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Influenced by the practices of social scientists, data journalists seek to create stories that frame social reality through quantitative data analysis. While the use of statistics by journalists is not new, exponential growth in available data and a desire for source material unmediated by political and public-relations framings have seen data journalism increasingly embraced—to varying degrees—by newsrooms, and editors increasingly seek reporters who can think in computational ways. Journalism programs keen to incorporate data journalism in curricula face a unique set of issues, including a lack of scholarship on data journalism education and how to teach it. This article reports on both the pilot of an international postgraduate collaboration in data journalism education in 2015, in which postgraduate students at two universities investigated state-run gambling in Aotearoa–New Zealand, and the introduction of an undergraduate semester-long paper in data journalism at one of the universities. A visiting Fulbright specialist supported both initiatives, helping to develop staff and student data skills, kick-start a joint investigation by students, and lay the groundwork for future international collaborations. Thanks to his visit, New Zealand educators and students were able to seek support from, a global community of journalists and journalism educators working in data journalism. Set against a literature that predicts an increasing role for computational journalism, this article explores the successes and challenges of these cases of experiential journalism education. It explores the complex but not fatal issues of data competency among both instructors and students, collaboration between geographically distinct programs, access to sensitive datasets, and publication of student work.

In the age of misinformation, trust and trustworthinesscore values of journalismhave become more important as news companies reeling from the pandemic seek emergency funding for their operations from the public and funders look for trusted brands to support. Earlier studies indicated people are more willing to pay for trusted news brands, and recently, the public funding of news has been directed to institutions that are regarded as trustworthy news outlets, and provide information that is in the public interest. While the concept of trust is complicated and measuring it is challenging, trust has rapidly become a key inquiry in academia. However, New Zealand lacks in this research, and this study aims to start to fill that gap. The paper is based on our survey of 1204 New Zealanders, and comparable data from 38 countries surveyed in the Reuters Digital News Report 2019. The paper finds that trust in news in New Zealand is high when compared internationally, but a large proportion (47%) of citizens don't trust the news. It also finds New Zealanders are more concerned about misinformation and disinformation than respondents in other Western societies.

“The right to know is the right to live.”Aruna Roy (1946— ), Indian social activist Ongoing dissatisfaction among information requesters, including journalists, has discredited the early and partially heroic narratives of the Aotearoa New Zealand freedom-of-information (FOI) regime. The revolutionary and celebrated Official Information Act 1982 (OIA 1982) has remained virtually unchanged since its inception, despite ongoing calls for reform. This article examines why the OIA 1982 was so transformative, calling on the literature and two thematic analyses of historic parliamentary debates as it explores the thinking of the time and historicises the moment lawmakers cemented in statute notions of an open society. All media rely on this law, and the idea of FOI behind it, to be able to flourish, even if some are more acutely aware of that than others. All media practitioners, from journalists to filmmakers, benefit from the informed social discourse that results from FOI. To explore its failings in Aotearoa New Zealand today and, indeed, to start to imagine remedies, this research argues an important first step is to better understand the thinking of the time.

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