The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2021-2022 Magic Grant program. Applications are due May 1, 2021! Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants and fellowships to foster new tools and modes of expression, and
2020-21 Magic Grant Profile: Documenting COVID-19
Our 2020-21 Magic Grant Documenting COVID-19 began as a 2019-2020 Magic Grant that shifted its focus to reporting on how local governments were responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. The team has continued its work, issuing targeted Freedom of Information Act requests to build a nationwide repository of Covid-19 related emails between city, county, and state
‘Sylvia’ awarded Special Jury Prize at the Digital Dozen
The project Sylvia, created by our creative technologist Ziv Schneider was awarded the Special Jury Award at the 2021 The Digital Dozen: Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards, presented by the Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab. The award was minted as an NFT on HIC et NUNC, a platform that uses Tezos and
2020-21 Magic Grant Profile: Wolf Pack
Our 2020-21 Magic Grant Wolf Pack examines for the first time how media coverage of criminal justice helped turn the United States into the most incarcerated country in the world. In collaboration with data scientists at both Stanford and Columbia, the team is preparing a database of national and local media coverage of criminal justice
Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer used by the Washington Post
In August of 2020, the Stanford Cable TV News project officially launched after years of research and development. Now, those labors are paying off, as major news organizations begin to use the tool as a source for their reporting. Just this month, the Washington Post has released two stories relying on its data and analysis.
2020-21 Magic Grant Profile: Leitmotif
Our 2020-21 Magic Grant Leitmotif: Location-Driven Audio Storytelling uses geolocation to deliver dynamic audio storytelling and connect users to stories of people, places, and things they walk by. The team is creating software to enable the generation of location-specific audio stories and a paired smartphone application to allow users to consume audio content. Through this
How Journalists are Working with Maternal Figures – Three Stories Produced with the Support of the Reporting Grants
Ambulance services in Sokoto, a mobile app for midwives in Benue, and how Cross River can support traditional birth attendants. The most challenging aspect of building the Maternal Figures database was finding information about maternal health interventions implemented in Nigeria over the last three decades. Government-funded programs were often abandoned between administrations, some donors didn’t
2020-21 Magic Grant Profile: Improving Remote Learning via Hierarchical Decomposition of Instructional Videos
Improving Remote Learning via Hierarchical Decomposition of Instructional Videos – one of our 2020-21 Magic Grants – aims to facilitate the creation of instructional videos with logical navigation. To do this, the team is using algorithms that automatically learn shared action steps from videos across different tasks. With this knowledge, the team is finding a
2020-21 Magic Grant Profile: Local Live(s)
Our 2020-21 Magic Grant Local Live(s) organizes and hosts live events – virtually for now – with journalists telling the stories behind their reporting. Through these events, the bi-coastal team seeks to create a dialogue between reporters in local news organizations and the communities they serve. Ultimately, the Local Live(s) project wants to establish a
Announcing the ‘Voces Silenciadas’ Podcast – Part of the ‘Democracy Fighters’ Project
The Brown Institute is pleased to announce the launch of Voces Silenciadas (Silenced Voices in English), a podcast by Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul launched from the Magic Grant project Democracy Fighters (ddld.mx). Both Voces Silenciadas and Defensores de la Democracia are representative of Alejandra’s unending commitment to the stories and legacies of murdered journalists in Mexico. Voces Silenciadas