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16 November 2017: Crowd shots during a coffee break at the 10th Global Investigative Journalism Conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Picture: Daylin Paul

Stories

And Here’s the Wrap: #GIJC17 Highlights

Check out our #GIJN17 highlights in Chinese, German, SpanishArabicRussian and French.

The 10th Global Investigative Journalism Conference was an intense five days of sharing, learning, networking and creating new journalism partnerships. The event, organized for the first time in the African continent, brought together over 1200 media practitioners from 130 countries to Johannesburg, South Africa, from Nov 15 to 19, 2017.

As Huffington Post’s Ferial Haffajee, moderator of the plenary session “Investigating the New Autocrats,” aptly put it: it was a huge “gathering of troublemakers and the world’s worst nightmares under a single roof.”

Here are some highlights from the conference.

Harrowing Stories from the Frontlines

Investigative journalists from around the world, including Philippines and Russia, shared inspiring tales of reporting under oppression and harsh conditions, all while facing physical threats and online vitriol.

Tips, Tools, Techniques

One of the biggest takeaways of the conference was the practical tips and tools the expert investigative and data journalists presented. Missed out on the conference? Check the tipsheets here.

Networking

The real action — getting together to brainstorm on new stories, share sources and collaborate — was happening at the coffee cart, in the corridors and on the lawn, during the session breaks.

Paradise Papers Data Release

The International Consortium of Journalists released its Paradise Papers data during the conference and invited journalists to dive in at the ICIJ Offshore Data Hackathon session. Try your hand at searching the data for story leads with these tips in English (below) or in French.

Good Reads

There were plenty of insightful reads available at the conference. From African Muckraking, a collection of 41 investigative journalism stories written by Africans about Africa and edited by Anya Schiffrin and George Lugalambi, to South African journalist Jacques Paw’s The President’s Keepers, which government officials are threatening to censor.

Also, check out GIJN’s new Investigative Impact: A Report on Best Practices in Measuring the Impact of Investigative Journalism report and Global Reporting Centre’s “Fixing” the Journalist-Fixer Relationship: A Critical Look Towards Developing Best Practices in Global Reporting report.

Multinational, Multilingual Newsroom

Our newsroom, made up of  GIJN staff and volunteers, covered the conference in an unprecedented seven languages. Check out our news coverage, collection of tipsheets, and videos.

The Writing on the Wall

Our Twitter Wall screens were buzzing with the #GIJC17 hashtag which received over 140 million impressions, including our main social media feed @gijn, our African feed on @gijnAfrica, our Middle Eastern feed on @gijnArabic, our Latin American feed on @gijnEs as well as our language feeds in Chinese on @gijnCh and in Russian on @gijnRu. Not to mention our other main social media platforms on Facebook, Weibo and WeChat!

Global Shining Light Award

Investigative stories from Nigeria and Iraq took home the coveted Global Shining Light Award prize. The judges also awarded two citations of excellence.

Party Like A Journalist

Journalists work hard, but they play hard, too. After the keynote address and awards ceremony, #GIJC17 participants were feted to a feast of African food and music.

#GIJC19 Host Announced

We are going to Hamburg, Germany next! See you there.


Eunice Au is GIJN’s program coordinator. She was previously Malaysia correspondent with The Straits Times (Singapore) and journalist for the New Straits Times (Malaysia).

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Read Next

Investigative Stories from Iraq, Nigeria Win Global Shining Light Award

Winners of the seventh Global Shining Light Awards were announced at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference tonight in Johannesburg, South Africa. Top prizes went to gutsy investigations of missing funds in Iraq and extra-judicial killings in Nigeria, with citations of excellence to exposes of arms trafficking in Eastern Europe and complicity behind anti-Muslim riots in India.

#GIJC17 Now Sold Out!

Due to overwhelming response, the Global Investigative Journalism Conference has sold out. We’re sorry we can’t accommodate everyone who would like to attend, but with 1100 participants, we’ve now reached the capacity of our host facilities. As there may be cancellations, we encourage those still interested to get on the waiting list through our registration page.

GIJC17: Early Bird Registration Ends Today

Today is the final day to get early bird registration for the 10th Global Investigative Journalism Conference. We’re now expecting over 800 of the world’s best journalists from 100+ countries. Find out why hundreds of journalists around the world call the GIJC the best journalism conference they’ve ever attended.