Stories
Reporting Tools & Tips
Want People to Read Your Investigation? Make Sure You Tell a Good Story
It’s not difficult to figure out if your story is understandable — if your grandmother can’t understand it, you have failed. At this summer’s MezhyhiryaFest, the annual investigative journalism festival in Kyiv, the OCCRP’s Ilya Lozovsky offered up some tips to help investigative journalists tell better stories. GIJN’s Olga Simanovych pulled them together.
News & Analysis
Latin American Investigations Honored in Bogotá
Winners of the Javier Valdez Latin American Award for Investigative Journalism were honored during the 2018 Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism (Colpin), which was held from November 8 – 11 in Bogota, Colombia.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Number Jungles, Gender Gaps, Uber Maps, Brexit Woes
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 5 to November 11 finds employment problems in the UK from @FinancialTimes, Polish data counter-narratives with @gazeta_wyborcza, cool geospatial analysis toys from @Uber, plus the launches of new data labs with @AlterEco_, data articles with @fstalph and @eborgesrey and data newsletters with @voydorg_en.
On the Frontlines of Russia’s Propaganda War, Here’s How Ukrainian Groups Are Fighting Back
A wave of misinformation is flooding the region, much of it courtesy of agencies backed by the Russian government. Olga Yurkova, co-founder of StopFake, writes for GIJN about how Ukrainian civil society is taking the fake news epidemic head on — with a little help from their (Western) friends.
Case Studies
New Models: How Academics, Nonprofit News and Government are Collaborating
The Global Reporting Centre has launched an ambitious project investigating labor abuse, environmental impact and corruption in global commerce. Here’s the Centre’s Peter W Klein on how Hidden Costs will bring together award-winning journalists, scholars and major media organizations — including the New York Times, PBS Frontline, the Toronto Star, Smithsonian Channel, NBC News, DigitalGlobe and Google News Labs — to undertake investigative-reporting projects.
News & Analysis
Donors Invest Millions in Investigative Journalism Centers at US Universities
There is one thing everyone in the journalism funding ecosystem can agree on — a free press and informed public is crucial in this age of disinformation. When the media, and truth itself, is under growing attack, philanthropic foundations and individuals are stepping up to the plate — from funding efforts to boost news literacy to building centers for investigative reporting.
News & Analysis
The Death of Bulgarian Journalist Viktoria Marinova: A Scandal, a Murder and a Mystery
A suspect in the brutal rape and murder of a Bulgarian journalist has been apprehended. But questions remain about whether Viktoria Marinova’s coverage of a procurement scandal was the real reason for her killing.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Early Voting Data, News Deserts, Next Gen Network Analysis
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from October 29 to November 4 finds Google search voting predictions from @datavized, hurricane maps reimagined by @_KarenHao, and interactive commuter data from @WDR in Germany.
Reporting Tools & Tips
GIJN Toolbox: Backgrounding People and Companies
When it comes to doing investigations using online tools, there is no one tool that will answer all of your questions. Instead you’ll most likely need to build slowly towards the answer using a jumble of jigsaw pieces — a name here, a connection there. The good news is that there are dozens of tools that can be used to find the pieces to your puzzle. GIJN’s Alastair Otter has pulled together tools that can be used to help build a profile of someone — or their business.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Identify Bots, Trolls, and Botnets
Over the past two years, words like “bots,” “botnets” and “trolls” have entered mainstream conversations about social networks and their impact on democracies. Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab laid out some of the working definitions and their methodologies to help identify, expose and explain disinformation online.
News & Analysis
#TruthNeverDies: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
Over the past twelve years, close to 1,010 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public. On average, this constitutes one death every four days. In nine out of ten cases the killers go unpunished.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Forecasting Elections, Counting Fast Food, Kampala’s Swamp City, Gasping for Air
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from October 22 to 28 finds @NateSilver538 talking about election forecasting, @BBCNews highlighting the prevalence of fast food outlets in the UK, @washingtonpost comparing how tough it is for Americans to vote by state, and @business and @HowWeGetToNext on battling for fresh air in India and Europe.
News & Analysis
Writers Under Surveillance: Hunter S Thompson’s FBI Files
The power of the pen — writers are so dangerous that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation deemed it necessary to start surveillance on many of them, including Hannah Arendt, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Susan Sontag, and Hunter S Thompson. The book “Writers Under Surveillance” gathers some of these investigation files that were obtained with Freedom of Information Act requests by MuckRock.
News & Analysis
The Role of Investigative Journalism in Armenia’s Velvet Revolution
This year’s Armenian Revolution saw thousands take to the streets for almost two weeks to protest then-prime minister Serzh Sargsyan and his government. Journalists in the country say that it wasn’t one story that triggered the people’s ire against Sargsyan’s rule but the cumulative investigative coverage over the years.
News & Analysis
A Billion-Dollar Fine: The Case for Saudi Reparations to the World’s Journalists
For there to be real justice in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the penalty the Saudis pay must transcend time, place and person, and positively advance the cause of journalism and rights of free speech for generations to come, not just achieve criminal convictions, visa restrictions and economic sanctions. Citizen activist Chuck Fall proposes how that might look.
News & Analysis
IndonesiaLeaks: Officials Attack First Investigative Report From Whistleblower Platform
Top officials in Indonesia are dismissing the first collaborative investigative report from IndonesiaLeaks, which was released earlier this month. The report, which implicated a top police official in a bribery case, has resulted in a massive social media campaign aimed at discrediting the investigation, while one of the group’s media partners was hit by a denial of service attack, knocking it offline for several hours.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Stories with Maps, Tools with Charts, Casting for Shakespeare
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from October 15 to 21 finds @Esri’s @AllenCarroll talking the power of maps in storytelling, @visualizingdata’s catalogue of charts and corresponding tools to help information designers, and @ericwilliamlin’s deep dive into the data of casting decisions in Shakespearean plays since the 1900s.
White Noise, Damn Lies, Deep Fakes and What Really Scares Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman had been digging into unhappy facts for years. But back in 2015, he came out with a report which would foretell the misinformation tsunami which would soon arrive. Tanya Pampalone, GIJN’s managing editor, caught up with Silverman, who is now the Toronto-based media editor for BuzzFeed News, to talk more about disinformation, as well as white noise, Hurricane Sandy, the Arab Spring, his first blog and what it is like to be the most depressing person in the room.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Considering a Collaborative Reporting Project? Here are 8 Lessons From 6 Projects
Pick your collaborators like you pick your friends, if you can help it — trust is critical. Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University funded six collaborative reporting projects across the United States and gathered some of the lessons learned and main takeaways for other media considering collaborative reporting projects.
Reporting Tools & Tips
4 Digital Security Tips Every Journalist Needs to Know
With daily headlines about massive data hacks, everyone should be worried about digital security. But investigative journalists may even be deliberately targeted. Digital security expert Chris Walker shared his top tips.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: New York’s Luxury Homes, Climate Dangers, Inspiring Data Viz
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from Oct 8 to 14 finds 25 inspirational data visualizations collated by @VismeApp, a @nytimes op-ed by climate scientists warning of the future dangers of heat and humidity combined, @FT maps of New York’s glut of luxury residences and @ejcnet with veteran data journalists on web scraping.
GIJN Welcomes 10 New Member Groups from 9 Countries
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is delighted to welcome 10 new member organizations. We are particularly pleased to welcome for the first time groups from France, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The new members include strong investigative media in Philippines, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and USA, funding organizations in Tanzania, USA and Zimbabwe, and training organizations in France and Russia.
Case Studies
How ProPublica Used a Game to Tell Stories of Five Immigrants Seeking Asylum
Video games and journalism have had a history — the melding of the two has been less successful in breaking news because of the fast turnaround. However, it has seen more successes in longer investigations that take more time to develop. ProPublica’s Sisi Wei shares the process behind the unit’s gamification of five asylum seekers’ stories.
News & Analysis
3 Investigative Podcasts You Need in Your Life
Since the launch of Serial in 2014, podcast popularity has soared. And an increasing number of investigative journalists have begun aiming for ears as well as eyeballs. At the Uncovering Asia 2018 conference in Seoul, sound experts shared their recommendations on must-hear investigative storytelling.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Track Chinese Business Around the World
Want to track what Chinese businesses — big or small — are up to in Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia? These tips from reporters from The New York Times, The Guardian and The South China Morning Post will help.
Don’t Miss These Investigative Journalism Tipsheets
If you didn’t make it to Seoul for this year’s Uncovering Asia conference — or couldn’t be at two panels at the same time — never fear, tipsheets from our impressive speakers are here! But just in case you can’t decide where to start, here are five presentations that are definitely worth checking out.