Accessing reliable data can be difficult, especially in the developing world. Good data might not exist in the first place, and if it does, it can be hard to come by or deliberately kept under lock and key by the powers-that-be. In Cambodia, an open data site is putting data in the hands of journalists and researchers – in fact, anyone who wants it – in an attempt to shine a light on a whole variety of issues.

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News organisations worldwide are more often than not trying to answer these questions: which content management system is best for us? Should we develop a technical solution ourselves or should we use open software? Will this open system be flexible and innovative enough?

Sourcefabric says it has answers to those questions. This non-profit organisation is headquartered in Prague and develops open source software for newsrooms. The idea behind it is simple. Although a newsroom in Berlin can be totally different from one in Baghdad or Bangkok, all newsrooms function in a similar way regardless of their location. Any newsroom needs to gather, filter, publish and archive information.

Media organisations from Ghana to Switzerland and from Brazil to Belarus are using Sourcefabric’s opensource software such as Newscoop and Airtime. A network of developers worldwide are continuously refining their products. DW Akademie’s Steffen Leidel spoke to Sourcefabric’s Adam Thomas about their software and why their tools and systems are proving successful in media organisations, particularly in developing countries.

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