GraphConnect Europe 2017 Manuel Villa & Sarah Blaskey, Columbia University

1. INVESTIGRAPH: Using Neo4j for
Investigative Journalism
Sarah Blaskey
Manuel Villa
Columbia Journalism School
GraphConnect
11 May 2017
London

2. The Two Uses of Neo4J in Journalism
1. As a presentation tool.
Ideally designed to present findings and to create a curation
tool for public use (Panama Papers)
2. Aiding the investigative process internally.

3. Once Upon a Time,
in Panama...

6. It all started with one businessman
with holdings all over the world.
Reporting Question: Was it possible that this man was mainly doing
business with a small group of people?

7. Developing our Process:
Learning as we go
1. The “absorbing” phase
2. The “discovery” phase

8. The “absorbing” phase
● If you don’t have a data set, build one.
● A Team Effort

11. The “discovery” phase - Looking
for reporting leads
How do we maximize the usefulness of our neo4j instance?

15. Queries:
• Shortest Path Queries when clicking bubbles is too much.
• Using informal connections to maximize potential that the
queries will turn something back.

16. Using 50,000 PDF documents to
find reporting leads.

18. Problems
● Name matching
● Queries on a timeline
● Incomplete or poorly curated data. Queries won’t work.
● Understand data should not be modeled as a story!

19. Thank You
● Sarah Blaskey - slb2226@columbia.edu
● Manuel Villa - jmv2104@columbia.edu