Medialab Prado

Sinopsis of the talk, by Annamarie Cumiskey:

Background
At €347bn over a seven-year period, the Structural Funds programme is the second largest EU subsidy and a third of the EU’s budget. The Financial Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London spent 8 months finding out how this money was spent and created a database of 600,000 recipients was spread over 600 regions across Europe in 23 languages. This had never been done before, and we ended up with a user-friendly searchable database available at www.ft.com/eu-funds that is not behind the paywall.

Why was data visualization important?
Nobody wants to read a list 600,000 entries long! Data visualisation helps the audience to comprehend the data, put it into context and tell a story about the people behind the data.

How was visualization achieved?
a.The Financial Times

The FT produced a series of data visualization graphics.

b. AL Jazeera TV documentary

The Bureau produced a 30min documentary for Al Jazeera based on the database and went further to focus on people abusing the funds – the Italian mafia and Spanish property developers, and those trying to police the funds the EU’s anti-fraud office and the authorities in member states. A former member of the mafia turned state witness gave a compelling account of the mafia’s attitude towards EU funds and how they went about defrauding the EU.

Organized by: Medialab-Prado, Access Info and Pro Bono Público

 *Translation by AICE Asociación de Intérpretes de Conferencia España