The Outlier is an independent publication specialising in using data to create public service stories and visualisations. Our hope is that the work we do helps people to understand the world around them a little bit better.

The Outlier is published by Media Hack Collective (MHC).

We started MHC to experiment with data and visual storytelling and we’ve won a number of awards for our work, including:

• 2024 WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Africa Best Data Visualisation winner
• 2024 Covering Climate Now awards
• 2023 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Sustainability winner
• 2023 Sikuvile Feature Story winner
• 2018 winner Vodacom Journalist of the Year
• 2018 winner Vodacom Data Journalism
• 2017 winner Vodacom Online Journalism
• 2019 shortlisted Global Editors Network Data Journalism Award – small newsroom
• 2018 shortlisted Global Editors Network Data Journalism Award – people’s choice and data journalism website of the year
• 2018 one of three winners of The Pudding Cup international award for the best visual and data-driven stories
• 2018 finalist Sikuvile Multiplatform Journalism award

The Team

The Outlier is a small team of data journalists and programmers. We work collaboratively on all of our projects and we experiment a lot as we try and find better ways to tell stories.

• Laura Grant, MHC co-founder and head of data
• Alastair Otter, MHC co-founder, head of tech
• Gemma Ritchie, data researcher
• Gemma Gatticchi, data researcher
• Anne Taylor, community coordinator
• Ro Manoim, data analyst

Outlier Funding

The Outlier is fully funded by the work we do at Media Hack Collective. This allows us to keep The Outlier focused on journalism while we are still able to produce work for paying clients.

If you’re interested in hiring us check out our Media Hack Collective website or email us: info@theoutlier.co.za