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GIJC23
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The 13th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (#GIJC23), held in Gothenburg, Sweden from Sept. 19 – 22, 2023, gathered more than 2,100 journalists from 132 countries to hold workshops, share innovative methods, and celebrate a community increasingly facing censorship, corporate hacking, and authoritarian threats. This project is a compendium of GIJN’s coverage of the conference panels.
GIJC23
Under Threat, but United: GIJC23 Highlights
As GIJC23 wraps up in Gothenburg, Sweden, it’s clear that investigative journalism has grown stronger and more intelligent, and reporters have become more collaborative and united than ever before.
Awards, Grants, & Fellowships GIJC23
Global Ripple Effect: How GIJC23 Impacted GIJN Fellows Around the World
At GIJC23, GIJN sponsored more than 100 fellows from dozens of developing and transitioning countries.
Data Journalism GIJC23
Expert Tips for Journalists on Building Your Own Datasets
What do you do when you don’t get the dataset you need from authorities, or it doesn’t exist? Two experts provided tips at GIJC23.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Who’s Behind That Internet Ad?: Tips for Investigating Online Advertising
Global internet advertising revenue is forecast to reach $723.6 billion in 2026. Who makes this money and how they go about it is fertile ground for investigative journalists.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Waste, Fraud, Abuse: Covering the Environmental Crime Beat
Journalists share stories and tips from their investigations into environmental crimes, from deforestation in the Congo to the Beirut port blast.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
‘Rewriting History’: Tips for Investigating Events Years, Decades, Or Centuries Later
Historians have always used archival documents to study what happened years, decades, or even centuries ago. But sometimes journalists are the ones digging into the past and uncovering truths that are big enough to “rewrite history.”
GIJC23 Sustainability
Tips for Building Sustainable Business Strategies
Media outlets are now more than ever looking for innovative digital strategies to reach and engage audiences as well as remain sustainable.
GIJC23
8 Tips for Upping Your Game as Investigative Editor
Great investigative editors make stories stronger, protect and motivate reporters, and make investigations more efficient.
Tipsheet Data Journalism GIJC23
No Coding Required: A Step-by-Step Guide to Scraping Websites With Data Miner
Knowing where to look for data — and accessing it via scraping data from websites — can be a powerful force multiplier for investigative journalists.
10 Questions GIJC23
Reporting and Sharing Women’s Stories in the Face of Taliban Oppression
Working as a journalist in Afghanistan has never been harder, but it’s a chance to resist the Taliban’s oppression of women’s rights, says the founder of Zan Times.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
From Real Estate to Racehorses: Tracking Hidden Assets Around the World
When reporters know how to follow the money, hidden wealth can often be uncovered in real estate, planes, yachts, artwork, and even racehorses.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating Environmental Crimes: Tips From Reporters Covering the Amazon
Two reporters whose investigative work has exposed systemic land grabbing and illegal mining in the Amazon share their tips.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Follow the Money — and Enablers — When Investigating Kleptocracies and Mafia States
Veteran journalists explained how an industry of enablers is supporting a growing group of kleptocracies and mafia states around the world, and that following the money is a great way to track them.
GIJC23 Sustainability
Crowd-Driven Journalism: Four Groundbreaking Investigative Projects Powered by Public Engagement
Communities are often considered merely our audience in journalism. But local communities can be engaged to help report impactful stories, provide tips and resources, and even boost the finances of watchdog media around the world.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Power and Control: Investigating Food Supply and Agriculture Amid Climate Change
Water depletion in Tunisia, illegal shark fishing in Asia, global seed monopolies: three environmental journalists shared lessons at GIJC23 from their investigations into food production and supply chains.
Getting Started in Investigative Journalism GIJC23
Freelancing Survival Tips for Investigative Reporters
From cold-pitching to collaborating, and from promoting your work to getting top commissions, being a freelancer brings a whole series of challenges, especially for investigative journalists.
GIJC23 Methodology
Tips for Better Collaborations: Smaller Newsrooms, More Vetting, and Less Ego
Collaboration has emerged as the killer app for investigative journalism in the past decade, and a panel of editors at GIJC23 shared key insights into how watchdog partnerships can thrive.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Watchdogs Against Hate: A Reporter’s Toolbox for Tracking Political Extremism
The influence of extremist groups on mainstream politics is on the rise, and journalists need tools to face this threat to healthy democracies.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips Safety & Security
Recruiting Secret Sources: Where to Find Them, and How to Keep Them Safe
German investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer – who was leaked the Panama Papers documents – explains the art of finding, using, and safeguarding sources.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Tracking Planes and Ships: Tips from Experts
Tracking ships and planes is essential for investigative journalists covering a wide range of stories around the world, from smuggling to sanctions evasion to environmental crimes.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating Cryptocurrency: Key Questions and Tips for Reporters
Criminal activity tends to thrive where state oversight is weakest. So it’s no wonder that cryptocurrencies are the financial tool of choice for criminals around the world, which makes insightful coverage of them increasingly important for investigative journalists.
GIJC23
Stronger Together: Strategies for Women Investigative Journalists
“In some parts of the world it is harder to be a female investigative reporter than in others,” GIJN’s Gabriela Manuli said at a GIJC23 panel discussing the challenges facing women reporters and editors around the globe.
GIJC23 Sustainability
Survival Strategies for Exiled Investigative Media — and Any Independent Newsroom
Autocratic regimes and threats to press freedom have forced independent journalists and newsrooms into exile with alarming frequency in recent years. Founders and editors from three newsrooms in exile from Bangladesh, Russia, and Venezuela shared their tactics for survival.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
How — And Why — Journalists Should Investigate Sports
Hands-on tips for scaling your sports investigations from three award-winning journalists who have covered doping, sexual abuse, sportswashing, and more.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Finding — and Protecting — Sources for Human Trafficking Investigations
Finding victim-survivors to talk about human trafficking is difficult. Three journalists at GIJC23, who cover human trafficking and irregular migration, shared tips on how to find and protect sources.
GIJC23
Following the Money, from Laundromats to Central Banks
How did three reporters investigate complex financial stories featuring Nigerian billionaires, Eurasian oligarchs, and the head of Lebanon’s central bank?
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
How Old-School Field Reporting Powers High-Tech Visual Investigations
Forensic visual investigation has rapidly become a critical method of journalistic inquiry, thanks to new technologies, innovative skills, and the global ubiquity of social media imagery.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Using Online Surveys to Spice Up Your Investigations
A well-designed, properly distributed survey can build a powerful dataset for an investigation. Here are top tips on planning, designing, and executing them from the team at CORRECTIV.
GIJC23
The Power of Documenting War Crimes — and How to Do It
Reporting on war crimes is essential in building the proof that opens the door to accountability, but it also goes further, by preserving and protecting a society’s memory and dignity.
GIJC23
‘Make Them a Participant in Their Story’: Investigating Children’s Issues
When reporting on children’s issues, it’s essential to treat them as individuals in their own right and give them agency over the telling of their stories.
Awards, Grants, & Fellowships GIJC23
Investigations from Nigeria, Venezuela, South Africa, and North Macedonia Win Global Shining Light Awards at GIJC23
The GSLA honors watchdog journalism in developing or transitioning countries, carried out under threat or in perilous conditions — and the 2023 competition attracted applications from 84 countries.
GIJC23
The New Organized Crime: How to Catch Up With Criminals
An all-star team of five journalism experts shared their approaches to investigating the ever-evolving world of organized crime.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Why Investigative Reporters Should Look for the ‘Termites’ Eroding Democracy
Four editors — and veterans of the global push-back against autocracy — discussed effective methods for holding the enemies of democracy accountable.
GIJC23 News & Analysis
Climate Change: Holding Government and Industry Accountable
As climate change impacts communities across the globe in the form of wildfires, record heat, deadly flooding, and devastating droughts, there is a growing urgency in investigating the causes and impacts.
GIJC23
Best Practices for Investigating Healthcare Issues
As the world’s health risks continue to evolve, dedicated health journalists have never been more important.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
5 Looming Threats to Democracy — and Tips for Exposing Them
Three reporters from across the globe discussed the numerous looming threats to democracy — and shared tips for exposing the bad actors behind election disinformation and authoritarian attacks.
GIJC23
Reporting on Russia from the Outside — From Investigating Ukraine to AI-Powered Analysis
From cultivating sources to verifying information, the challenges of investigating Russia from outside the country are numerous.
GIJC23 Research
How Should Investigative Journalists Collaborate with Scientists?
Collaboration between investigative journalists and scientists can bring great rewards, but for successful collaborations, journalists must also consider how they can help scientists.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Global Collaborations and AI: Navigating the Future of Investigative Journalism
Three veteran journalists shared tips on maximizing the potential and navigating the pitfalls of artificial intelligence and cross-border collaborations.
GIJC23
Hacking Crisis: Citizen Lab’s Ron Deibert on How Investigative Journalists Can Fight Back
In a keynote speech at the GIJC in Sweden, Deibert laid out the new, fearsome digital threats facing the world’s watchdog journalists.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating — And Embracing — the AI Revolution
Exploring how the technology can help newsrooms, how investigations have revealed the impact of AI on communities, and how journalists can move beyond narratives of hype or despair.
GIJC23
Audacious Tricks to Track Smuggled Goods, Identify Illegal Fish, and Interview Reluctant Sources
The team from Mission Investigate at Swedish Public Television (SVT) have used innovative and sometimes audacious tricks and techniques to boost their investigations.
GIJC23
How Indigenous Journalists Are Powering Investigations Through International Collaboration
From the impact of green energy projects to the mis- and disinformation campaigns that target marginalized communities, there are a number of investigative topics that unite Indigenous reporters.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
‘The Worst Crisis for Press Freedom’: How to Report in Asia’s Challenging Environment
From investigating prisons to stolen sand and child brides, three award-winning journalists share their experiences reporting from a region experiencing a press freedom “crisis.”
Case Studies Reporting Tools & Tips
Collaborating to Uncover ‘Putin’s Shadow War’ in Scandinavia
A unique collaboration between four Nordic public broadcasters sought to uncover the scale of Russian covert spying operations in the region.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Humanizing without Sensationalizing: Investigating Femicide
How can journalists use data without reducing the murder of women to crime statistics, and produce a narrative that humanizes without sensationalizing?
Getting the Story Out GIJC23
Going Multilingual — The New Frontier of Podcasting?
The global boom in audio streaming offers an opportunity for investigative journalists to reach wider audiences by developing multilingual translations of their podcasts.
Data Journalism GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips to Guide Investigative Journalists in Document Text Analysis
Investigative journalists often face the challenge of reviewing and combining large documents or data in text forms. This can be very exhausting and labor intensive.
Case Studies Data Journalism GIJC23
Data-Driven Journalism: Roundup of Recent Standout Stories
The best of modern data journalism tells powerful stories that test assumptions. At GIJC23, two experts discussed strong recent investigations and what makes them stand out.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Working With Hackers: Where — and How — Journalists Should Use These Sources
The use of hacked data is an ethical challenge for investigative journalists. But responsible use of this information can lead to public interest revelations that would otherwise stay hidden.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Unleashing the Power of Social Network Analysis for Investigative Journalism
Social Network Analysis (SNA) enables investigative journalists to connect the dots that can lead to groundbreaking revelations and expose deep-seated wrongdoing.
GIJC23 Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Better FOIA Requests: Taking Right-to-Information Access to the Next Level
Many reporters rely on FOIA requests and RTI legislation for their investigations. But how do you take these requests to the next level?
GIJC23 Legal Defense & Emergency Aid Press Freedom
How Journalists Can Protect against Slapp Cases and Other Legal Threats
How journalists can identify whether they’ve been hit with a SLAPP suit — and resources for helping journalists fight back.
Resource
Full Report: The Investigative Agenda for Climate Change Journalism
What happened when 80 climate change journalists and experts met to discuss the future role of investigative journalism in climate crisis reporting.