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For Media Partners
Do you have an investigative idea on the back burner, waiting for the time, resources and capacity to start digging in? An ambitious project with thousands of scanned in PDFs or a plan to request records across all agencies and quickly create structured data? How about an idea to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in your reporting and editing? With robust, hands-on support and guidance from expert faculty in the Journalism Department and Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, the Justice Media co-Lab can help! We will work with you to scope the methodology and timeline of your investigative projects or newsroom innovation tools and then form teams with the skills and experience you need to make it happen.
We have proven success partnering with news partners to publish precise, data-driven investigations relying on advanced computational methods and building tools to help combat racism in newsrooms. Our faculty led student teams can handle even the most complex computational investigations on deadline using skills such as web scraping, text mining, expansive requests for public records and natural language processing. After the most powerful anecdotes rise to the top in the data, our student teams have a proven record of getting out into the community and interviewing impacted people, experts and public officials with close guidance from expert faculty. Our projects include visualizations to help report out the stories and also to accompany publications. We have a robust fact-checking system.
Apply to become a partner — please feel free to apply with or without an investigative idea or concept for a newsroom tool.
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For Students
Do you want to work on data-driven investigative stories and tools for established news partners? Check out the Justice Media Computational Journalism co-Lab! Students from Journalism and Computing & Data Sciences team up in this course and summer internship program to report, write and produce data-driven investigative reporting for national, regional and local publications including GBH, The Boston Globe, The Emancipator, NBC Boston, CBS Boston, WBUR, TheGrio and more. If you are eager to use computational skills and journalism to dig deep into issues surrounding justice and equity and hold powerful accountable, the Justice Media Computational Journalism co-Lab could be right for you.
If you have a background in journalism or computer and data science, statistics, computer engineering, XC410 A1 will match you with computational journalism projects for external news partners such as the Boston Globe, CBS Boston, TheGrio and GBH. You will work on computational investigations focused on issues of justice and accountability under the guidance of expert faculty practitioners in journalism and computing and data science. Since publishing in one semester is not always possible, projects are graded on progress toward a written, publishable, data-driven, investigative story with visual elements.
This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following Hub areas: Creativity/ Innovation, Teamwork/ Collaboration, Writing Intensive, Research and Information Literacy.
Qualifications. This course is for students majoring in journalism or computing and data science-related disciplines (computer science, data science, computer engineering, math, statistics, information systems, data analytics, etc.). No prior experience with data journalism is required.
Please apply for the Justice Media co-Lab here → https://buspark.app/home
Add the course to your Class Planner on Student Link. This course is WebRestricted during registration.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. You are encouraged to apply as early as possible; seats fill up quickly. Juniors and first-semester seniors will be given priority enrollment. Successful applicants will be registered for the course by Spark!. If you are not accepted, we encourage you to reapply next semester.
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Explore Student Programs
XC410 JMCL Practicum: The Justice Media co-Lab is offered as an application-only course in the fall and spring semesters in partnership with the BU HUB Cross-College Challenge. Students from Journalism and Computing and Data Sciences team up to report and publish data-driven investigations with established news partners. Student teams in the course have published in a variety of news outlets including the front page of the Boston Globe and local television stations, among others.
JCML Data-driven Investigative Reporting Internships: For 10 weeks in the summer, students from Journalism and Computing and Data Sciences team up to report and publish computational investigative projects for established news partners. Previous summer interns have contributed to stories published in USA Today, GBH and WBUR, among others.
JMCL News Innovation Internships: Our summer internship also includes an innovation track where students help to build newsroom tools addressing inequities and promoting diversity, accountability and transparency in reporting and editing. One tool in partnership with NAACP and GBH, for instance, seeks to alert reporters and editors to potential racism in how they cover news.
JMCL Project Managers: Paid project manager positions in the fall, spring and summer offer data and computing science as well as journalism students — graduate and undergraduate — a chance to continue working with the Justice Media co-Lab as paid project managers. Most project managers work with two interdisciplinary student teams to ensure they meet regularly and are on track to meet deadlines. They also help faculty communicate findings, methodology and story plans with editors at news organizations.