This post is cross-posted from Moran Barkai’s post on DataDrivenJournalism.net.

The Data Journalism Handbook has reached a new milestone today with the publication of its third translation, into French, entitled Guide du datajournalisme.

The handbook is a free, collaborative book that aims to help journalists use data to improve journalism. It provides inspiring examples from news organisations across the world and a collection of tips and techniques from leading journalists, professors, software developers and data analysts. The book is the product of a collaboration between the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation and was published in its original English version about a year ago.

Translated by the French publisher Eyrolles and edited by Nicolas Kayser-Bril, CEO and co-founder of Journalism++, and Editorial Board member of this website, the French edition is augmented with recent examples from French and Belgian publications such as Le Monde, Rue89 and France Soir.

Cover of Guide du datajournalisme, based on graphics by Kate Hudson.

For Kayser-Bril, the need to publish a French edition of the book stems from the particular position of the French press. “France has some of the most pure-players in the news market. French journalists have done many innovating investigations in the past few years. Despite these very positive developments, the feeling still looms that francophone journalism is coming late to the technology party. The French version of the handbook, adding examples from France and Belgium to the original book, gives the French-speaking data journalism community a uniting reference point. The online adaptation, open-sourced on GitHub, will be improved and updated by the community itself to prepare the next versions of the handbook”, said Kayser-Bril.

The French translation of the graphic by Lulu Pinney, showing what is in the book.

Jean Abbiateci, a French freelance journalist and one of the winners of this year’s edition of the Data Journalism Awards, is one of the new authors added to the list of over 70 contributors to the book. In the case study entitled “Une pige de ‘scraping olimpique'”, Abbiateci recounts his work on obtaining and cleaning data for an application for the national public radio, France Info, dedicated to the London 2012 summer Olympics.

Hardcopies of the French edition of the handbook can be purchased from the website of Eyrolles. The book is freely available online on Journalism++ and the /source can be found on GitHub.

A Russian and a Spanish translation of the handbook have already been published and three other translations, into Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese, are in progress and will be published later this year.