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The Fracking Song

by on May 11, 2011 in Announcements, Explainers

The best explainers are direct, concise and easy to understand. But investigative journalism is rarely any of those things, instead reflecting the messiness of real life. That’s why explanation is just the beginning, a gateway into the kind of deep-dives for which ProPublica is known and respected.

“My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)” is not meant to take the place of the rich, detailed investigation done by Abrahm Lustgarten and the rest of ProPublica’s frack squad. It’s impossible to sum up a massive, immersive experience like “Buried Secrets” in a two-and-a-half minute song. Instead, the intent is to bring people in, to create an easily digestible package that compels news consumers to dig into the real meat of the story.

An explainer is not “everything you need to know about X.” It’s not a shortcut to becoming an armchair expert. But it is the starting point, the big picture, the tiny bundle of information that gives users the context to appreciate and understand the most challenging and rewarding works of journalism.

So while we hope that you enjoy the song, what we really want you to do is read more about hydraulic fractured drilling, so you can truly understand “what the frack is going on.”

“My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)” is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Music by David Holmes and Andrew Bean
Vocals by David Holmes and Niel Bekker
Animation by Adam Sakellarides and Lisa Rucker

Find the lyrics after the jump.
Continue Reading →

Podcast: On the Home Loan Modification Crisis

by on May 10, 2011 in Announcements, Explainers

In continuing to build better explainers, Assia Boundaoui, Din Clarke and Chao Li have focused on podcasts for the last several weeks. Today, Chicago Public Media’s Vocalo.org picked up their podcast on the home loan modification crisis. In this four-minute piece, they talk with Marcia Jones, a Brooklyn homeowner who’s been struggling for the past three years to get a loan modification.

Listen to the podcast here on Vocalo.

Getting to Know Ai Weiwei: A Timeline and an Exhibition

by on May 4, 2011 in Announcements, Explainers

Screenshot of Ai Weiwei TimelineYesterday, ArtInfo.com published an interactive timeline created by Studio 20′s Tom Chen and created with ProPublica’s TimeLineSetter tool.

Ai Weiwei is the Chinese artist and activist who was detained on April 3 by Chinese authorities at the Beijing airport. The artist has not been seen since.

For our New York audience, tomorrow is the opening of Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Heads, a public, outdoor sculpture exhibition. The artist crafted 12 bronze animal heads, which will be on display at at Grand Army Plaza at Central Park beginning tomorrow and running until July 15. The event was originally scheduled to take place yesterday, but was postponed because Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is scheduled to speak, was speaking at Ground Zero. The unveiling of the statues will reportedly take place at 8:30 am.

All the Royal Wedding Coverage You Need

by on April 28, 2011 in Explainers

This week has been a little quirky in terms of what’s been considered newsworthy: The President of the United States had to show his birth certificate to a TV star with a comb-over.

Shame!

But now the focus has shifted back to a lighter fare. Folks are losing their minds over the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Seven thousand journalists and 60 cameras plan to cover the couple’s wedding. Publications the world over have spent the last several months stockpiling articles, videos and interviews on the couple. American media, according to a Nielsen study, are even covering the ceremony more than the British media.

So what’s with all the hype? What coverage, if anything, is worth actually skimming to get a lay of the land for the big shebang?

Welp, instead of trolling topic page after topic page of coverage, or watching hour after hour of coverage on insert-any-news-network-here, we culled some of the best explainers we’ve seen on the royal-wedding logistics, its context today, and one that makes all the hoopla seem utterly ridiculous. So go ahead, have your (wedding) cake and eat it, too.

Associated Press, Will & Kate: London Readies for Royal Wedding

Why It Works: The Associated Press has a really crisp and clean design for its interactive packages.  It’s broken down into categories: skip the video vignettes of celebrities and their plans to watch the ceremony; dig into the timeline of Will and Kate’s courtship. The most interesting part? Click on “The Wedding” tab and watch the video that explains the list of potential heirs to Queen Elizabeth II’s throne.

What It Lacks: These standalone interactive packages miss an opportunity to connect the reader with other related content. The power of the link! We love this, so we want more!

Brides.com, British Royal Wedding Traditions Revealed

Why It Works: There’s no better way to understand the significance of a current event than to understand the precedents set before it. This photo slide show starts at square one as a sort of timeline explaining the history of royal weddings.

What It Lacks: There’s a bit too much text to keep you moving through the slide show and perhaps more conversational language would keep a reader more interested in what’s being said.

MSNBC, Kate & William’s Royal Wedding as Explained by Cartoons

Why It Works: These cartoons will definitely keep the skeptics laughing. They poke fun at how much time, attention and money is being spent on the event.

What It Lacks: MSNBC has a lot of coverage of the royal wedding that isn’t so satirical, but offers insight into some of the messages in the cartoon. Why not link to those articles in plain sight with the one-panel comics?

If you’d like to watch the wedding, set your alarms or DVRs for 4 a.m. EST on Friday. Or, if you’d just like to avoid the whole thing, try one – or more – of these 15 ways to avoid the royal wedding from The Scotsman.

The Debt Ceiling: Explained

by on April 18, 2011 in Explainers

With the government shutdown averted, talk in Washington has turned most recently to agreeing on what to do about the “debt ceiling,” essentially a self-imposed limit on how much debt the United States can assume. We tracked down some debt ceiling explainers to get a better idea of what it means.

First, take a look at this CBS News explainer on The Defecit Vs. The Debt. It’s from mid-February, but still relevant.

Second, watch this ABC News explainer video, called Budget Cuts: Where Does the Money Go?. It attempts to visualize the budget problems with pennies. It is also from mid-February. The original YouTube video that they cite can be found here.

OK, now we can look at the debt ceiling.
Updated, 4/20/11, 10:31pm: Reuters examines scenarios under which Congress could raise the debt ceiling.

Updated, 4/19/11, 11:46pm: Ezra Klein of the Washington Post looks at possible repercussions surrounding the debt ceiling standoff.
Updated, 4/19/11, 11:38pm: The Washington Post has a graphic as well as a FAQ about the debt ceiling.

Updated, 4/18/11, 5:35pm: WNYC looks at some of the options that have been proposed for dealing with the issue of the debt ceiling.

The Washington post has a breakdown of thekey players involved.

Four minutes is all you need to watch this Reuters video, The Debt Ceiling Explained.

NPR looks at the debt ceiling, particularly its origins.

American Public Media’s Marketplace explains the ceiling through conversation.

ABC News looks at the real consequences of the fight over the debt ceiling.

What else have you found? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.
David Holmes contributed research to this post.

Ivory Coast Explainer: What’s Going On?

by on April 12, 2011 in Explainers

The political standoff in Ivory Coast has been ongoing for several months now, since the election of Alessane Ouattara and subsequent refusal of incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to acknowledge the new leader and step down. Since then, the situation has turned deadly, but the Western media has largely ignored it, as the “Arab spring” has spread across North Africa and the earthquake devastated Japan.

The international community recognizes Ouattara as the president, and Monday it was announced that Gbagbo had been arrested. It’s tempting to think that Ivory Coast will settle down, this may only the beginning of important events that may determine whether the country proceeds toward peace or civil war. We’ve attempted to compile all the necessary links to understand a complex situation. If you can help, let us know on Twitter or in the comments. Continue Reading →

Top 3 Explainers on the Government Shutdown

by on April 8, 2011 in Explainers, Featured Explainer

Politicians and federal employees are biting their nails, looking out their windows, anxiously awaiting that eviction notice. It’s the end of the road. April 8 is here. And although President Obama says top Democrats and Republicans are closer to an agreement, it still looks like the lights are about to flicker off in the nation’s government.

But here at Explainer.net, we’re all into this impending government shutdown. It’s confusing. It affects a lot of folks. And there’s plenty of finger pointing to go around. Earlier this week, we piled on links to coverage across the Web that sought to explain this tangled extravaganza. (Wading through complicated news events? It’s the kind of stuff we’re made for.)

But for this go-round, we’ve picked our Top 3 explainers across the Web on the makings of an impending government shutdown. Continue Reading →

Government Shutdown Explainer: Will It Happen? What Would It Look Like?

by on April 4, 2011 in Explainers

Perhaps one of the biggest questions in national news this week: Will Democrats and Republicans finally agree on a 2011 fiscal year budget? Or better yet, will the government shut down on Saturday?

From these two questions mounts an avalanche of other what-if scenarios. So here, we’ve rounded up some coverage that explains the potential meltdown in the District. What does a government shutdown even look like? Who’s affected? Who’s to blame? Continue Reading →

Animated Explainer: ‘Nuclear Boy’

by on March 21, 2011 in Explainers

‘Nuclear Boy’ posted last week but started going viral over the weekend, as it is now creeping up on 1 million views. In it, we find the Fukushima nuclear power plant turned into a boy with an upset stomach, and doctors trying to give him medicine around the clock to keep him from bursting. It’s funny, basic, and while it doesn’t necessarily explain the scientific issues at stake with this crisis, it effectively explains what’s going on in simple terms. Many have written that this is for children, but I think the humor lends itself to all ages.

This version, with English sub-titles, comes from YouTube user GenkiRadio.

What do you think? Is it good explanation or simply a fun diversion?

Explainer Wrap-Up: Japan

by on March 14, 2011 in Explainers

Events are still unfolding in Japan, but Friday’s horrific earthquake and ensuing tsunami opened up two subjects ripe for exploration: tsunamis and nuclear power.

The tsunami is comparatively easy to understand. The physics involved in creating a tsunami are complicated, but less critical to getting the big picture of why the tsunami caused so much damage. However, it did seem like many around the web were wondering just what exactly a tsunami is, which is why CNN made this clunky explainer, entitled “What Is a Tsunami?.” It could’ve been a lot more: for example, some audio over that animated sequence would’ve gone a long way just to making it watchable, and the historical tsunamis part does little to contextualize any of them besides a date and a death toll.

The New York Times has an interactive that works the same as the CNN animation. It’s a little more effective, though, as it allows you to click through and read the captions.

This blog post from Bora Zivkovic is a links wrap-up of content from Scientific American. If your question is about tsunamis and you only have time for one, I recommend this interview with University of Buffalo geology professor Greg Valentine, entitled “How Does an Earthquake Trigger Tsunamis Thousands of Miles Away?”

The Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog has a compilation of links and resources, mostly on earthquakes and tsunamis. It’s missing a lot, but it’s also a start if you aren’t ready to dive into the hardcore scientific knowledge that SA disperses.

The ongoing situation with the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plant is more complicated, for a number of reasons. First, nuclear power is an inherently challenging topic. But beyond that, it’s also difficult to grasp just what happened and what the effects might be — something even the experts are parsing out. Here’s some resources we did find:

The New York Times has an excellent interactive graphic. Give it a run through and see what you think.

Nature.com blogs about the situation and what’s next. A little heavy on technical language, but as informative as any single post we’ve found.

Mother Jones is doing their explainer thing, quite successfully to no surprise. Also to no surprise is that there’s a lot of text here, so if you’re just getting caught up it can already feel unwieldy.

The Atlantic is explaining too. Less text than MoJo, so less info but also less time. Kind of like Mother Jones Lite, without the updating.

Tell us what we missed. Got a good resource for understanding tsunamis or Japan’s nuclear situation? Tell us on the comments or on Twitter

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