Núcleo wins top innovation prize in data journalism award

On Sunday (6.Nov.2022), Núcleo won the top prize for Innovation and Experimentation in the Cláudio Weber Abramo Data Journalism Award with the project BotPonto, a bot that scans YouTube videos to assist in the fight against disinformation.

The award ceremony took place during CODA•BR, an event by the School of Data, in São Paulo/Brazil, and the main data journalism event in Latin America.

BotPonto – which monitors dozens of YouTube channels, reading automatic transcriptions and identifying moments with potential disinformation about the electoral process – was developed by Núcleo's technology team in partnership with Novelo Data, within the Jogo Limpo program – created and managed by the International Center For Journalists (ICFJ) and funded by YouTube Brasil.

Next steps now include improving the application and developing capacity to enable other organizations to conduct their own monitoring.

In 2021, Núcleo received an honorable mention in the same award with the application Political Pulse.

"This is a recognition of the constant tech-oriented work developed by the our team since we started in 2020" said Sérgio Spagnuolo, Núcleo's managing-editor and co-founder and a Knight Fellow at ICFJ. "This project reflects my close collaboration with ICFJ developing social listening tools that help journalists, news organizations and NGOs to make better use of social media data."

"Winning this award, specially against the high quality of the other finalists, represents both an honour and a responsibility to keep going."

“I am especially happy that we won under the category Innovation and Experimentation. Doing journalism is also about inventing and I hope Núcleo is always in this place of creating solutions and building new things", said Alexandre Orrico, Núcleo's chief-editor and cofounder.

For Felippe Mercurio, head of technology and one of Núcleo's shareholders, "innovation and experimentation in journalism are exactly what guides Núcleo's entire tech team, it is what we do best".

"BotPonto enables newsrooms to use YouTube videos in their investigations and research in an agile and efficient manner. For us, the impact that this type of technology will have upon the journalistic coverage from now has the utmost important", said Jade Drummond, Núcleo strategy manager and BotPonto's coordinator.