The Pakistan Data Journalism Awards 2019 received 76 entries in four categories. The entries showed diversity in terms of geography and the nature of publication. From major cities to districts, from local newspapers to national dailies, and from digital-only publications to large news media groups that publish across media, the stories submitted to the contest and the participating journalists used data to report on a wide array of issues of public importance.
We would like to thank our five-member jury that diligently read the stories and graded them according to separate rubrics that measured for public interest, quality of investigation, data sources, data analysis and presentation, reporting, writing, and overall impact.
The following are the winners and the shortlisted entries for the inaugural Pakistan Data Journalism Awards contest.
Note: We had originally announced prizes for the broadcast media in the categories of Best Use of Data in a News Report and Best Data Journalist Portfolio. We did not receive any entry from broadcast journalists in the portfolio category. The jury decided that the broadcast media entries in the Best Use of Data in a News Report category unfortunately did not demonstrate a quality or standard good enough to merit recognition. Therefore, we have not awarded any prizes in these two categories for broadcast media.
Niaz Ahmad Khan’s investigation published in Daily Azadi Swat looked at the under-reporting of incidents of honour killing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, specifically focussing on the Swat district. It exposed the police tactic of misreporting the murders of women to avoid scrutiny, and comprehensively reported on socio-cultural factors, legal issues, and advocacy efforts linked with honour killings.
Swat-based journalist Niaz Ahmad Khan has been working as a journalist since 2006 with different media organisations. He has worked as a bureau chief of Khyber News Swat from 2007 to 2012. In 2010, he also joined Mashaal radio as a reporter. He has been working with Mashriq TV as a bureau chief since 2016. He has also written columns and reports as a freelancer with several national and regional newspapers including daily Azadi Swat, and daily Naibaat Peshawar. He completed this award-winning story through an investigative reporting fellowship by the Pakistan Press Foundation.
Asim Bashir Khan — Two-part series on Pakistan’s economic performance (Dawn.com)
Irfan Joiya — بچوں پر جنسی تشدد کے بڑھتے ہوئے واقعات (Humsub, Shaoor Media Network International)
Khalid Khattak — Mushrooming of private schools in Punjab – Numbers and more (Datastories.pk)
Ramsha Jahangir — How social media has become a war zone for competing narratives (Herald)
This news story supplemented interviews with human traffickers and Pakistanis deported from European countries for illegal entry with data acquired from the Federal Investigation Agency, Supreme Court proceedings, and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency to describe the harrowing experiences of illegal immigrants and the extent of human trafficking to Europe from Pakistan. The multimedia story was produced by Shaheryar Popalzai and carried illustrations by Saadat Ali and Ibrahim Yahya.
Riaz has worked as a reporter covering education and national politics for The Express Tribune. He recently joined Hum News as a special correspondent where his focus is on investigative stories that are broadcast as segments of the prime-time show Barri Baat.
Asim Bashir Khan — زرعی ٹیکس اور دیہی اشرافیہ (Sujag)
Asim Bashir Khan — The PML-N made bold claims in its 2013 manifesto. How many of those promises
did it keep? (Dawn)
Irfan Joiya — بچوں پر جنسی تشدد کے بڑھتے ہوئے واقعات (Humsub, Shaoor Media Network International)
Muhammad Khalid Hussain — الیکشن 2018 : سیاسی جماعتوں کی مقبولیت کا گراف کیا رہا (Geo.tv)
Pakistan reported 3,000 accounts in six months: Twitter
Pakistan’s Internet freedom ranking declined in election year: report
How political parties manipulate cyberspace for electioneering
With the help of data from Pakistan’s telecomm regulator, digital rights groups, the transparency reports of Internet companies, and social media activity analysis, Ramsha Jahangir’s series of news reports shed light on the efforts to control Internet content, especially online dissent, and the manipulation of online discourse for political ends in Pakistan.
Ramsha Jahangir is a staffer at the Dawn newspaper. Her work is focused on digital rights, limits to free speech, regulation and internet governance in Pakistan.
Hasban Ullah — باجوڑ میں 56 تعلیمی ادارے فعال نہ ہوسکے۔ باجو ڑکے 101 گاوں میں سکول نہیں
ہیں (Daily AAJ Peshawar)
Muhammad Rizwan Safdar, Ghulam Dastgir, and Sairah Zaidi — A look into the turnout of women voters for the 2018 elections (Herald)
Yousuf Abid — A series of stories on pending court cases in Punjab (Dunya Media Group) Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4
Hisham’s stories show his desire and ability to test hypotheses with the help of data to clear misconceptions and explain complex issues in simple terms.
Highest ever number of votes rejected in election 2018
Disqualified votes more than margin of victory—but that’s nothing new
Enter the Dragon: How invested is China in Pakistan?
Twitter Analysis: Imran Khan talks more about the Sharifs than his own party
Pakistan’s 60-year history with the IMF in one chart
Hisham Sajid graduated from IBA with a Bachelors in Computer Science in June 2018. During his time at SAMAA Digital where he was responsible for finding, scraping, analyzing, and visualizing data to write engaging news stories for the web. While at SAMAA he also helped with Digital Analytics, automated redundant workflows and built small internal web based tools to enhance the news reporting capacity of both Digital and TV newsrooms.
Alia Chughtai, Al Jazeera English for a series of data visualizations on the Pakistan Elections 2018
Khalid Khattak, Datastories.pk for consistent data-driven news reporting on a variety of issues
Ramsha Jahangir’s tenacious and in-depth coverage of technology, online freedom of expression issues, political propaganda on social media, and digital rights has revealed to the public the non-transparent regulation and political manipulation of social media activity in Pakistan, supplying much-needed evidence for policy advocacy and debate.
How social media has become a war zone for competing narratives
How political parties manipulate cyberspace for electioneering
Pakistan reported 3,000 accounts in six months: Twitter
Women, minorities have minor share of govt postings
Ramsha Jahangir is a staffer at the Dawn newspaper. Her work is focused on digital rights, limits to free speech, regulation and internet governance in Pakistan.
Deneb Submul for human-interest longform reporting that used data as supporting facts (Newsline) Link 1, Link 2, Link 3
Khalid Khattak for data-driven news reports that checked political claims and highlighted civic issues (The News) Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4
Shehzad Yousafzai for using data to report on problems faced by citizens in Rawalpindi (Daily Times, The News on Sunday) Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4
Alia Chughtai and Asad Hashim contributed to Al Jazeera English’s online coverage of the Pakistan general elections 2018 with a series of infographics that explained diverse aspects of the elections campaign and an impressive map-based live interactive visualization that relayed results clearly and effectively.
Results: Pakistan Elections 2018
Pakistan Elections 2018: All the latest updates
Pakistan Elections 2018: At a glance
Pakistan Elections 2018: How voting works
Pakistan Elections 2018: The major political parties
Pakistan’s new far right: Mainstreaming the hardliners
Alia Chughtai is a senior interactive producer at Al Jazeera English in Pakistan. She is an interactive journalist, specialising in visual journalism and infographics. Asad Hashim is the online correspondent for Al Jazeera English in Islamabad. He has covered stories in South Asia and the Middle East, and reports on extremism, security, politics and human rights, primarily focusing on Pakistan. He is the recipient of the 2018 AFP Kate Webb Prize.
Dawar Hameed — Surkhi Brief series of infographics on economy and current affairs (Surkhi.pk)
Farooq Baloch and Samaa Digital team — Pac-man takes you through dollar’s upward journey in 2018 (Samaa.tv)
Asim Bashir Khan for his freelance data analysis and commentary on Pakistan’s economic affairs in various publications.
Asim Bashir Khan is an economist, social scientist and has served the Government of Sindh on energy, investment, trade, public policy, and reforms. Khan is also master trainer of data journalism for national and international journalism institutes; Centre of Excellence in Journalism-IBA, Pakistan Press Foundation, Sri Lanka Press Institute, College of Journalism Sri Lanka. He has been associated with number of universities in Karachi and presently is at IBA-Karachi.
Khalid Khattak, founder Datastories.pk, for persistent data-driven news reporting and contributions towards
promoting data journalism in Pakistan through his website.
Khalid Khattak, a journalist from Lahore launched Pakistan’s first data journalism initiative Data Stories in 2015 with an aim to promote data literacy and data journalism in Pakistan. He is a data journalism trainer and speaker and has also taught at Punjab University. Khalid is a 2013 Daniel Pearl fellow and has worked at the DC Bureau of the Wall Street Journal under the fellowship. He is also 2015 winner of the ICFJ Pakistan Alumni Reporting Contest for his data journalism related story.
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We thank all participating journalists for their submissions and wish them all the best for the future. The Pakistan Data Journalism Awards contest hopes to return in 2020 with more recognition for Pakistani data-driven journalism.
