IJNet

How can journalists tell stories of tragedy and crisis — stories that undoubtedly need to be told — without subjecting themselves to psychological burden?

It’s a question that has become increasingly pertinent as psychologists have gained a better understanding of the significant mental health risks that come with viewing violence and traumatic imagery as part of one’s occupation.

For Russell Lewis, @npr’s Southern Bureau Chief, coordinating large-scale disaster coverage is just another part of the job. As part of NPR’s Go Team, Lewis helps journalists get basic supplies and rotates reporters to help them avoid crisis-coverage burnout. He recently shared his tips on protecting one’s psychological well-being with Current.org.

IJNet has also published numerous articles on keeping journalists safe from psychological trauma while covering crises. Read more about resources for journalists covering traumatic events and the considerations journalists must make when using graphic imagery in their reporting.

@quartz’ first mobile app looks unlike pretty much any news app you can think of — because technically, it’s a news app that functions like a chat app.

Launched on Thursday, the app allows users to literally chat with the news by sending headlines to the user much like one would send a text message to a friend. These messages occasionally contain gifs and other engaging goodies. Next to each message bubble is an arrow icon that you can click to read the full story. To get the next headline, you can simply reply with “next” or “anything else?” If you have questions about a news story’s specifics, you can ask those of the app as well.

Matt Webb, a technologist who has written extensively about conversational user interfaces, told Wired that this is likely where the future of news apps — and apps in general — is headed.

“It feels absurd to me that we talk to our friends one way, and talk to our apps by pointing and jabbing our fingers at boxes,” Webb said. “It feels like there’s a new UI paradigm emerging, and it’s based around messaging.”

What can today’s newsrooms do to prevent their staff from being doxxed — or having their personal information posted online? A new piece from @niemanlab-blog gives an overview of what news organizations like @vox are doing to combat doxxing and keep their journalists safe.

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New to using online data? For any journalist, learning how to navigate the seemingly-endless world of data collections and sets available on the web is a daunting task. Luckily, you have just as many tools and resources available to help you get the hang of things quickly. Here’s a look at 16 of those resources, compiled by the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Reporters are the first responders of the journalism industry. What they write can have a tremendous impact on public opinion and thought — particularly when it comes to reporting on the complex topic of mental illness.

“The media influence, to a perverse degree, public opinion and public policies, both of which have the potential to improve the care and the lives of people with conditions like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and brain diseases,” wrote André Picard, health reporter at The Globe and Mail.

To establish a code of standards for journalists, the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma recently released the Mindset Media Guide. The guide includes pointers on interviewing individuals with mental illness, an overlook of mental health stigma and other best practices.

To read the English-language guide, click here. The guide is also available in French.

And if you currently report on mental health, be sure to enter your work to win the National Press Foundation’s Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting, which comes with a US$10,000 prize, by March 15.

Data journalism is one of the most thriving niches of contemporary journalism. Many of IJNet’s own articles discuss some of today’s biggest data journalism trends, tools and resources.

But how do you do data journalism — especially if you’ve never touched a dataset before in your life?

DataBasic.io, a new suite of web tools, aims to solve this problem for newcomers. Currently comprised of three tools — WordCounter, WTFcsv and SameDiff — DataBasic introduces key concepts of working with data.

Image CC-licensed by Flickr via Bob Mical.

On Tuesday, Agence France Presse announced it will become one of a handful of media outlets to open a permanent bureau in North Korea, @guardian reported.

Currently, only the Associated Press, Japan’s Kyodo and China’s Xinhua have a foothold in Pyongyang, the insular nation’s capital city.

AFP’s deal with the Korean Central News Agency will allow the French news agency to produce original reporting, video and photo content within North Korea. To what extent this will be true is yet to be seen — @committeetoprotectjournalists lists North Korea as the second most heavily censored country in the world.

Wondering where women fit into the global media landscape?

You can now find out by perusing the new Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media, produced by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

But many may find the report to be a disappointment. Among its findings: A staggering 73 percent of top management positions at news organizations are held my men; women hold just 27 percent of these positions.

Gender inequality in the media doesn’t stop at the top positions. The report reveals that men make up nearly two-thirds of news reporters, compared to the 36 percent of reporters who are female.

To view the full report, click here.

Image CC-licensed by Flickr via Esther Vargas.

More than ever before, data is one of the most key components of the journalistic process. Data isn’t just valuable evidence — searching through data sets can help you find the story itself, as well.

But the idea of “scraping” websites for data can be intimidating to many aspiring data journalists. To improve your data scraping skills, check out this step-by-step guide from Journalist’s Resource, which will show you how to use Python to extract data from a website.