Funded by the Google News Initiative, in partnership with Northwestern University | Medill
The Data-Driven Reporting Project
Today much of investigative journalism is about acquiring, organizing and analyzing large, digital document sets. Technology plays a critical role in all phases but those resources are unevenly distributed. Only a few news organizations are able to take advantage of these advances. Many local news organizations and freelance journalists, especially those who serve local and underrepresented communities, would benefit from additional resources. This program aims to close this gap with targeted, financial awards to organizations and freelancers working on document-focused, investigative stories.
Check out our 2024 cohort here.
Submission deadlines for our next cohort will be announced at a later date.
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Review the application and Frequently Asked Questions here.
Learn More about the DDRP
Our “How to Apply” page explains the application process and offers answers to some frequently asked questions.
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Modern journalism relies on technology
The Data-Driven Reporting Project (DDRP) aims to support local news journalists and freelancers working on document-based investigative projects that serve local and/or underrepresented communities in the US and Canada. The work can be in any storytelling medium: text, visual, or audio and be a singular long-form piece or a series. Projects should be publishable within 3-12 months.
Additional support
Recipients will receive specialized training and support from Medill on Google Journalist Studio tools as well as other resources. To contribute to the wider journalism community, after publication of their work, recipients will be asked to share core source documents (text, audio, visual, etc.) publicly through tools like Journalist Studio’s Pinpoint. In addition, recipients will be asked to create a publicly available case study about their use of technology in their investigation for the benefit of the wider journalism community.
Scale of the funding
The Fund will make $2,000,000 USD available for projects that demonstrate a clear document-based investigation and provide proof of intent to publish from a reputable news organization. Projects will be funded at different levels, covering up to 80% of the total overall budget of the project.
About the Google News Initiative
Supporting journalists all over the world and creating tools to help them do their work more efficiently is an essential part of the Google News Initiative. Journalist Studio, a suite of Google tools to help reporters do their work more efficiently, creatively, and securely. This includes Pinpoint, which uses the best of Google’s search, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help reporters quickly search through large amounts of documents. You can go to the tool directly here, watch a quick demo, or look through this guide to get started.
About Northwestern University | Medill
DDRP highlights three of Medill’s core strengths: its history of using investigative journalism to lift the oppressed, a focus on local newsrooms and a commitment to exploring the intersection of technology and journalism. The Medill Investigative Lab was involved in the recent publication of the Pandora Papers. Medill’s Local News Initiative is working with dozens of newsrooms around the U.S. to bolster their business strategies. And Northwestern’s experimental community for journalists, technologists and designers, the Knight Lab, is working on a pair of AI-related projects, the 2021 CollabAI: Americas and the Knight Foundation’s AI for Local News initiative.