Ján Kuciak was building a name for himself with his investigations on corruption when he was shot dead alongside his fiancée — the first targeted killing of a journalist in Slovakia’s modern history. A collective of reporters worked together to publish his final story, and then set up an investigative journalism center in his name.
Our weekly NodeXL curation of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter features several climate change-related stories: snowless Winter Olympics, a look at the carbon footprint of popular food, how the world’s largest beef producer is fueling deforestation in the Amazon, and a Climate Promise Detector project reviewing the stance of presidential candidates on climate change in Costa Rica.
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.
Many of the lawmakers who made up the historical ranks of the United States Congress had a personal relationship with slavery with more than 1,700 being slaveowners, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Our weekly NodeXL curation of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter also features a visualization of the size of the Tonga eruption, an analysis of how Twitter is being used ahead of a high-stakes election in the Philippines, and a critique of some of the maps used to illustrate the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border amid fears of a military incursion.
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.
Journalists are increasingly using the tools of science journalism and scientific inquiry to carry out in-depth data and investigative reporting, and even to shine a spotlight on questionable scientific findings.
In this edition of GIJN Toolbox, we profile three brand new — or newly expanded — tools to dig into financial secrecy and hidden gains from corruption or crime. Our list includes a user-friendly database to search for sanctions and conflict-of-interest red flags, a site that uses an algorithm to detect hidden bank accounts, and a newly expanded database on the true owners of offshore companies.
If you’re a word puzzle addict and active on Twitter, you’ll have come across the latest craze — Wordle. Al Jazeera Labs analyzed the puzzle’s word bank to give tips on how to tackle the game strategically. Our weekly NodeXL curation of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter also features an analysis of shopping habits during the pandemic, an examination of vaccination rates among elite athletes, details on the scandal shaking UK politics, and an interactive mini-golf game illustrating how gerrymandering — the manipulation of electoral boundaries — plays out in various US states.
It’s not often that the worlds of investigative reporting and Barbies collide. But the latest doll to be released by the American toy giant Mattel is none other than African-American trailblazer Ida B. Wells, dubbed by The New York Times as “one of the nation’s most influential journalists.”
Investigative journalists face extraordinary challenges, with legal and physical threats, growing surveillance, online trolls, and a financial model that’s all but collapsed. Now add to that a global pandemic and a backlash against democracy and independent media, and you can see our field is under tremendous pressure.
In this second excerpt from a report on the state of sustainability of journalism, the author discusses the African press, how the coronavirus pandemic impacted reporting in the region, and the proposals to ensure the media not only survives, but thrives, in the future.
In this excerpt from Anya Schiffrin’s latest report on the state of sustainability of journalism, the author discusses how government funding can throw the profession a lifeline in an era where philanthropic efforts to support the press are struggling and Big Tech is increasingly seen as a competitor instead of a platform for news organizations.
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.
We have rolled into the third calendar year of the pandemic, but the debate about how journalists present data on the coronavirus continues to rage. Just six days into 2022, a spiral chart divided the data journalism community into two camps. Our weekly NodeXL analysis and curation of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter also features an investigation into the prenatal testing industry, a visualization of death threats received by election staff, and an interactive map of Russian military bases near the Ukraine border.
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.
Over the last 12 months investigative journalists in Bangladesh uncovered cases of corruption, abuse of power, money laundering, and institutional negligence. The biggest topic last year, as in previous years, was corruption. But in picking the top stories of 2021, we also considered significance and novelty, the diversity of issues covered, impact, and a focus on the vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society as much as the depth and techniques used in any investigation.
This was a tough year for Chinese journalists, who continue to work in a repressive press landscape. Yet several outstanding investigations were produced by courageous newsrooms in 2021. In this curated roundup, we list eight fine examples from China and Taiwan.
At a time when newsrooms in Africa are increasingly struggling with shortages of cash and threats to press freedom, the level of investigative journalism that emerged from sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 was remarkable. Here, we share 10 outstanding examples from the region.
In 2021, as the mainstream Indian media continued to transform into the propaganda arm of the ruling party, intrepid digital platforms, mainly from the English-language press, have published some groundbreaking investigative stories and forced the rest of the legacy media to follow their lead.
Despite worsening legal and physical attacks on the press, solidarity among journalists in Russia and the Eastern European region is growing. Our list of the eight best investigations of the year reveals that more and more cross-border, joint investigations are being carried out, and illustrate continuing reporting courage in the region that should inspire the entire journalism community.
Attacks on reporters and a downward trend in transparency in Pakistan in recent years have had a notable impact on the press climate, but despite this, journalists are using the resources available to them to continue investigating. Using traditional shoe-leather reporting and relying on communities to access information and even, at times, for data, this year journalists have dug into rape statistics, alleged police brutality, and human smuggling, alongside other stories.
DOSSIER, an Austrian outlet that is a member center of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has been able to offset the financial challenges experienced by many media outlets in Austria — and combat a series of vexatious lawsuits — thanks to its membership program.
