
MANILA, Philippines – Global Editors Network (GEN) on Thursday, May 31 announced Rappler’s #SaferRoadsPH microsite as the winner of the SEMRush award for Data Journalism Website of the Year.
Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa received the award on Thursday during the Global Editors Network Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.
The Data Journalism Awards are the first international awards that recognize outstanding work in the field of data journalism worldwide. The awards are organized by GEN, with support from the Google News Initiative, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Microsoft, and in partnership with Chartbeat.
GEN is the leading organization for editors-in-chief and senior news executives worldwide, committed to media innovation and sustainable journalism. Ressa sits on the 28-member GEN board since 2016.
In its announcement, GEN said Rappler’s data journalism is “especially impressing considering the difficult conditions reporters operate under in the Philippines.”
“SaferRoads applied a wide-reaching civic engagement campaign both on the ground and online with a huge impact,” the organization added.
The @SEMrush award for data journalism website of the year#SaferRoadsPH, @rapplerdotcom
— Global Editors Network (@GENinnovate) May 31, 2018
Learn more https://t.co/srYaWl5OZJ#DataJournalismAwards #GENSummit
Watch the ceremony live https://t.co/ebct9TZUan
“This is a partnership of journalists who curated the data and turned them into stories. But we weren’t alone. We were working with an NGO, the Global Road Safety Partnership – and that grew a community of advocates and volunteers,” Ressa said when she accepted the award.
“This award is particularly meaningful because it goes to the core of why we founded Rappler 6 years ago … This is data that becomes an idea that changes a community,” she added.
#SaferRoadsPH is an online and on-ground campaign that aims to promote policies protecting road users in the Philippines.
Supported by the Global Road Safety Partnership, the microsite put together visualized information on road crash incidents and compiled Rappler’s coverage led by our civic engagement team, MovePH.
Among the stories featured on the microsite is a data story on Cagayan Valley’s road fatalities. It was presented during a road safety forum hosted by Rappler, which led to the local police drawing pedestrian lanes made of chalk in front of a school.
A follower took notice of the story and volunteered to sponsor paint for the schools. The local government soon took action and permanently painted lanes across major schools.
The winning teams of this year’s Data Journalism Awards were selected by an 18-member jury headed by Paul Steiger, the executive chairman of ProPublica’s board of directors. Steiger used to chair the Board of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
The other winning projects are:
Data visualisation of the year
Life in the camps, Reuters, UK
The Startup Lisboa award for investigation of the year
Easy Money, The Globe and Mail, Canada
News data app of the year
The Atlas Of Redistricting, FiveThirtyEight, US
The Chartbeat award for the best use of data in a breaking news story, within first 36 hours
The search operation of the submarine Ara San Juan, La Nacion, Argentina
Open Data
Follow the Money, Postmedia, Canada
Best individual portfolio
Patrick Stotz, SPIEGEL ONLINE, Germany
* The jury also awarded an Honorable Mention in this category for: Yudivian Almeida, Postdata.club, Cuba
Best large data journalism team
Caixin VisLab, China
Best small data journalism team
We have joint winners: InfoTimes from Egypt and Monitor de Victimas from Venezuela.
The JSK Fellowships award for innovation in data journalism
Hidden Spy Planes, BuzzFeed News, US
The Twitter award for student and young data journalist of the year
Marie-Louise Timcke, Berliner Morgenpost, Germany
The Microsoft award for public choice
Monitor da Violencia, G1 (Globo), Brazil
Rappler’s microsite was nominated in the SEMRush award for Data Journalism Website of the Year and Public Choice categories. It was the only entry from the Philippines in the shortlist, composed of 99 nominations selected from 630 entries. – Rappler.com
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