Converting text documents like PDFs to spreadsheets is tedious and expensive work. To see how well AI tool ChatGPT can extract data from PDFs, data journalist Brandon Roberts wrote a Python script to convert two document sets to spreadsheets.
GIJN member Danwatch was launched in 2007 by civic groups in Denmark with a focus on both research and journalism. Danwatch has since grown to have one of the largest specialized investigative journalism teams in Denmark, with 13 reporters, one of them based in South America.
Social media platforms are among the most difficult sites to scrape for data across the internet. A recent session at NICAR23 unveiled several dynamic new tools — including Junkipedia, a possible CrowdTangle replacement — that can perform a wealth of social media monitoring tasks, from tracking down who is behind harmful ads to identifying conspiracy groups or influencers spreading disinformation.
In an era where corruption, financial crime, and illicit trade routinely span the globe, so too must the investigations that uncover them. But one of the least discussed and often unexpected obstacles in that pursuit involves the difficulties investigative journalists can face when traveling and physically crossing borders.
The 2023 edition of the Freedom in the World report, produced by US nonprofit Freedom House, was released today. This is the 50th year of the study, which tracks global trends and compiles individual country reports on political rights and liberties.
From birth control disinformation to cross-border surrogacy, from high-level sexual harassment to the brutality of “everyday” violence against women, 2022 was a year marked by a number of noteworthy investigations into stories with a gender angle.
As co-founder and inaugural executive director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, David Kaplan has led the organization from an initiative with a few hundred followers in 2012 to a “network of networks” spanning some 244 groups in 90 countries. WAN-IFRA sought his insights on the future of investigative journalism in a divided world.
There are different tools reporters can use to make video and audio files searchable, they should be an essential part of any investigative journalist’s toolkit.
In the 12 months since Russia invaded Ukraine, investigative journalists have navigated enormous information challenges and personal risks to expose everything from war crimes and sanctions busting to hidden oligarch loot and Russian “filtration” camps.
When news outlets report that new research studies prove something, they’re almost certainly wrong. They find evidence — sometimes, extraordinarily strong evidence. It’s important journalists understand that science is an ongoing process of collecting and interrogating evidence, with each new discovery building on or raising questions about earlier discoveries.
