Opening the Floodgates — Open Data in Panama

September 6, 2017

Data journalism faces a plethora of challenges in Panama. No Panamanian media outlet has a serious data journalism team, and storytelling often misses out on data and the context it could provide. There are enormous difficulties in accessing information about the simplest of things, and even when it can be accessed, data that does eventually reach journalists often consists of conflicting numbers and inaccessible formats. In response to these issues, reporters Ana Méndez and Alfonso Grimaldo founded Nueva Nación, a community of digital journalism and an open data narrative platform that collects, analyses and disseminates public data stories to promote transparency and encourage civil debate in Panama. The outlet takes an innovative approach to encourage Panamanians to not take things at face value, and understand the bigger picture through open data and freedom of information.

And today, in a 3-part interview, they share with us the vision behind their newsletter, the challenges of opening a journalism outlet and tips for those who want to carry out similar initiatives around the world.

Harsha: Hi Ana and Alfonso. Tell us about Nueva Nación.

Ana: Nueva Nación started as an alternative to the regular news cycle in Panama. We figured out that there was a lot of journalism work to be done and we wanted to see something a little bit different, a little bit newer, something refreshing — something we just haven’t seen in Panama. Our thought process was something like: why don’t we start by showing the most important stories and providing a feed or a newsletter, or some way of getting this information to people and telling them that this is curated, this is the most important stuff you need to know. So when we started down that path, people were very receptive and we went with the newsletter and started to think of different ways to make journalism better in Panama. One of the big big holes we saw, having worked in a big newspaper in Panama for several years, was that data was very difficult to come by in Panama. You had to go through piles of files for a number. It would always be a bureaucratic mess. Calling press officers and knocking on the doors of government institutions. We just thought, why don’t we turn our focus to this aspect — creating a data repository that takes this huge burden off of journalists? Then journalism could be enabled and it would be easier to do investigative stuff, to do data stuff. So we decided to create a repository and use our platform to publish stories that we were finding with our data.

Alfonso: I think that’s a pretty good summary. I would just add that one of the main problems that the news business has is an excess of news outlets. There is a new type of category of company which is between the news reader and the journals which is the curated content system, and I think that’s where we fit. We’re both a journal and a newsletter. So we’re kinda stuck in the middle.

Harsha: So do you pitch stories for other outlets in Panama?

Ana: We don’t pitch stories ourselves to them. Mostly journalists from other sources use our data from the repository and we’re here to help as a guide. Period. We want to make sure that we’re able to help journalism across the country and not just for own platform or publications, because we do try to publish original content with the data ourselves. We don’t think there’s a benefit in being selfish by keeping data to ourselves. We want this to become a common practice for journalists and ask for transparency, to ask for numbers and we’re just there to help them enable this and foster this culture.

 

The Nueva Nación Homepage

Harsha: For readers who might be unaware, what is the general scene of access to information or open data in Panama?

Alfonso: For most of Panamanian history, data has been hidden from citizens. Maybe because we had a long period under a military regime. That all changed in 1990. Officials usually treated data and the workings of the government as private information. Every now and then they would give out information for strategic reasons to journalists. But it was mostly and mainly controlled. That all changed in the early 2000s, when after a moral crisis in the country, where people were tired of corruption, some parts of civil society were able to push for a transparency law. This law, passed in 2002 was, at that moment, the most comprehensive transparency law in Latin America, because it was the only transparency law in Latin America. But it was very difficult to activate the law or use it, because people in power did not want to yield the data they had. It is a constant push between journalists and governments to get data and the reason we were so effective in getting massive amounts of data in the beginning was because, unlike other journalists, who would usually think of a story and then request the data that suits that story, we did it the other way, we collected all the data and started to analyse more stories, which gave us a totally different slant in our reporting.

How do you physically get the data? There are three levels to that. The first level — super easy. You go into the government website and download the data. You can do that with payroll data, some statistical data and some financial data. Then there’s data you have to go to the government and request — i.e. a map of all the schools, or if you want to know how many people are getting HIV every month. The third level is when the government doesn’t want to give you that data. You then have to go to the courts and try to get through them. But the problem is that the judiciary in Panama, in my opinion, has completely collapsed. It’s hard to use it to get data.

Harsha: So how is freedom of expression in Panama? Are there instances of people that are trying to expose information getting in trouble?

Ana: It’s definitely by no means the level of Iran or Mexico. But it is a problem. There have been multiple attempts in the last five years to pass laws restraining freedom of the press. The most recent attempt tried to enforce special permits or licenses to practice journalism in the country, which would only be given to Panama nationals. It was ludicrous. There were some more formal intimidation tactics: following, harassment, threats. There have been instances of using the judiciary to intimidate journalists, to make their lives miserable. We have had pushes to restrain press freedom. These formal methods of restraining press freedom haven’t prospered in Panama which is good. Though it is very disheartening to think that this pops up every once in awhile and we have to fight it.

Harsha: Have you ever experienced any such intimidation?

Ana: I have. For one the former president Ricardo Martinelli once went on a Twitter rampage against me in 2013. Specifically singling me out because I had said something critical against his government. More recently I had published a couple of stories that were critical of the Panamanian establishment with regards to the response to the Panama Papers and also a different story on the news on Panama Canal. In response I got a few text messages and calls that were pretty threatening. Luckily nothing happened for real. Nothing came of the threats and I’m here and I’m good and I’m safe for now at least. Yeah, those instances are the ones that come to my mind. They’re nothing like the ones some of our fellow journalists go through in countries across Latin America or Iran or China. But still not pleasant.

 

Former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli singling out Ms. Mendez on Twitter

Alfonso: While we’re on that topic, just yesterday the attorney general of the country came out in a public statement and said that her deputy attorney, so to speak — or lower level state attorneys — were being harassed by a lot of people in influential positions. They were trying to prevent the attorney general’s investigations from moving along. So as you see there is a repressive culture in Panama. This isn’t always being expressed through fines or harassment, or any other violent manner, but definitely through economic pressure and social pressure. There are many ways people try to keep information. Despite having an advanced transparency law, most of the relevant information in this country is in the shadows.

Harsha: Is there any formal protection for whistleblowers in Panama?

Alfonso: The main thing is that journalists help each other. Any time there is an attempt to regulate our profession, or to make us get some sort of degree or license or whatever, the community rallies behind under a common cause that is able to defeat it. But it must be mentioned that Panama is usually headlined by three newspapers. One is in the list of specially designated nationals, commonly known as the Clintons List, which is strangling that newspaper to death. Another one was purchased by our ex president Ricardo Martinelli, head honcho of corruption here in Panama, and so in a way that newspaper has died as well. The third one is being heavily questioned by the public with regards to its affiliation to the current ruling party. So the question is whether these standard bearers of journalism in Panama are still what they used to be, if they will continue supporting free journalism should another attempt be made to constrain us. We’re in the fight.

Harsha: That’s depressing. More power to you.

Ana: I think that’s pretty accurate. Unfortunately, journalism in Panama is struggling and is hanging on a thin thread.

Alfonso: It’s depressing, like you said. But it has never not been like that. It is up to the new generations to shake off the old ways and try something new.

This concludes the first part of our interview with Ana and Alfonso from Nueva Nación. We’ll be back tomorrow with the second part of this 3-part interview, where we delve deeper into the challenges of promoting open data in Panama, maintaining independence in the face of larger media corporations, and the frustrations of scraping data from non-readable formats.