Case Studies
Google News Initiative Grants in Africa and the Middle East Yield Mixed Results
A study found many Google News Initiative projects in Middle East and Africa struggle to become more than makeshift versions of the original idea.
Stories
131 posts
Getting the Story Out
Investigative Journalism in Africa: A Book From the Frontlines
The award-winning Ghanaian journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni says there are a series of challenges that investigative reporters in Africa must confront during the course of their work. Read about the difficulty of getting accurate data, the challenges of impunity, funding issues, and press freedom challenges in this excerpt from his new book.
News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Reach Hard-to-Access Stories — and Audiences — with Audio
At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, veteran journalists from Africa and the Middle East discussed the power and intimacy of audio and podcast reporting and how it can enable reporters to better access hard-to-cover stories.
Press Freedom
2023 World Press Freedom Index: Journalism under Threat from ‘Fake Content Industry’
The 2023 World Press Freedom Index highlights the increasingly perilous situation for reporters on every continent, as journalists face political, social, and technological threats and a “fake content industry” that undermines trust in the press.
10 Questions
Lessons and Advice from Nigerian Investigative Journalist Taiwo Hassan Adebayo
Hassan Adebayo has built a storied career at the Premium Times, leading investigations into terrorism and violent extremism, corruption, and financial crime.
News & Analysis Press Freedom
GIJN Marks World Press Freedom Day with Insights from Investigative Journalists Under Threat
To mark the 30th anniversary of the United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day, GIJN shares some experiences of investigative journalists facing the biggest challenges and threats around the world.
Case Studies
How Women Are Driving a Golden Age of Data Journalism in Kenya
Eunice Magwambo, Purity Mukami, and Juliet Atellah discuss their work and challenges facing data journalists in their home country of Kenya.
News & Analysis
Investigations into Lottery Corruption, Whistleblower’s Assassination Share Taco Kuiper Journalism Prize
Separate investigations into corruption at the national lottery and the brazen assassination of a government whistleblower jointly won the 2022 Taco Kuiper Award, recognizing the best of watchdog reporting in South Africa.
Methodology News & Analysis
How Investigative Journalists Are Using Substack Newsletters
To get a better sense of the investigative journalism landscape on Substack, GIJN spoke with watchdog reporters who use the platform to publish original investigations and who are not part of a larger news or media organization.
Reporting Tools & Tips Research
New Document Tools to Unearth Redacted Text, Personal Information, and More
DocumentCloud now includes many more cutting-edge functions — which include extracting personal identification information embedded in large files, importing data from programs like Google Drive, transcribing YouTube audio, and even peering through weak blackout redactions.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Testing the Potential of Using ChatGPT to Extract Data from PDFs
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.
News & Analysis Sustainability
Mastering the Rollout: Increasing the Impact of Your Investigative Story
GIJN social media editor Holly Pate looked into best practices for increasing impact and audience engagement of investigative stories, gathering real-life examples from journalism sites around the world.
How to Report Under a Dictatorship: Lessons from Nicaragua and Beyond
Veteran Nicaraguan journalist and editor Carlos F. Chamorro delivered the memorial lecture at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. His speech reveals how press freedom has been eroded in Nicaragua, and the challenges of producing journalism under the ‘totalitarian regime’ of President Daniel Ortega.
Case Studies News & Analysis
Travel Woes: The Challenges Investigative Reporters Face When Crossing Borders
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.
GIJN Webinar: Making an Impact: Measuring and Increasing the Effects of Investigative Journalism
In this GIJN webinar we bring together an expert in impact strategy and senior journalists with broad experience in building audiences and ensuring that investigative stories make impact both during and after publication.
News & Analysis Press Freedom
Freedom House: Global Freedom Declines for 17th Year
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.
News & Analysis
Editor’s Pick: Best Stories from GIJN Women
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.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Organizing Audio and Video Files and Making Them Searchable
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.
Methodology News & Analysis
How to Report on Scientific Findings
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.
News & Analysis
8 Reasons To Attend This Year’s Global IJ Conference
GIJC23 will be the biggest-ever conference, with 150 technique-focused panels, practical workshops, and networking sessions, and 2,000 watchdog journalists expected. Here are seven other reasons you should attend.
Case Studies News & Analysis
How African Independent Media Are Overcoming Growth Challenges
All news companies face challenges when it comes to retaining audiences and building revenue. But African independent media sites may find an even steeper hill to climb and must look for fresh solutions. During the final installment of INMA’s 2022 Africa Webinar series, two experts from the continent shared their advice.
News & Analysis
Annual Transparency Index Links Corruption with Increased Violence Globally
GIJN’s Document of the Day: The 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) from Transparency International concludes that 95% of countries have made little to no progress fighting corruption since 2017, and notes the link between corruption and increased violence around the world.
News & Analysis Press Freedom
Reporters Shield: New Program Launches to Help Investigative Reporters Tackle Lawsuits
To confront the ongoing legal threats to independent media around the world, the Vance Center and OCCRP are launching Reporters Shield, a multi-million dollar legal support program and defense fund for investigative journalism and newsrooms.
Case Studies Methodology
Is It Ever OK for Journalists to Lie to Get a Story?
In a new book on undercover reporting, Australian journalism professors Andrea Carson and Denis Muller examine whether deception is ever an acceptable method for journalists to use.
News & Analysis
A Global Tour of Investigative Podcasts: The 2022 Edition
GIJN’s global team has reviewed some of our favorite investigative podcasts from 2022. Some dig into scandals and allegations of sexual assault. Others take a deep dive into the backgrounds of leading political figures or explore national scandals. There are tragedies, public interest stories, politics, crime, and corruption, with stories drawn from around the world.
Case Studies
#NotebookGate: How Nigeria’s Dataphyte Exposed Corruption in Government Contracts
How investigative journalist Olanrewaju Oyedeji, from Nigeria’s Dataphyte, exposed corruption in government notebook contracts by analyzing data from the state’s online procurement portal.
10 Questions
Lessons Learned from Investigative Journalist Hayatte Abdou, from the Comoros
As part of GIJN’s ongoing interview series, we speak to Hayatte Abdou, one of the few investigative reporters in the small isanld nation of the Comoros.
News & Analysis
Three Years On: How Journalists Have Dug into Every Aspect of the COVID-19 Pandemic
In the past three years since the first known case of COVID-19 was identified, watchdog reporters around the world have taken on one of the most difficult and deadly investigative topics in modern history. Here, we look back at some of the most innovative and impactful stories written about the pandemic and its consequences.