders and journalism thinkers. Stay tuned. And don't forget to always Check Your Facts!

The email newsletter is dead. Long live the email newsletter! Nikky Hofland, Product Owner at Revue in the Netherlands, talks about the resurgence of the email newsletter, and explains why personal newsletters is the new black.

The Guardian editor Sasha Koren about the The Guardian's Mobile Innovation Lab – which is explicitly NOT addressing monetization, instead figuring out what formats might be appealing for users, and sharing that information publicly.

Prior to the recording of this episode – partly recorded in Warsaw during the Rockit Digital Summit – our special guest star Viorel Pahomi, political talkshow host at Realitatea TV Moldova in Chișinău, held a passionate speech about all that's wrong with the digital journalism of today. And that passion quickly turns Check Your Facts episode 2 into a doomsday episode, but it is somewhat averted with a great/horrible sense of Swedish humor... ;)

Lina Timm founded the Slack community Digital Journalism Rocks a year ago, and it's growing fast. In the very first episode of Check Your Facts, Lina talks about innovation, the tiresome media legacy, and the necessity of discussing digital journalism among journalists.