Citizen Matters is the flagship publication of the Bengaluru-based Oorvani Foundation, a nonprofit working on open knowledge platforms that help develop better cities. Today, it has successfully transitioned to become an online-only news site, and has been expanding its reach to other cities, writes Amruta Byatnal for GIJN.
This year, the 11th Global Investigative Journalism Conference opened up to citizen investigators as never before, with a series of workshops and events dedicated to the successes, challenges, and opportunities presented to non-journalists who investigate wrongdoing. Megan Clement wrote about it for GIJN.
Over the past four days, 1,700 journalists from 130 countries gathered in Hamburg, Germany, to share experiences, learn from expert speakers, network with kindred spirits, and find new partners for their next investigations. It was the most diverse and largest-ever international gathering of investigative journalists, and a perfect place to be inspired.
Citizens can investigate, and they do — all over the world. Today we’re launching a new GIJN guide to help non-journalists investigate even more. It’s full of techniques used by investigative journalists that will be helpful to citizen investigators, too. These include searching the internet, finding out who owns corporations, investigating politicians, and much more.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network, Netzwerk Recherche and Interlink Academy are delighted to be offering, with the help of our sponsors, more than 200 fellowships to attend the premier international gathering of investigative and data journalists this year. The 11th Global Investigative Journalism Conference will be held in Hamburg, Germany from September 26 to 29, and will feature over a hundred exciting panels, workshops, and networking sessions.
Investigative journalism in Jamaica — and across the Caribbean — has never truly thrived. But a recent training project aimed at tackling the issue by empowering ordinary citizens to hold authorities to account.
Citizen reporters have played a notable role in journalism in developed countries such as France and the United States, and emerging markets such as China, India, Jordan, Estonia, and Nicaragua. Citizen reporters are using the internet, video, mobiles, and other digital tools to gather information, interview people, watch events, seek comments from experts, and publish their stories via blogs, videos, Wikipedia, and other platforms.
Hacks and hackers meetups. Open government initiatives. Hackathons and datafests. The media development world has discovered big data, and it is embracing it big time. Donors like the Knight and Omidyar foundations are focused almost exclusively on tech fixes to what ails the media. As one prominent donor told a nonprofit newsroom executive, “We no longer fund content.”
