The New York City Police Department has the ability to track people in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx by running images from 15,280 surveillance cameras into invasive and discriminatory facial recognition software, a new Amnesty International investigation reveals. Here’s how thousands of volunteers from around the world participated in the investigation.
In this GIJN webinar, we bring together four senior reporters who will offer tips on investigative stories related to wildlife crime, showcase the best research tools, and explore how to cover trafficking at its source and follow the trade. They’ll also discuss how to use social media to investigate the illegal trafficking of wildlife, a crime that is damaging biodiversity worldwide.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 7 to 13, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, focused in on this major investigation by ProPublica, which offers an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of US billionaires. In this edition, we also feature a detailed look at India’s faltering vaccination campaign, a data project exploring Argentina’s news deserts, and an investigation of The Gambia’s water paradox.
Good audio is essential to quality mobile reporting and because mobile journalists — or mojos — often work unassisted, they require equipment that’s easy to use and quick to set up. Here are some newly-released smartphone audio offerings, as recommended by GIJN’s resident mojo expert Ivo Burum, that can help.
The criminal blueprint and its elements need to be understood to efficiently follow the money and stop criminals from doing business as usual. Criminals, both the ones just starting out as well as those who are already well established, have regional and global infrastructure that is continuously built and maintained by what the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) team calls the “criminal services industry.” Here’s OCCRP’s Paul Radu on how it works and how to untangle it.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 31 to June 6, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, found a project by the Guardian explaining who profits from the mass extraction of the region’s natural resources. In this edition, we also feature an investigation by IStories into maternal and infant mortality in Russia, a look into the toxic threat caused by aging dams in the US by Undark Magazine, and an analysis of wildlife trade in Southeast Asia by GIJN member Oxpeckers.
From Wikileaks to the FinCEN files, huge stories have made use of data visualizations to engage their readers and simplify complicated topics. But while data journalism is a powerful tool for investigative journalists, the vast possibilities of this world are wasted if reporters cannot effectively communicate the data they have found to the reader. To test your knowledge, GIJN has created an annotated quiz so readers can assess their current knowledge and understand the mistakes we all make while creating data visualizations.
With more sophisticated AI technologies emerging, researchers warn that “deepfake geography” could become a growing problem. As a result, a team of researchers that set out to identify new ways of detecting fake satellite photos warn of the dangers of falsified geospatial data and call for a system of geographic fact-checking.
Watchdog journalists, despite being some of the world’s most determined and enterprising reporters, face multiple challenges, especially those working in repressive environments. They need support. So we’re pleased to launch GIJN Advisory Services for easier access to our expanding services, including a raft of new tools and resources to strengthen and spread in-depth watchdog journalism.
In June, GIJN will participate in two major conferences alongside global experts in the fields of human rights, technology, and investigative journalism. See you online at RightsCon and #IRE21!
For inmates in Canada, risk assessments can determine which type of prison they are sent to and their chances of successfully reentering society. But an investigation by The Globe and Mail revealed that these assessments are biased against Indigenous and Black inmates. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 24 to 30 also found an interactive project by The New York Times recreating the Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma destroyed in 1921, and data-driven reporting on the influence of big money in soccer, the cost of Italy’s vaccination campaign, and police violence during the recent protests in Colombia.
GIJN is pleased to present Investigating Human Trafficking, a webinar that will provide tips on how to dig into the two main types of human trafficking, sex exploitation and labor abuse, and discuss the best ways to cooperate with civil society groups that offer protection to victims of trafficking and slavery.
Colombian media outlet Cerosetenta joined the international collective of journalists and researchers Bellingcat and research agency Forensic Architecture to map police violence during ongoing protests in Colombia and, in a second step, to reconstruct crimes committed in this context.
When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold last year, editors scrambled to rapidly assemble teams to cover the crisis. Steps ahead were the outlets already dedicated to investigating health as a subject who knew how to source and build networks of public health and vaccine experts, and crucially, how to investigate both the science and the politics behind the pandemic response.
Over the past 18 months, The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation interviewed more than 70 women who said aid workers offered them work in exchange for sex during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The reporters were asked by other groups why they haven’t shared the women’s details yet. But, writes Paisley Dodds, The New Humanitarian’s investigations and features editor, that isn’t part of a journalist’s job.
Serbia’s investigative nonprofits face an extraordinary array of threats and harassment due to a new model in which autocrats outsource repression to oligarchs, pro-government media, street gangs, and other proxies. In a series of interviews, three leading editors told GIJN about the sinister tactics they face, and the determination required to keep accountability alive.
In this edition of Data Journalism Top 10, we look at the history of Eurovision, a Financial Times analysis of how much energy is needed to mine bitcoin, a piece on wildlife trafficking in Hong Kong by GIJN member Oxpeckers, and a piece looking at how American families spend their monthly budgets.
Without a primary visual medium, radio reporting has trailed other media formats in data journalism. But creative data solutions for radio are emerging — and experts shared a dozen tips to help radio reporters broaden their storytelling repertoires, populate digital versions of their stories with data, and empower listeners to visualize without visuals.
Data journalism can show trends, maps, and patterns, highlighting whether violence has gone up or down in a region, where conflict is located, and how this relates to conditions on the ground that impacts civilians, such as migration or refugees. Here’s more on how you can use it in your next investigation.
In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to report on Iraq, with attacks and threats against journalists leaving investigative journalists in the country at risk. In this article, an award-winning reporter explores what is happening and what is at stake.
One little-recognized, unlisted casualty of the struggle for newsroom survival is the impact on an irreplaceable resource that citizens across America rely on: the public record of their communities as recorded by their local newspaper, radio or TV station, online newsroom or other news outlet.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. As the US prepares to withdraw its troops later this year, our NodeXL #ddj mapping found an interactive project by Al Jazeera showcasing the impact of a conflict that has directly claimed the lives of an estimated 241,000 people. In this edition, we also feature a story about the difficulties some Russian students have getting to school by IStories, an investigation into deaths related to gold mining holes by InfoCongo, and a visual vocabulary for data projects by the Financial Times.
GIJN is pleased to partner with Finance Uncovered, a UK-based investigative journalism training and reporting project, to organize two webinars for African journalists on how to investigate company finances.
The Earth Journalism Network has supported thousands of journalists around the world, building a model of editorial and financial support to investigate the most urgent story of our time — climate change.
The search of a journalist’s phone in detention exemplifies the threat digital forensics technologies pose to privacy and press freedom around the world. In Botswana, journalists recount the frightening state of government surveillance, powered by international technology companies.
If you run a local news organization that’s trying to figure out reader or corporate funding, this post can help you get started. In it, Jay Allred sets out ten tips for engaging with your supporters, setting out how the Richland Source, a nationally-recognized online community news organization in Ohio, raised $250,000 to fund local journalism.
In 2018, private investigator Igor Ostrovskiy revealed to US investigative reporter Ronan Farrow that he was spying on him, and became a whistleblower on the threat of “hunting journalists.” Ostrovskiy recently briefed journalists on how to deal with the growing menace of physical surveillance.
Would you board a night train instead of a plane in order to help protect the environment? European policymakers hope more and more citizens will do so. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 3 to 9, found an article by Bloomberg analyzing a plan to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by rolling out more cross-border rail lines. In this edition, we also feature a multimedia project looking at an architectural phenomenon linked to apartheid in South Africa, a Washington Post story about the true toll of the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico City, and a guide on using data in conflict reporting.
