Numbers in Crisis: Nongovernmental Organizations, Data, and the Making of Humanitarian News

Abstract

Whereas studies have examined the growing influence and news access of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), little is known about how they source and present the data used in information subsidies such as press releases. Drawing on a content analysis of 329 humanitarian NGO press releases and 19 interviews with NGO communicators, United Nations (UN) agencies, and major humanitarian donors, this article reveals that NGOs are locked into relationships of dependency, particularly about quantitative humanitarian data. Rather than producing original data, NGOs frequently recycle or manipulate secondary data, predominantly from UN sources, in a process we term “data churnalism.” The study also nuances existing accounts of NGO professionalization by highlighting the persistence of limited transparency and weak source attribution in their news practices. We argue that these dependencies risk eroding NGOs’ credibility and shaping humanitarian news agendas with politicized or unreliable information while also identifying one NGO’s independent data model as a potential alternative.