Monitoring EU Funded Projects in Hungary

The colour-coded feature highlights which areas received the most money during which periods, based on a scraped government database of EU-funded projects. Those interested can search by region, township or time period, to determine average funding amounts per capita, or totals for governed cycles.

Based on database entries and whistleblower tips atlatszo.hu journalists produced multiple investigative articles on some EU-funded projects, one of them ended up investigated by OLAF european anti-fraud agency. Some of these stories are illustrated with short videos and camera drone footage to make them more compelling to the reader.

The database serving as the basis of the feature is available at adat.atlatszo.hu/eu-kereso, while the map itself can be visited at adat.atlatszo.hu/eu-terkep. Resulting investigative articles and short videos are available at

The Baby in the Plastic Bag

Bernt Jakob Oksnes presented the “The Baby in The Plastic Bag” story in nine chapters as a series over five weeks. The series has achieved record-breaking success in Norway and the rest of the world. The Baby in the Plastic Bag  is praised and tweeted about by individuals and media organizations in about 45 countries. Among others, it is recommended by journalists and editors working at BBC, New York Times and Bloomberg Business Week. Polly Mosendz, in Bloomberg Businessweek, writes: “The story of a baby abandoned in a plastic bag and what became of him years later is the best thing I read all year”.

Oksnes: “We engaged in extended investigative work, reporting and storytelling over more than two years, presenting the nine chapters as a innovative digital series released over five weeks. The series has achieved record-breaking success in Norway, attracting more than 1 million unique online users, which translates as 20% of the entire Norwegian population. All in all, Norwegian readers have spent a total of 23 years reading the series. The project has proven that quality journalism and distinguished writing can also create success in business terms: halfway through the series, each of the following chapters were made available to premium subscribers earlier than these appeared online for free. This strategy boosted sales of digital subscriptions more than any other article in the history of the newspaper.” 

Fore more background information, read the essay and interview published by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism.