Enschede, 14 September 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

Two Dutch regional newspapers( Stentor and TC Tubantia) have launched 'RegioHack', a new initiative to experiment with data driven journalism around local issues with local open government data. Both news papers circulate in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

The launch of the website RegioHack.nl today is a step on the way to a 30 hour coding event in November. Then 30 participants will spend 30 hours on a topic of interest to journalists, to find, clean-up and present data in a way that it tells a story. So that new insights into regionally relevant stories may be gained. The participants will form teams of journalists, local students, coders and information specialists. Students of the Saxion University for Applied Sciences, located in the region where both newspapers circulate will be actively participating in the process.

The aim is to experiment with regionally oriented data driven journalism in the context of getting closer to, and interacting with, the readers of the newspapers involved. Anybody taking an interest in this initiative is invited to join the conversation on the RegioHack website.