In the following curated list, we highlight eight impactful investigative stories involving past Olympic events that each hold valuable tips for journalists digging into athletic mega-events today.
This guide was written by Toby McIntosh, senior advisor to GIJN’s Resource Center. Editing was by Reed Richardson and Laura Dixon. Illustrations were created by Marcelle Louw.
CORRECTIV boasts a €4 million annual budget, a staff of 60, and has become one of the world’s largest nonprofit centers for investigative journalism. As founder David Schraven had hoped, the outlet has delivered blockbuster investigations and trained aspiring journalists, as well as staged plays and exhibitions inspired by current affairs that serve to bridge the gap between art and news.
Due to her tenacity in scrutinizing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s family’s transactions, reporter Juliana Dal Piva is a constant target of attack by the president’s supporters. Here, she describes the security measures, collaboration, and persistence needed to keep the spotlight on autocrats in repressive environments.
Data reporter Melissa Lewis is interviewed about a recent podcast for Reveal, which investigated what happens when local residents call police on unhoused people in their neighborhood, analyzing arrest data across six major US West Coast cities with large homeless populations.
While there is no single service that meets all of our data privacy needs, here two experts unpack security and privacy practices for popular transcription services, weigh when journalists should use remote transcription services, and explore how to minimize risk when working with sensitive audio.
Among the most frequently used forms of legal coercion against investigative journalists are SLAPPs (“strategic litigation against public participation”), which aim to intimidate reporters into abandoning their investigations. The practice of abusing legal systems by those in power to silence critics has reached global proportions. Its damage is far-reaching and curbing it is an imperative for democracy and maintaining peace.
Investigative journalists went all out last year in covering surveillance issues. From a deep-dive into the dark side of pandemic tech in Singapore’s techno-utopia to an in-depth look at how schools are spending thousands on unreliable “aggression detectors” in the name of student safety, global reporters have been holding Big Tech accountable for its role in fueling authoritarianism worldwide.
Despite myriad challenges, 2021 saw a number of remarkable investigations by German-language media. They uncovered scandals linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, investigations linked to big money and tax fraud, while others touched on morals and ethics. Other stories that made our list dug into the EU, working conditions at top restaurants, migration, and terrorism.
Throughout 2021, reporters from around the Arab world produced excellent investigative work, some as part of transnational reporting collaborations on human rights, financial investigations, and phone hacking. With a salute to our colleagues who work in this very tough neighborhood, we are proud to highlight some of the best investigative journalism from the past year.
