Geojournalism Handbook

"Environmental stories are broad by their very nature and it's the job of a reporter to help readers pin down the often interconnected influences that drive environmental change. The growth of large, publicly available datasets about environmental topics has presented the media community with a new opportunity."

This guide to mapping and visualisation technologies is a set of online tutorials focused on providing environmental journalists with the skills and tools needed to incorporate Geojournalism - the practice of telling stories with data generated by the earth sciences - into their reporting. The purpose is to place Geojournalism in a practical context in order to introduce environmental journalists to the wider data journalism community, wherein "scientific institutions and the researchers themselves are the leaders of opening the data for the public." The handbook launched in late 2013 with 11 tutorials on a wide range of topics from how to map solid waste with Ushahidi to how to source environmental data through to how to make a do-it-yourself (DIY) satellite with a balloon and a camera. The number of tutorials is expected to grow.

The handbook offers links to and descriptions of specific tools that can be deployed - for example, FrontlineSMS, "a free, open source software that turns a computer and a mobile phone or modem into a central communications hub to facilitate structured communication between members of the network and the public". It also provides information designed to convey broader knowledge within categories such as data, maps, design, visualisation, and crowdsourcing.

The Geojournalism Handbook is based on the experience of researchers seeking to produce relevant data and then to build platforms of information - both in media outlets and as independent knowledge brokers. It is part of the portfolio of the Environmental News Lab (((o))EcoLab), a multidisciplinary team hosted at Brazilian non-profit news agency O ECO, which is working to create applications for environmental coverage. With the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) as a funding partner, the online toolkit was created in partnership with Internews', Earth Journalism Network, and the "Flag it!" project. It will be a resource for Flag It! participants in Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Romania.