Guide Resource
A Guide to Fact-Checking Investigative Stories
Bulletproofing your story demands much more than getting the facts right. It requires a meticulous approach from the start in order to pass quality control.
Resource Center
GIJN’s Resource Center is here to help journalists expand their knowledge and skills. The Center holds more than 2,000 items in 14 languages – from tip sheets and guides to instructional videos. Use the menu on the right to navigate it or the search box below to find topics you’re interested in.
Awards, Grants, & Fellowships
Climate
Contacts & Networking
Data Journalism
Databases
Distribution & Promotion
Elections
Fundraising
Gender
Getting Started in Investigative Journalism
Human Rights
Human Trafficking
Investigating Institutions
Investigative Techniques
Legal Defense & Emergency Aid
Organized Crime
Reporting Tools & Tips
Safety & Security
Sustainability
Teaching & Training
52
posts
Clear filters ×
Guide Resource
Reporter’s Guide to Investigating Organized Crime
For details on this guide’s chapter authors, see the Acknowledgments page. Illustrations are by Ann Kiernan. Editing by Laura Dixon, Tanya Pampalone, and Reed Richardson. Andrea Arzaba was the project manager.
Guide Resource
Business Tools
Here are tools to help small newsrooms with all the work that isn’t newsgathering: paying the bills; scheduling collaborative projects, and maintaining shared communication channels for team members; editing and posting a podcast; designing a graphic for social media and then seeing how well the post performs. With myriad products on the market all claiming […]
Guide Resource
A Journalist’s Guide to Avoiding Lawsuits and Other Legal Dangers
The practice of independent journalism is facing enormous challenges, ranging from authoritarian regimes implementing regressive laws that stifle speech to journalists being unable to make a living from their work. In order to meet those challenges, journalists can benefit from understanding the protections provided by international law.
Guide Resource
Investigating Femicide: A GIJN Guide
Femicide — the intentional murder of women because they are women — is a global problem. According to the UN’s latest estimates, 50,000 women and girls are killed each year by intimate partners or other family members. GIJN’s latest resource aims to help journalists understand what femicide is, find and understand the data available, and suggest which experts to interview.
Guide Resource
Investigating Sexual Abuse: An Updated Reporting Guide
The subject of sexual violence remains a sensitive if not taboo subject in much of the world and often goes unreported. Watchdog journalism has started digging deeper into sexual violence, but these investigations are still few relative to the estimated number of cases worldwide.
Guide Resource
Partnerships and Collaborations
Collaborations on investigative projects are increasingly popular. Working together with partners can multiply and maximize reporting resources and increase readership. Special skills can be acquired, such as analyzing data, creating visualizations, or preparing multimedia elements. There is a steadily growing amount of literature on how to do collaborative investigations — how to build trust, create […]
Guide Resource
Freelancing: Platforms That Earn Income for Writers
There are a growing number of sites that help writers earn money while self-publishing. Whether these are right for you will require research. In this section, we are not exploring the many places that help create websites, newsletters and blogs, or looking into the plug-ins that permit sales and subscriptions. Nor are we getting into […]
Guide Resource
Digging into Disappearances: A Guide to Investigating Missing People and Organized Crime
Millions of people disappear every year, according to the International Commission on Missing People, and organized crime is involved in many of these cases. The violence associated with drug trafficking in particular, but also wildlife smuggling, resource theft, human trafficking, and other criminal rackets, plays a key role in many of the disappearances. Journalists act […]
Guide Resource
GIJN’s Guide to Citizen Investigations
Citizens can investigate, and they do — all over the world. Today we’re launching a new GIJN guide to help non-journalists investigate even more. It’s full of techniques used by investigative journalists that will be helpful to citizen investigators, too. These include searching the internet, finding out who owns corporations, investigating politicians, and much more.
Guide Resource
Citizen Investigation Guide
Curiosity fuels investigations, and there’s no monopoly on who can be curious. Citizens can investigate, and they do. GIJN provides some great examples below. This GIJN guide aims to help non-journalists investigate even more. The sections teach the techniques used by investigative journalists.
Guide Resource
GIJN/NAJA Guide for Indigenous Investigative Journalists
This guide is created to encourage Indigenous investigative journalists and to provide empowering tips and tools. Developed collaboratively by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), the guide explores eight key topics.The entries include background information, examples of investigative work, suggestions for stories, and resources for information. This guide […]
Guide Resource
Climate Crisis: Ideas for Investigative Journalists
This GIJN resource page aims to encourage more investigative reporting about the climate crisis. In Part 1, we begin with articles that provide concrete suggestions for investigative projects. In Part 2, we have collected challenging commentaries on how the media has handled climate change and what it should be doing better. In Part 3, we […]
Guide Resource
Planespotting: An Updated Guide to Tracking Aircraft Around the World
In 2019, GIJN first launched its guide to planespotting and flight tracking around the world. In the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which led to a great migration of Russian oligarchs and their assets, as well as Elon Musk’s efforts to block bots from tracking planes in real time on Twitter, we’ve now […]
Guide Resource
GIJN’s Global Guide to Freedom of Information
More than 115 countries worldwide have laws that require officials to turn over public records.
Guide Resource
Land Ownership Records: So Useful, but Challenging to Find
Finding out who owns land can be tough. While property registration systems exist in almost all countries, the quality and availability of the information vary widely. World Bank experts estimate that only 30% of the world’s population has a legally registered title to their land, a widely quoted figure that Bank officials stress is a […]
Guide Resource
Prospecting and Cultivation: A Fundraising Primer
Growing your major gifts program — or getting one started in the first place — can feel like an overwhelming responsibility. The philanthropic landscape is extremely competitive, and the prospect of identifying and soliciting prospective donors can seem cumbersome and intimidating. While the non-profit journalism landscape has flourished, opening up new revenue streams and business […]
Guide Resource
Crowdfunding: Essential Reading
GIJN’s research provides tips on how to plan and carry out a crowdfunding campaign, names of national and regional crowdfunding sites, suggestions of useful tools to use. And some stories from those who have done it. At GIJN’s 2019 Hamburg conference, Tamas Bodoky of Atlatszo in Hungary, elaborated on seven suggestions (see his tipsheet): Establish […]
Guide Resource
Investigating the Supply Chain
Exposing the connections between the products we buy and the circumstances of their creation has proved to be fertile ground for investigative journalism. In seeking to understand the origins of our food, raw materials and manufactured goods, reporters have uncovered slavery, environmental crimes, corruption and human rights abuses. In this new GIJN resource page, we identify the investigative tools used for tracking the “supply chains” that link fields, oceans, mines and factories with the end products we buy.
Guide Resource
Investigating Supply Chains
Supply chains are networks between companies and their suppliers that produce and distribute a specific product. They may include providers of raw material, firms that convert the material into products, storage facilities and distribution centers, and retailers who bring the ultimate product to consumers. The products are as varied as the marketplace: clothing, electronics, vehicles, […]
Guide Resource
Tracking Ships at Sea
More than 90,000 commercial ships make up the world’s commercial fleet, their locations closely tracked and the resulting data available for free. GIJN has compiled a comprehensive list of resources to track ships (including big yachts and fishing boats). We link to four dozen valuable sources of information. At the 2023 Global Investigative Journalism Conference, […]
Guide Resource
Migration Reporting: Sources, Guidelines, Contests
With an estimated 257 million migrants in the world, migration has emerged as one of the most contentious national and international issues. GIJN has gathered resources on this topic, including: Useful sources of factual information Reporting guidelines and media criticism Information on journalism prizes (and the winners) concerning migration Examples of recent and varied stories […]
Guide Resource
Human Trafficking and Slavery: A Guide to Resource Materials
Researchers estimate 40 million people exist in some form of slavery today, ranging from debt bondage and false contracts to sex trafficking, forced marriage and child labor. To help journalists cover human trafficking and slavery, GIJN has created this collection of resources including documents and reports, places to find expertise and advice on best practices in reporting and investigation.