Citizen journalism around data

New England Center for Investigative Reporting
Award Amount: $35,000

NECIR hosted host a series of events to provide citizens with tools for examining campaign contributions to state ballot initiatives. Read the final report below to learn how they engaged citizen journalists and raised their newsroom profile in the community.

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INNovation Fund

New England Center for Investigative Reporting: Innovations and Lessons Learned

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With its $35,000 award from the INNovation Fund, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting set out to increase community engagement in government budget accountability by hosting a series of events and providing “citizen journalists” with the tools to find and describe earmarked funds. These highly engaged audience members would share findings with each other in real time and with the greater public via a standalone web site. Responses provided by Burt Glass have been edited and condensed. What was your organization trying to achieve? Our initial goal was to engage and educate the public with a series of community journalism “hackathon” events, focused primarily on government accountability and earmarks in the 2016 Massachusetts state budget.