new/s/leak (NetWork of Searchable Leaks) is a research project producing a piece of software that allows to quickly and intuitively explore large amounts of textual data. The tool will support journalists working with datasets like the War Diaries or the Embassy cables (both distributed by Wikileaks) or the hacking of Hacking Team. The goal is to provide a quick access to important entities (people, organizations, places) and their relationships, and how those things change over time. Based on the Network of the Day, our software will combine the latest research in language technology and information visualization to create a powerful tool for searching and exploring: it will be easy to use and understand, with a pleasant look-and-feel.

Collaboration

The new/s/leak project is a collaboration between TU Darmstadt (Departments of language technology and information visualization) and DER SPIEGEL. VW Foundation funds this project for a period of 9 months (January – September 2016) as a part of the initiative “Science and Data Journalism”. The whole project budget goes to the departments of TU Darmstadt – SPIEGEL has waived any funding for this project. As the projects’ media partner, SPIEGEL delivers data for the project and, above all, is excited about the development of research-driven software facilitating the work of all journalists concerned with data.