The J++ Network directs its actions according to a manifesto that lays out its vision and principles, proposing a consistent and ethical perspective over the practice of data journalism.

• We are journalists, developers, designers and project managers who share a common passion for news, technology, and design.

• We are committed to reinventing journalism with data. We are eager to keep breaking walls and expand the borders of what data journalism can bring.

• We let both data and people define our stories. We do interviews with both data and people, and we know how to ask critical questions to both.

• Ethics are a first-class concern. As experts on data-driven and digital journalism, we have opinions on ethics and best practices. This means that ethical data journalism is an important part of the message we deliver in our training sessions, and we take an active part in the public debate around the subject.

• We find missing data. We have a critical eye on data availability, aware that every easily available dataset is supplied by someone, who has an interest in it being used.

• We rigorously select what clients to work with, based on their values and actions. We will not help in spreading lies, or in spinning information, nor take part in any work that puts fundamental human rights into question.

• We are open by default. We think that being open about methods and data helps us do better journalism, which is why we publish much of our source code and datasets under open licenses.

• We take responsibility for published data. Publishing datasets comes with responsibilities: practically, by keeping them updated and documenting them, and ethically, such as working to reduce the risk for misinterpretation and abuse. We avoid publishing data when we cannot handle that responsibility.