As reporters mark World Press Freedom Day, RSF’s 2025 annual ranking reveals press freedom around the world has fallen to a new, unprecedented low.
Also highlights how X influences Elon Musk’s government policy, the numbers behind the successful Danish toy maker Lego, and mapping the Sudan conflict.
Insiders who successfully sound the alarm often do so with help — by partnering with allies who can amplify their message and help shield them from retaliation.
The US government’s detained immigrant population flatlined in April, but there’s more to the numbers than meets the eye. Here’s what journalists need to know about the data.
Philippine reporter Cristina Chi uncovered an orchestrated disinformation campaign on Facebook to falsely portray the arrest of the country’s ex-president.
In this story, several investigative journalists from Mexico speak about the experience of turning their exposés into books.
This Pulitzer Center-supported investigation dug into illegal gold mining in South America, and traced how these illicit products are secretly fed into legitimate supply chains.
The wide range of international environmental data that the OECD offers, though often Eurocentric, is still extensive in scope and comparatively reliable.
There are myriad number of reasons why reporters decide launch their own news sites, but these enterprising journalists often face a series of new, daunting challenges.
Journalists around the world have mined the Strava fitness app to pinpoint secret military bases and track the movements of world leaders.
At a NICAR 2025 panel, data journalism experts discussed nuanced number errors that watchdog reporters often make that can confuse readers and disrupt story angles.
Also highlighting data investigations into oil exploration in the Amazon, women who travel for an abortion in Europe, and and how music is passed down through generations.
The Dating App Reporting Project conducted an 18-month investigation into the mechanisms meant to keep people safe on dating apps — and found them wanting.
Newsrooms across Africa have established formal, right-to-information help desks that leverage government document requests for public accountability and watchdog reporting.
The new Violation Tracker Global (VT Global) portal offers unique and valuable datasets on corporate misconduct across 57 countries and territories outside of the US and UK.
This digital book version of our reporting guide, which runs to 133 pages, includes expert analysis and practical advice to enable better investigations of the fossil fuel industry.
This guide provides watchdog journalists with key context and practical advice to enable better investigations of the fossil fuel industry.
The UN process for evaluating national human rights records is long and complex, but offers valuable material for journalists.
A comprehensive list of national, regional, and global reporting grants and fellowships.
Featuring advice on fact checking, digital security tips, interview techniques, and guidelines for editors.
Empower the World’s Watchdog Journalists
The GIJN Bulletin is free and distributed to journalists in more than 100 countries
The US Justice Dept. has rescinded a Biden-era policy that prevented officials from searching journalists’ phones when conducting investigations into leaks from government personnel to news media. Attorney general Ban Bondi said the Justice Dept. would only search reporters’ phone records when all other methods have been exhausted, but media advocacy groups have expressed concern that this policy weakens First Amendment rights and will herald a return to the previous Trump administration’s attempts to use the courts to obtain phone and email records of journalists at The Washington Post, CNN, and The New York Times.
Source: International Press Institute
An Athens court dismissed a SLAPP case brought by Grigoris Dimitriadis, the Greek prime minister’s nephew, against journalists who had reported on Dimitriadis’s connection to a spyware scandal. The court ruled in favor of Nikolas Leontopoulos, Thodoris Chondrogiannos, and Christoforos Kasdaglis from Reporters United and Dimitris Terzis of newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton, concluding that their reporting — which revealed that Dimitriadis’s phone number had been used to target 11 individuals with spyware hacks — had been accurate. The reporting did not suggest Dimitriadis was responsible for the hacking, only that his phone number had been used.
Following Trump’s executive orders to defund and wind down operations at Voice of America and other US-funded news services — placing over 1,300 VOA employees, including about 1,000 journalists, on leave — a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore all jobs and funding. The judge found that the administration had likely violated the International Broadcasting Act and Congress's power to appropriate funding, ordering the administration to take steps to restore employees and contractors to the jobs they had before the executive order, and to do the same for Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
The 2025 Africa Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) is inviting suggestions for speakers, panels, themes, or training to be held at the conference. The AIJC, Africa’s largest gathering of working journalists that showcases the continent’s best investigative reporting, will be held at Wits University in Johannesburg from November 5-7, 2025, and like previous years will feature talks, panel discussions, masterclasses, workshops, and networking sessions. Proposals should be submitted via a link on the AIJC website by May 30. AIJC2025 will be the conference’s 21st iteration. Last year, the event yet drew 450 journalists from 55 countries.
Source: The Self-Investigation
Registration is open for the 2025 Mental Health in Journalism Summit. Organized by non-profit The Self-Investigation, the summit’s second iteration will be a three-day online event dedicated to building collective resilience, exchanging strategies for healthier workplaces, and examining the latest trends and case studies on mentally healthy workspaces in journalism. Managers, editors, reporters, freelancers, media professionals, academics, and mental health experts are welcome to attend. The summit will feature one day of sessions in Spanish and days of sessions in English, and will be held October 8-10, 2025.
Source: Columbia Journalism School
Zürich-based Swiss media company TX Group is supporting three scholarships for the 2025 Summer Investigative Reporting Course at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, which covers the fundamentals of investigative reporting. Scholarships are open to investigative reporters and editors living and working in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and include tuition and course fees, travel to New York City, and lodging. Applications must be received by 11:59 pm (Eastern Standard Time) on April 30, 2025. Applicants will be notified of decisions on their application by May 30, 2025 and the course takes place July 7-25.
A judge has dismissed former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against the investigative outlet Mississippi Today in a case that spanned two years. Bryant first filed the suit in 2023 over public comments the outlet made about its reporting on a welfare fraud scandal involving $77 million in misused funds that began during Bryant’s term as governor. The one-page ruling sided with lawyers for Mississippi Today, who had argued that it had engaged in constitutionally protected speech and that it did not meet the 'actual malice' standard for defamation of a public figure. Bryant’s lawyer said the former governor would appeal the dismissal.
According to an Amnesty International report, Serbian authorities targeted two investigative journalists — both from GIJN member the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), which focuses on state-sponsored corruption — with Pegasus Spware in February 2025. Both journalists received a text message from an unknown number, which included a link that the Amnesty Security Lab states was an attempt to install Pegasus spyware on their devices. Amnesty’s report also concludes that the spyware operator acted on behalf of the Serbian government. At the time, the journalists were working on stories on foreign investments and state-linked corruption cases.
The Pulitzer Center seeks applications for data-driven journalism projects that spotlight underreported issues. The grant is open to all newsrooms and independent journalists based in the United States and abroad. The Center is looking for proposals “that will employ cutting-edge data techniques, as well as embrace collaboration among newsrooms, whether that be across state lines or across national borders” and that use advanced data mining techniques such as machine learning, natural language processing, spatial data analysis, satellite imagery, drones and sensors. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, and projects of any scope and size are considered.
Following US President Trump’s executive order to largely terminate funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a federal judge in Washington, DC, has granted its request for a temporary restraining order to counter defunding efforts. The judge ruled that terminating RFE/RL’s federal grant would violate the congressionally mandated flow of funding to the news outlet and that “in keeping with Congress’s longstanding determination, [the] continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest.” The next step will be a decision on RFE/RL’s request to receive the funds that Congress appropriated for its activities for the rest of the fiscal year.
The investigative journalist — who has covered Iraq’s secret sex trade, the Yemen war, and the Sanaa funeral bombing — shares insights from working on a difficult beat.
Brazilian freelance reporter Hyury Potter recently won the Pulitzer Center’s Breakthrough Journalism Award.
In a career spanning more than 20 years, Le Monde reporter Stéphane Horel has brought a creative and, at times, humorous approach to groundbreaking environmental investigations.
The managing editor of HumAngle, which covers the human costs of conflict and terrorism, discusses the challenges of investigative coverage in Nigeria.
The US government’s detained immigrant population flatlined in April, but there’s more to the numbers than meets the eye. Here’s what journalists need to know about the data.
The wide range of international environmental data that the OECD offers, though often Eurocentric, is still extensive in scope and comparatively reliable.
At a NICAR 2025 panel, data journalism experts discussed nuanced number errors that watchdog reporters often make that can confuse readers and disrupt story angles.
Data journalism in the Middle East has been driven by organizations that have produced collaborations and projects that combine innovative techniques with nuanced local knowledge.
The team at the award-winning data journalism outlet suspected that Russia would invade — they could see clues in the data. We profile the team and their work combating false conflict narratives.
In the aftermath of a car bombing that killed one of Malta’s leading investigative reporters, her family set up an organization to fight for justice and ensure her legacy lives on.
The nonprofit newsroom — whose founders and senior leadership are all women — has taken a innovative, youth-focused approach to covering corruption.
GIJN member Mongabay is leading the way in environmental journalism with a innovative global-plus-local approach to watchdog reporting.
Our third regional spotlight series examines the challenges facing our members and other outlets in the Middle East and North Africa, such as war, backsliding democracies, self-censorship, exile, surveillance and imprisonment of journalists, and the hostile legal environment — and why this reality on the ground makes investigative journalism there all the more essential.
Our second regional spotlight series examines the successes and challenges facing our members in Africa and others reporting from the continent. These articles tell the stories of growing journalistic collaboration, courage, and innovation in the face of repression, legal intimidation, lack of access to information, and even physical threats.
Our first regional spotlight series celebrates the achievements of our members in Latin America and others reporting from the region. These articles tell the stories of reporters across the continent, digging into the investigations that matter, and detailing how outlets are creating innovative reporting projects amid their own specific local challenges.
Global elections in 2024 will affect more citizens than in any previous year, and will likely reset humanity’s liberty compass for years ahead. This project features an elections reporting guide, stories on cutting-edge tools for investigating campaigns and candidates, and lessons learned from the best in local watchdog reporting from around the world.
Satellite imagery has become a game-changer for investigative journalism, offering powerful tools to uncover hidden stories.
The 2024 elections marked a seismic year for democracies worldwide, presenting investigative journalists with unique challenges and opportunities.
In Africa, more than in most other parts of the world, the hurdles that journalists have to overcome to report beyond their own countries or continent are numerous.
This session was designed to provide investigative journalists with the skills to investigate the arms trade and military aid.
