Data journalism and investigative reporting in the Arab world: from emotive to evidence-based journalism

Data journalism in the Arab world is increasingly becoming a tool for uncovering the truth as a backbone to solid journalism that is leading to social change. As part of the global south, Arab investigative journalists are finding that learning the tools of data journalism could become the only way to assist them in producing successful investigations. However, there are some challenges to such journalism, which include accessing the data required for their investigations. Freedom of Information (FOI) laws are restricted and information is hard to find. This chapter looks into some of these challenges and how Arab reporters are finding particular methods of discovering data could work better within their cultural climate than standard methods found in Western journalism. This is based on a larger project that explores a theoretical framework for investigative journalism that is more suited to countries of the global south, outside Western models of journalism. Evident from the early days of Arab journalism, in the 1930s and 1940s in Egypt, the Amin Brothers attempted to liberalise the press and revolutionise reporting methods; they did so through a Western lens. Along with a free press, they advocated Western-style democracy, Western liberalism and free enterprise (Jehl Mustafa Amin, Liberal editor jailed by Nasser, dies at 83. The New York Times, 16 April [Online]. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/16/world/mustafa-amin-liberal-editor-jailed-by-nasser-dies-at-83.html. Accessed 20 Nov 2014, 1997). Yet within the tightly monitored Arab media environment, and given the vastly different political, social and cultural context in which Arab journalism operated, such concepts were not easy to apply. In practice, Arab journalism was forced to diverge from the Western model, but it did so, and continues to do so, in an ad hoc fashion. There is still no efficient, culturally appropriate model for Arab journalists to work with. The chapter will address this deficiency, exploring how a model of data journalism can be developed systematically outside Western frameworks.