Data journalism needn't be solely based on existing data sets. In fact there is a great case for making your own data. The process encompasses a lot of the vital skills of data journalism - thinking structurally, planned storytelling and finding data in creative ways.

Using the cross-border investigation “Fueling War” as an example, this two-part workshop provides a step-by-step guide to building your own data set and a framework to set up a cross-border team of investigative reporters, data journalists and visual storytellers.

This first session focuses on the inventive methods used to acquire the information and structure them into a searchable data set. What tools and techniques are used to scrape, store, analyze and visualize the data and how? Who has access to the data set? What can and can't these data do?
After this session, attendees will also be instructed to monitor seaborne exports of Russian fossil fuels to their own countries or transfers carried out by companies registered in their countries and come up with story ideas that could be focused on both national and international angles.

This workshop provides insights into the advantages, challenges, possibilities, limitations and complexities of building data sets from scratch and working with cross-border teams, with or without programming skills.