Scoop Award 2023 for data journalist Christina Elmer

13 September 2023

Award ceremony on September 14 during Scoopcamp for media sector

This year's Scoop Award is going to Prof. Christina Elmer for her outstanding efforts to explain complex data in an understandable manner and for highlighting the potential of new technologies. Elmer has been a catalyst of digital and data journalism forward for over 15 years and has worked for the weeklies Spiegel and Stern and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR TV) and is now a lecturer. The award will be presented on September 14 during the Scoopcamp, hosted by next.Media.Hamburg and Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in the M28 creative warehouse in Hamburg's Speicherstadt. This year's conference focuses on strategies for financing and addressing young target groups. First held in 2009, Scoopcamp has brought together more than 150 experts in the media and digital industries every year to discuss all the latest current trends and challenges. Tickets for this year's conference are available online. Readers of Hamburg News can get a 15 per cent discount with the HamburgNews code.

Overhauling structures of journalism

"Prof. Christina Elmer has been instrumental in rethinking the structures of journalism and has repeatedly been involved in important publications," says Nina Klaß, Head of nextMedia.Hamburg, the initiative behind Scoopcamp. Elmer's expertise has contributed to the further development of the conference. "In this respect, she is the prime example of what Scoopcamp was founded for and what distinguishes the Scoop Award," Klaß added. This year's award ceremony and laudation will be given by Prof. Dr. Maren Urner, neuroscientist and professor of media psychology.

From science journalist to data journalist and Scoop Award winner

Elmer began her careers as a science journalist at WDR and the leading Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and later as a data journalist editor at Deutsche Presse-Agentur and for Stern's investigative research team. She also worked as science editor at Spiegel Online, where she set up the data journalism department. As a member of the editorial board, she was also deputy head of development in the merged Spiegel editorial department. Elmer has published on discrimination in the German housing market and on the scoring system behind Germany's private credit bureau SCHUFA. She has lectured in digital and data journalism since 2007 and is now a professor at TU Dortmund University. Elmer was named "Journalist of the Year" by Medium magazine in 2016. Following the award ceremony in Hamburg, she will give a keynote on "Disruption across the board: Why AI technologies are particularly challenging for the media - and how they can make journalism better".

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