contaRio 2014 - Data-driven journalism - Foundation Office Brazil
Sugerloaf, Cristo Redentor and Copacabana - they are all synonymous with the “Cidade Maravilhosa“, the marvelous city of Rio de Janeiro. Seven selected scholars of the KAS journalist school JONA as well as their seven Brazilian counterparts, i.e. journalists who started their career with famous Brazilian newspapers and journals (e.g. Estado de São Paulo, O Globo, Exame). They are gathering in order to explore Rio 2014, prior to the two upcoming mega events: the football world championship and the Summer Olympics.
Rio de Janeiro is a city full of contradictions and conflicts, imbedded into a unique natural and cultural landscape, which holds a UNESCO cultural world heritage title.
The journalists will be capturing precisely this Rio in images and videos. They will be telling Carioca stories (Cariocas is a synonym for the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro) – may it be the sports lunatic at swanky Ipanema beach or the day-talor from Santa Marta, a favela located directly beneath the Cristo Redentor, wedged right in between the mountains surrounding the upper middle class neighborhood of Botafogo.
Therefore Astrid Csuraji, a freelance journalist and long-time KAS employee and her team will be transmitting the necessary knowledge for these challenges. Hence, our participants will be enabled to dive right into the vast world of data journalism – a journalistic technique that is of utmost importance to journalists nowadays. It is an excellent opportunity of advanced training, which has already created a unique German-Brazilian atmosphere. Our young journalists are already publishing their stories and tales on contaRio.net – available in German and Portuguese. New stories are constantly being uploaded until the end of the seminar.
Embracing her first impressions on the seminar and the workload, KAS scholarship holder Maria-Xenia Hardt states:
“It is beautiful here” says my colleague Hendrik Hinzel to the KAS representative to Brazil, Mr. Felix Dane, while we are chatting on the office’s terrace in Botafogo during the first evening of the seminar. Some are still suffering tiredness due to long-haul flights. All of us are still adapting to this searing heat, to the size and also to the beauty of this city. From Copacabana to Santa Marta: After a week in Rio, we have already seen many different facets of the city but the fascination and amazement, which Rio radiates in every single cardinal direction have not diminished even a bit.
Meanwhile we are working on the website contaRio.net . Very soon our data histories and photo films are going to be found online. They will help our visitors and also us to get a better access to the city. Though, I don‘t dare to say that we understood Rio in any way. However, we are learning steadily. Até!
Maria-Xenia Hardt, 23, Badische Zeitung
