Investigating Crime, Climate Change, or Elections? See What’s New in the GIJN Resource Center

GIJN’s Resource Center is a leading source of reporting guides, tipsheets, databases, and videos on investigative and data journalism, media fundraising, freelancing, security, and more. It’s used by journalists from around the world with materials in English and a dozen other languages.

The Center’s digital library catalogs more than 2,000 items on subjects as diverse as climate change, war crimes, satellite imagery, organized crime, elections, and property records.

Here’s a selection of our top guides and tipsheets from 2024. If you’ve used GIJN’s resources for a story, please email us — we’d love to read it.

Covering the Extractive Industries

Natural resource extraction can be a breeding ground for financial corruption, dangerous working conditions, and can have a negative impact on the environment. Updated in May 2024, GIJN’s Guide to Covering the Extractive Industries assists journalists digging into the sector, and contains up-to-date international databases, ownership resources, Africa-specific mining trackers, and useful academic literature.

Awards for Investigative Journalists

In April, we updated our very popular guide to prominent journalism awards and competitions around the world. The list is made up of global and regional awards, and also details the usual deadlines for entry. Amongst the new additions are the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Awards, the Rory Peck Awards, the #AllForJan Award, and the Franco-German Journalism Prize.

Grants and Fellowships for Journalists

Also updated was our comprehensive list of national, regional, and global reporting grants and fellowships, which highlights opportunities available to international journalists. The resource details general, international, and specialty fellowships; reporting grants; documentary grants; and other funding opportunities available to journalists.

GIJN’s Elections Guide for Investigative Reporters

Illustration: Marcelle Louw for GIJN

In a year with more elections than ever before, GIJN’S senior staff reporter, Rowan Philp, updated and revised our elections guide for investigative reporters. Designed to offer a broad array of tools, techniques, and resources beyond the primary local sources, the guide provides useful assistance for watchdog reporters digging into almost any campaign or election.

The guide features five chapters: where to begin with elections reporting, new digging tools (including a technique for identifying the individuals behind dangerous or hateful campaign sites), rules and technical trends when preparing for elections, investigating candidates and their campaign finance histories, and tips for tracking political messaging and disinformation.

Latest Tools to Help Reporters Investigate Methane Emissions

We detailed many resources for journalists in our Guide to Investigating Methane (we have both a short version and a long version). In April 2024, we added important new sources that can help investigative journalists hold to account those responsible for emitting methane gas — a major cause of global warming — including Carbon Mapper, IMEO Methane Data, Climate Trace, and the Waste Methane Assessment Platform.

GIJN Webinars Online

In 2024 so far, we’ve added five recordings of GIJN’s global webinars to our Resource Center. This includes a discussion on the Investigative Agenda for Climate Change — inspired by our report on the same topic — two webinars on investigating elections (Investigative Journalism and Digital Threats in 2024 Elections and Investigating Elections: Threat from AI Audio Deepfakes), a panel on Investigating the Israel Hamas Conflict, and a webinar on Investigating the Extractives Industry in Africa.

Updated Resource on Crime

Updated in 2024, our resource on crime contains 52 sources for tracking down a variety of crime data, from organized crime and illicit finance to terrorism, narcotics, and arms trafficking. The list features Interpol — which provides a list of wanted people — databases from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), femicide statistics, and police data.

Abridged Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues

Illustration: Alexandra Ramirez for GIJN

People with disabilities are the largest intersectional minority group, according to the United Nations, at roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide. Anyone can join the disability community at any time — regardless of nationality or socioeconomic status. GIJN’s full Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues was written by Emyle Watkins and published in March 2023, but this shorter, abridged version was released in January 2024.

Step-By-Step Guide for Journalists on the Basics of Google Sheets

Knowing how to use spreadsheets is a crucial skill for investigative journalists, as it allows reporters to find potential stories amongst large amounts of data. At our latest conference — GIJC23 — three experts gave step-by-step instructions on the basics of Google Sheets for investigative reporters, and we compiled their tips.

GIJN DATABASES

Updated Resources on Food and Agriculture

Food — and farming — are topics that are rich with stories for reporters around the world. Here are our updated resources for investigative journalists looking into food and its production, including databases from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, European Union datasets, expert sources from the World Bank, and the latest reports from 15 research centers.

Updated Resources on Corruption

This resource features guides from GIJN and reporting databases from investigative journalism sites like OCCRP and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). It also lists information and datasets from global transparency and financial integrity organizations, as well as reports and country profiles compiled by the UN, US, and UK agencies.

Updated Resources on Business and Trade

Tracking international trade requires access to trustworthy and accurate databases. In this resource, updated in March, we brought together the most useful sources of information for following trade around the world, including tariff data and dispute cases from the World Trade Organization, shipping routes and schedules from the International Maritime Organization, and ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks Database.

Updated Resources on Health and Medicine

Find data on infectious disease outbreaks and emerging public health threats; core indicators prioritized by the global health community; data from surveys and censuses; statistics about dentistry; and information on key sexual and reproductive health issues in our updated resources on health and medicine.

Database for Carbon Offset Reporting

Image: ClimateVisuals.org, Michael Elko

Carbon offsetting is a controversial tool in the fight against global warming, where greenhouse gas emissions are turned into a saleable commodity, or “carbon credits.” This database includes key resources, watchdog groups, and case studies for investigating the carbon offsets market, where oversight by journalists is essential. The full reporting guide and short version of the guide are also available.

Updated Resource on Environmental Data

GIJN’s updated resource on environmental data includes a database on environmental law, information about biodiversity, a list of terrestrial and marine protected areas, a database on the global conservation status of 76,000 plant and animal species, data on all of the world’s nuclear reactors, and an open data portal on aerosol, greenhouse gases, ozone, sea level, and more.

Updated Resources on Migration

With more than 100 links to a range of data, reports and resources — some of which are also available in languages other than English — our updated page on migration is essential reading for those delving into the topic. Resources focus on human trafficking, the effects of climate change on migration patterns, and data on deaths recorded at border crossings.

Updated Resource on Military and Conflict

Harush Ziberi, a Muslim man begs for his life from the Serbian paramilitary unit known as the Tigers and led by warlord Arkan during the first battle for the war in Bosnia. He was later thrown from a window during an interrogation and eventually found in a mass grave. Image: Courtesy of Ron Haviv, VII

Following on from GIJN’s Reporters Guide to Investigating War Crimes — which includes expert advice from more than two dozen specialists and journalists — we’ve updated our resources on military and conflict. Useful sources that are highlighted in the latest version include OpenSanctions, the Small Arms Survey, the Global Conflict Risk Index, and the UN Register of Conventional Arms.

Updated Resources on Sports

Sport can be a hotbed of bribery, corruption, and criminality, and investigative journalists continue to expose scandals that exist at the highest levels. Here, we’ve put together a list of databases with information about the Olympics, athletics, football, basketball and gymnastics, alongside sources for analyzing sports integrity — including corruption, match-fixing, illegal gambling, and doping.

Updated Resources on Human Rights

Human rights issues can feature in reporting about armed conflict, arms control, corporate accountability, the death penalty, detention, disappearances, discrimination, freedom of expression, children’s rights, disability rights, and torture. Here’s our updated list of relevant resources.

Updated Resources on Terrorism

The aftermath of a car bomb in Turkey. Image: Shutterstock

Global databases and security organizations tracking terrorism incidents are listed in this resource, as well as the US State Department-designated list of foreign terror groups. Also included are academic reports, journals, and law enforcement datasets tracking terror violence in different global regions.

Updated Resources on Poverty

This resource on poverty, updated in April of this year, contains reports and statistical datasets from the UN, World Bank, and other global aid agencies and NGOs tracking poverty and inequality. Also included are individual country reports on poverty from the US, UK, Australia, and South Africa.