How They Did It Teaching & Training
How an Investigative Hub Trained a Generation of Reporters in the US-Mexico Border Region
The Mexico Border Investigative Reporting Hub helped new muckrakers shine a light on corruption and human rights issues.
The global fight against climate change depends on the actions of individual nations — so national accountability is critical.
Featuring a broad array of tools, techniques, and resources to help watchdog reporters dig into almost any campaign or election.
The comprehensive guide offers detailed advice on managing the non-investigative aspects of collaborative projects.
This comprehensive guide includes expert advice from more than two dozen specialists and journalists.
The negative effects from higher temperatures can be seen everywhere, offering many opportunities for investigative journalism.
A comprehensive list of national, regional, and global reporting grants and fellowships.
New sources can help investigative journalists hold to account those responsible for emitting methane gas, a major cause of global warming.
Empower the World’s Watchdog Journalists
The GIJN Bulletin is free and distributed to journalists in more than 100 countries
Source: International Press Institute
Public broadcasters and media regulators have become "fully captured" by Hungary's governing Fidesz Party, according to the second in a series of Media Capture Monitoring Reports assessing the state of press freedom in European countries. This series, a joint project between the International Press Institute and the Media and Journalism Research Center, found that media capture is "well entrenched" in the Central European nation. It further cites a "stark gap between the laws nominally designed to protect media independence and how they are applied in practice."
The Pulitzer Center is accepting applications for its fifth cohort of the Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN), which supports investigative reporting and cross-border collaborations to produce stories "at the intersection of climate change, corruption, and governance” in the tropical rainforest regions of the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. RIN fellowships are for one year, full-time, with financial support. Fellows will work on both individual and joint investigative projects that examine the root causes and structural drivers of deforestation. Seasoned investigative journalists, whether freelance or on-staff, can apply.
Source: African Investigative Journalism Conference
The 20th edition of the African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) featured three days of speeches, panels, and workshops aimed at helping the continent's watchdog reporters. Held at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, the AIJC brought together media workers, academics, and trainers from more than four-dozen countries. OCCRP Africa editor and AIJC convenor Beauregard Tromp said: "Speaking to these young journalists and seeing how enthused they are about not only the projects and stories they’ve taken an interest to in the sessions, but also the kind of tools that are available to them and the heights they can work towards has been amazing."
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
According to the 2024 Global Impunity Index from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a vast majority — 77% — of journalists' murders have gone unsolved or had no one held to account. This is a slight improvement from one decade earlier, but CPJ warns that impunity for killing journalists remains an entrenched phenomenon around the world. Its latest report also finds two small countries — Haiti and Israel — are now the top two worst offenders in allowing the killing of journalists to go unpunished. Israel had never appeared on CPJ's Index since the report's first edition in 2008, but it has seen a spike in unsolved murders of media workers during the country's ongoing conflict in Gaza and Lebanon.
The fifth edition of the 24-Hour Global Conference on Organized Crime, or #OC24, kicks off Wednesday, October 30 at 2pm CET. The virtual conference — jointly run by the Centre for Information & Research on Organised Crime (CIROC) and the Global Initiative against Organized Crime (GITOC), among others — brings together organized crime scholars from all over the world, and will this year feature 320+ experts from over 40 countries. Sessions are interactive and delivered entirely online, and will this year include discussions on arms trafficking, mafia-style crime, regulatory approaches, and regional case studies such as Ireland and the Balkans.
Source: International Women's Media Foundation
The International Women's Media Foundation announced it is now accepting applications for its annual Gwen Ifill Mentorship Program. The initiative, now in its fifth year, focuses on bringing more gender diversity to newsroom leadership across the United States during a seven-month engagement. Fellows are partnered up with other senior professional women and nonbinary journalists to share knowledge and give advice on future success in the news industry. Deadline to apply for the 2025 cohort is November 7, 2024.
Source: International Fund for Public Interest Media
The International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) awarded new grants to five independent media sites in Eastern Europe, bringing its total investment in the region to more than US$3 million. Located in Georgia and Moldova, the grantees are Diezmedia, NewsMaker, TV8, Ziarul de Garda, and GIJN member Studio Monitor. “News media in this region are facing existential challenges which are particular to this political and financial moment for their organizations,” Nino Daniela, IFPIM senior adviser for Eastern Europe, said in a statement. “Our grantees have a pivotal role to play to provide trustworthy, fact-based reporting in a sea of mis- and disinformation."
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
Several journalists in Cuba have recently faced government harassment and intimidation from state security agents, according to the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ). At least eight non-state media workers were questioned and threatened with prosecution as possible foreign agents, prompting several to flee the country. Journalists in question worked for the sites El Toque, which mainly operates in exile, Cubanet, Magazine AMPM, Palenque Vision, and GIJN member Periodismo de Barrio. "CPJ calls on the Cuban authorities to respect the rights of journalists to freely express themselves and report the news," CPJ's Katherine Jacobsen said in a statement.
Global internet freedom declined for the 14th consecutive year, according to the 2024 Freedom on the Net report. The annual survey from US-based Freedom House warned of increased censorship and content manipulation being used to sway elections and the rise of violence targeting internet users for nonviolent expression in dozens of countries. "A rapid series of consequential elections have reshaped the global information environment over the past year… As a result, more than a billion voters had to make major decisions about their future while navigating a censored, distorted, and unreliable information space," the report warned.
The program for the 2024 African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC, or #AIJC2024) held at Wits University in Johannesburg from October 30 - November 1, is now available. This year — its 20th — the conference will have a strong focus on sustainability, according to the event’s new coordinator, veteran journalist Beauregard Tromp. Other topics to be discussed include climate change journalism, artificial intelligence (AI), south-south relations, and global north-global south relations. Attendees can now download the Whova app, where all conference communication will take place.
The Canadian freelance investigative reporter Annie Hylton discusses her journey from law to journalism, the pursuit of overlooked stories, and advice for interviewing sources living with trauma.
Throughout her career, the trailblazing Sydney Morning Herald investigative journalist Kate McClymont has exposed graft, bribery, and misconduct.
GIJN spoke with the northern Gaza-based journalist about how he has managed to survive and work as a watchdog reporter under harrowing, life-threatening conditions.
When the award-winning Folha de São Paulo journalist did an investigation into election disinformation, she became a target herself.
NASA’s Worldview database is a valuable tool that journalists can use to find data and free graphics on a range of topics, like wildfires, floods, deforestation, and many more.
The data visualization expert and former academic stresses the importance of having an ‘interdisciplinary mindset’ when approaching data-driven stories.
GIJN Turkish Editor and data journalism instructor Pinar Dag is back with another quiz to test your knowledge of data visualization.
For the SEJ’s Reporter’s Toolbox: datasets and sources useful for tracking the harmful impact of climate change-fueled algal blooms.
Launching as a digital outlet 25 years ago gave Malaysiakini’s founders the freedom to report on stories that others feared to cover.
As well as playing an outsize role in exposing state capture and toppling South Africa’s former president, this newsroom is a champion for investigative journalism in the region.
CLIP was founded by three leading journalists who shared the conviction that to mirror the transnational challenges journalists face in Latin America, the stories had to be cross-border too.
Facing attacks and threats from politicians and partisan media, the outlet has turned to innovative reporting formats to increase audience engagement and public interest in watchdog journalism.
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.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, GIJN has published a series of stories and tipsheets for investigative journalists covering the war. This includes a wide range range of topics, from tracking Russian assets to investigating war crimes.
The 13th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (#GIJC23), held in Gothenburg, Sweden from Sept. 19 – 22, 2023, gathered more than 2,100 journalists from 132 countries to hold workshops, share innovative methods, and celebrate a community increasingly facing censorship, corporate hacking, and authoritarian threats. This project is a compendium of GIJN’s coverage of the conference panels.
Despite the funding and sustainability challenges that watchdog reporting faces today, journalists across Africa are producing top-tier investigative stories. This is evident in, among others, the GIJN Editor’s Picks stories for the region from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and the decade before. However, Africa needs to catch up to the rest of the muckraking world […]
How reporters have covered illicit money flows, drug trafficking, and environmental crimes when webs of misconduct start in Latin America but impact communities around the world.
Africa is home to a substantial amount of the global mineral wealth. The continent, according to the Natural Resource Governance Institute, holds about 30% of the world’s oil, gas, and mineral resources. This includes up to 92% of the world’s platinum and chromium reserves, 56% of cobalt, 54% of manganese, and 40% of its gold. […]
Seven months into the conflict between Israel and Hamas, journalists carrying out their work in the region have faced unparalleled challenges. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of April 9th, preliminary investigations show at least 95 journalists and media workers were among the more than 34,000 estimated killed since the conflict began on […]