Geographical diversity, the stories’ impact and uniqueness, the risks taken, and the techniques used were some of our criteria for selecting the strongest French language investigations of the year, selected by GIJN French Editor Alcyone Wemaëre, GIJN Francophone Africa Editor Maxime Domegni, GIJN French Assistant Editor Moran Kerinec, and Africa Assistant Editor Aïssatou Fofana.
GIJN’s Africa editor, Benon Herbert Oluka, presents his Editor’s Picks for the best investigative reporting from sub-Saharan Africa in 2022, which demonstrated the curiosity, ingenuity, bravery, and technological know-how of Africa’s top investigative journalists and teams.
With fact checking organizations having already debunked thousands of falsehoods about COVID-19, investigative reporters are turning their focus to the people and the money behind deliberate disinformation surrounding the pandemic. In a series of interviews with GIJN, seven journalists shared the inside story on how they exposed the forces behind the lies, as well as key tips on the tools and techniques that aided their investigations.
What happens when a journalist investigates treatment facilities for malaria patients in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo? For Francis Mbala, it led to his arrest and a Kafkaesque tale about the dangers of investigating in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Mbala’s story comes from the ZAM Chronicle and is reprinted with permission.
