For investigative journalists, data is a source to be questioned, a witness to be interrogated. In Mexico, the agency Data Crítica uses data to uncover critical public health stories. Their challenge is not just analysing data, but first assessing its reliability. They have integrated the Open Data Editor into the core of their methodology, using it as a powerful pedagogical tool to train journalists and as a first line of defence against incomplete and unreliable datasets. Data Crítica’s investigations often hinge on complex public datasets, such as a national database tracking arsenic and other metaloids in Mexico’s groundwater used for the ‘Poison in my water’ report.
