Contracts to buy COVID-19 vaccines are being kept largely confidential by the global purchasing entity started by the World Health Organization and by national governments. Here GIJN’s Toby McIntosh offers a guide to reporting on the creation and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and combating government secrecy at both the international and national levels.
GIJN has rounded up seven of the talks in the TED back-catalogue that are most interesting and relevant for investigative journalists. Available for free online, and in multiple languages, this selection spreads the word about tools, stories, and interesting investigations to audiences around the world.
The pandemic has seen film festivals around the world go virtual, including Transparency International’s Films For Transparency. Here are five of our favorites from the anti-corruption documentaries that made it onto their shortlist.
After spending time in solitary confinement in Iran, Sarah Shourd started to explore what confinement meant in the United States and has produced a body of work about what she found in prisons around the country. Her play about confinement – “The BOX”– was broadcast over Zoom, bringing a story about the desperation of solitary confinement to audiences experiencing isolation around the world.
On October 30, the student news site of duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States, published a bombshell of an investigation: While training officers, the Kentucky State Police had used a slideshow that quoted Adolf Hitler. The reporters behind the story were a 16-year-old and his younger brother.
On the evening of August 4, 2020, a devastating blast at the port in Beirut shook the Lebanese capital. It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. GIJN spoke to three outlets whose investigations all played a pivotal role in understanding what led to the explosion and why a ship and its deadly cargo were stuck at the port for so long.
In a GIJN webinar three journalists who have experience reporting on the #MeToo movement and sexual abuse told reporters how to investigate an often-hidden crime. Among their tips are preparing interviewees for the process, investigating the story doggedly, and using alternative forms of evidence to verify your story. Read these and other tips for investigating sexual abuse allegations in GIJN’s latest tipsheet.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public health crisis without precedent in living memory, and journalists have been racing to keep audiences informed. For those new to the health beat, GIJN is here to help with a comprehensive new guide into investigating health care and top tips from experts on what to watch out for, how to check results, and who to talk to about medical innovations.
The Peruvian investigative journalism outlet Convoca has been exploring what happens to people exposed to lead and other heavy metals. In its latest installment in the series — which is told in comics — the team used interactive images to tell the stories of some of the children and adults affected by high levels of lead in their blood and what has been happening to them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From investigating corruption in state oil contracts to exploring pollution caused by mining, the extraction of oil and other natural resources is a field ripe for investigation by journalists. The Natural Resource Governance Institute, a US-based nonprofit, has a new guide to help journalists explore the industry.
