Cover letter:

BBC East Asia Visual Journalism team is a small group of a journalist, a developer, and two designers who worked on data-driven projects. We did projects by ourselves and some projects teamed up with other BBC journalists across the region. 

The small team was established in 2017 and has been doing data-driven stories and graphics for BBC across the region. We contributed to the development of data journalism from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Indonesia. 

Some of our projects received huge responses from the community and played such a great deal in journalism growth in the region; e.g. Burmese election coverage, oil palm investigation in Indonesia, and healthcare facility in facing pandemic in Indonesia.

 

 

Description of portfolio:

1.  Oil palm company investigation in Papua, Indonesia.

BBC Visual Journalism East Asia Hub teaming up with Ayomi from BBC Indonesia and Rebecca, Asia Editor, Greenpeace Indonesia, and Forensic Architecture have produced a data-driven investigation of forest fire in oil palm concession under Korindo group, PT Dongin Prabahwa. The research found a Korean oil palm group company, Korindo group, did the forest fire within the concession to clearing the land in Papua from 2011 to 2016, which against the green agreement they ratified with the Forest Stewardship Council. In addition, the number of actions they took to solve problems with the community have allegedly violated human rights: 1) A member of the community has been killed after protesting the land clearing of his banana plantation; 2) the company bought only 5 USD per hectare for the land.

The story has been well received by the audience through media social (on Twitter), https://twitter.com/BBCIndonesia/status/1326679332534808576?s=20, quoted many times by local publication, and a month after the investigation released, the House of Representatives had a meeting to discuss the specific matter. 

2. Health care facility in Indonesia is not ready facing the pandemic

A data-driven analysis made by data journalist of BBC Visual Journalism East Asia Hub, Aghnia Adzkia, looking at health care facilities in Indonesia. The research found that the facilities at the beginning of the pandemic were not ready to face the Covid outburst that has been forecasted to reach the peak in June and July. Aghnia also compared the facility and Covid testing and strategy with other East Asian countries. 

The piece received word of mouth and good responses from the community. Local publication and well-known TV station, Kompas TV, has interviewed Aghnia to discuss her analysis on the matter. 

3. Data-driven coverage on Burmese election 

BBC East Asia team worked with the BBC Burmese to cover the election in 2019. We made series of video explainers about the rules and procedures of the election. On the day of the election, we made a live-result page which has been received a lot of attention from the Burmese community. In the Myanmar media context, such storytelling is rare, and having the live result map and parliamentary seat graphic is such a huge development in data journalism for Burmese media growth. The pieces we made receive more than a million responses on Facebook and hundreds of thousands of page views, which in the Burmese context, is a huge deal. This project has been pinpointed within the BBC as an example of engagement and visual journalism storytelling. 

4. Covid drawing 

Illustrator Davies Surya worked with Lara Owen, a women reporter in BBC for Asia, to create a compilation of children drawing during the pandemic. The beautiful pieces have been translated to over 16 languages and received a huge amount of positive response from the audiences.  

5. Thailand covid graphics

The pillar story depicting latest situation of Covid -19 in the country through data, storytelling, and graphics. It reaches 1 million page views and accessed by the community. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we update the piece regularly. 

Project links:

www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-54911171

www.bbc.com/indonesia/indonesia-52153187

www.bbc.com/burmese/burma-54864058

www.bbc.com/burmese/burma-54763395

www.bbc.com/burmese/media-54723650

www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/g7fg26ab8b/drawings-from-lockdown

www.bbc.com/thai/thailand-52090088