DOSSIER, an Austrian outlet that is a member center of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has been able to offset the financial challenges experienced by many media outlets in Austria — and combat a series of vexatious lawsuits — thanks to its membership program.
GIJN’s latest membership class includes its first two members from Francophone Africa and three new members in the Middle East/North Africa. They range from investigative newsrooms and media development groups to university-based centers and cross-border networks. GIJN also welcomed members from six previously unrepresented countries: Cameroon, Malta, Paraguay, Palestine, Senegal, and the Slovak Republic.
In a lightning round session at #GIJC21, a panel of leading reporters and editors needed just five minutes each to outline new tools and databases that any reporter can use to gather hard-to-find facts.
In a session on high-level corruption at #GIJC21, a panel of reporters from Liberia, Ukraine, Sudan, Russia, and Lebanon suggested a series of strategies that can pry facts from obstinate government agencies, find whistleblowers, and deliver alternate forms of accountability for officials seemingly above the law.
In a collaboration of 16 news organizations, the Pegasus Project revealed that thousands of citizens — including 180 journalists — were selected as targets of commercial spyware by 11 governments. The coordinators of that project told GIJN how the investigation worked, and offered detailed tips on how to investigate while under extreme threat of digital surveillance.
The criminal blueprint and its elements need to be understood to efficiently follow the money and stop criminals from doing business as usual. Criminals, both the ones just starting out as well as those who are already well established, have regional and global infrastructure that is continuously built and maintained by what the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) team calls the “criminal services industry.” Here’s OCCRP’s Paul Radu on how it works and how to untangle it.
The following stories, selected by GIJN Arabic, are not just a list of impressive investigative reports from 2020. We chose them for their significance, their use of investigative tools and techniques, and their commitment to social accountability.
As part of our annual Editor’s Pick series, read on to discover the best investigations in French published this year and selected by GIJN French Editor Marthe Rubio and GIJN Francophone Africa Editor Maxime Domegni.
On the evening of August 4, 2020, a devastating blast at the port in Beirut shook the Lebanese capital. It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. GIJN spoke to three outlets whose investigations all played a pivotal role in understanding what led to the explosion and why a ship and its deadly cargo were stuck at the port for so long.
For this week’s Friday 5, where GIJN rounds up interesting journalism news in English from around the world, we read about the ways journalists investigating financial crimes and corruption are pressured, the ethics behind unpublishing stories, and a new database of European Union arms exports.
