As we gather for the second Asian Investigative Journalism Conference, this seems a good time to share again with our colleagues where the Global Investigative Journalism Network and its conferences come from. It was a simple idea at the end of the 20th century — to gather the world’s investigative journalists to share their knowledge with each other — that gave birth to GIJN, which has now grown to 138 member organizations in 62 countries.
Highway Africa — Africa’s largest annual gathering of journalists — brought together a host of media practitioners from across Africa. Discussions at the two-day conference this year ranged from the challenges of media sustainability in the digital age to digital activism and internet regulation in Africa.
At this year’s Highway Africa — the continent’s largest annual gathering of journalists — watchdog groups showcased a host of open data and accountability tools aimed squarely at Africa. Here are six of them, developed by Code4SA and presented by Wellington Radu of Media Monitoring Africa and Levi Kabwato of the Open Democracy Advice Centre.
The results from last week’s election of GIJN board candidates are in: electronic voting by GIJN members elected two new board members: Syed Nazakat, representing Asia/Pacific, and Eva Jung, representing Europe. In all, seven seats were up for election, each for a two-year term. Five other board members were re-elected: Anton Harber (Wits University Investigative Journalism Programme), Carlos Eduardo Huertas (Connectas), Oleg Khomenok (Internews), Bruce Shapiro (Dart Center), and Margo Smit (VVOJ).
Ten years ago, when I first moved to New York and gave my first lecture at the Columbia Journalism School, I told students that I believe we are at the dawn of a Golden Age of global muckraking. They were a great class, but they didn’t believe me. But look at where we are now.
“In the immortal words of Sir Isaac Newton more than three centuries ago, ‘To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.’” In October 2010, Executive Editor Charles Lewis wrote these words for the Investigative Reporting Workshop’s first New Journalism Ecosystem research on nonprofit news organizations in the United States. Those same words summarize the events that led to the launch of the Hungarian nonprofit center for investigative journalism, Direkt36, and many other similar centers around the world.
Journalist Khadija Ismayilova was set free after her final appeal hearing today at the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan two days before her 40th birthday. Ismayilova, an award-winning reporter who exposed the corruption of the ruling Aliyev family, has been in prison in Baku since her arrest on Dec. 5, 2014. “There was no crime,” Ismayilova told the press upon her release. “President Aliyev and his clique decided to get rid of any criticism against them.”
Mauri König is a Brazilian investigative reporter. Last October, at the Global Investigative Conference in Lillehammer, König shared first place in the Global Shining Light Awards for his investigation “Empire of Ashes” on tobacco smuggling in Latin America. In this interview, Konig shares his views on what it’s like to uncover illicit interests involving the president of a country while working in a highly dangerous environment.
The ongoing and spectacular investigation “Panama Papers” represents the culmination of a significant shift in the way journalism is now practiced. The project also represents 40 years of work done by groups of investigative reporters to bring the profession into the 21st Century. “The Panama Papers showcases not so much technological power but the power of the global investigative reporting movement,” says Sheila Coronel of the Columbia Journalism School.
We do agree with Ramon Fonseca about one thing: that “Each person has a right to privacy, whether they are a king or a beggar.” But that’s where our commonality with co-founder of disgraced Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca ends. This scandal isn’t about privacy. If anything, it’s about the need for transparency about how the powerful wield their power.
