The Brown Institute for Media Innovation, a collaboration between Columbia Journalism School and the Stanford University’s School of Engineering, is pleased to announce its 2018-2019 Magic Grants. Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in funding to foster new tools and modes of expression, and to create stories that escape the bounds of
We have a winner! The Brown/UN-DESA Collaboration Contest
In June, the Brown Institute and the UN-DESA’s Statistics Division announced a call for projects pairing journalistic outlets and official statistics offices to better inform the public. In some ways, it was our approach to combatting misinformation — figure out ways to provide “facts where opinions are formed,” to quote the OECD. We had an
An Introduction to Public Data
[This event is aimed mainly at the Columbia University community. If you are outside the university and would like to attend, please email browninstitute@columbia.edu.] On September 6, from 9am-5pm, the Brown Institute is proud to host a day devoted to public data. It designed for students in journalism, statistics and data science — essentially anyone
Canners NYC Launches on Gothamist, WNYC
The Brown Institute is proud to announce the launch of the project Canners NYC, an immersive multimedia experience in the world of canners, people who pick up cans and bottles on the streets. Journalist Francesca Berardi spent a year conducting oral history interviews, tracking paths, collecting data, making drawings and occasionally picking cans, in order
Brown and the UN-DESA Stat Division launch Data Storytelling CfP
The Columbia Journalism School’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation in collaboration with UN-DESA’s Statistics Division is pleased to announce a call for project proposals on data storytelling, aimed at nurturing new collaborations between national statistics systems (NSSs), including national statistical offices (NSOs), and journalism outlets. Proposals are due 20 July 2018, and winners will be
All-city journalism class receives press
In Spring of 2018, Brown Institute Director Mark Hansen co-designed and co-taught an all-city class focused on defending journalism and democracy. The class, Tech, Media & Democracy had representation from six New York City-based universities, including Cornell Tech, City University of New York, New York University, The New School, and The Pratt Institute, and Columbia Journalism School
DataShare, Explained
Reporting and breaking the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers investigations required a centralized platform that made it possible for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ to collaborate while exploring tens of millions of files. As successful as these probes proved, the platform failed to make a searchable database that connected data stored in individual reporters’ computers. Supported by a 2017-18 Magic Grant
Public records under threat
On April 13, members of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the Brown Institute of Media Innovation at Stanford coordinated an event to discuss the threats to public records in an age of digital distribution. With an audience of eighty, panels comprised of journalists, technologists, librarians and engineers identified the biggest challenges in this
Reporting from Rwanda
Francesco Fiondella, principle investigator of the Data Interrupted Magic Grant, has spent the past week in Rwanda, collecting artifacts, conducting interviews, and reporting on data loss in the country due to the 1994 conflict. Fracesco has spent the week digging through archives, unearthing unlogged weather data that might help strengthen existing climate models. He has interviewed