GIJN’s 10 Must-Read Stories of 2024

GIJN’s original stories in 2024 represent a showcase of innovative and game-changing reporting methods for urgent topics, based on insider tips from real-world investigations and conference presentations.

Given that 2024 is a historic year for elections and at-risk democracies around the world, many stories — and one comprehensive guide from the editorial team — focused on techniques to expose election dirty tricks, far-right threats, foreign interference, and the actors behind coordinated disinformation.

There were also dozens of best-practice stories and webinars on digging into the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as tips for safety and forensic investigation into other conflict and repression environments, from Ukraine to Sudan.

What makes GIJN’s content unique is that editorial staff and contributors unearth methodologies from recent investigations directly from the journalists behind them, and then curate the insights, tips, and tools from those interviews that can most benefit reporters pursuing similar projects.

GIJN’s daily articles in 2024 featured numerous technical stories on new data techniques and ethical AI tools to dramatically improve reporting efficiency. They also included briefing pieces on alarming new trends for reporters to monitor, from changing money laundering tactics and religious scams in Africa to drug and human trafficking on the high seas.

We encourage readers to search our site to find stories that set out practical tips, open source tools, and detailed databases that just might trigger new leads or approaches in tough investigative stories. Meanwhile, below, we have curated a list of 10 notable, must-read GIJN articles from this past year: a mix of our most popular stories, game-changing tipsheets, topical coverage, and important pieces you might have missed. Many are available in multiple languages (you’ll see the links to available translations at the top of each individual story).

Reporter’s Tipsheet for Acquiring Free Satellite Images

This image — showing a Russian military buildup near Ukraine in November 2021 — was one of more than 400 high-resolution images of the Ukraine conflict that Maxar’s News Bureau has distributed to journalists. Image: Screenshot, Maxar

This was one of the most important and practically useful stories of the year for journalists — partly because, as it states, “there is a free treasure trove of compelling visual evidence out there that is going unused by many watchdog journalists.”

While satellite imagery represents an important new frontier for investigative reporting, most newsrooms don’t take advantage of this powerful form of evidence — partly because of mistaken perceptions that it requires advanced technical know-how, or that it tends to be available only through expensive payments or arrangements between commercial satellite providers and major media outlets.

In fact, at least low- and medium-resolution images of almost every spot on the Earth are now available for free to any newsroom — and this story explains how to find and use them, and how to seek free high-resolution images too.

For expert sources, GIJN deliberately sought out journalists who used to work for satellite imagery companies.

In addition to detailed suggestions on how to use open source tools such as EO Browser, these sources also offer tips on how to source high-resolution images from commercial vendors — including insider tips on how to phrase and frame requests for free custom images to marketing staff. Further insights on geostationary satellite imagery are shared by a graphics reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

Four Decades Digging Into Australia’s Underbelly, from Corrupt Politicians to Organized Crime

Illustration: Smaranda Tolosano for GIIJN

“I kept going, and when he finally went to jail — he’s now been to jail twice as a result of things that I’ve written about him — I just burst into tears.”

This remark about a corrupt politician is just one among dozens of gripping, inspirational, and sometimes darkly hilarious comments by legendary Australian investigative reporter Kate McClymont in this 10 Questions GIJN story from September.

The chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald, McClymont has four decades of experience investigating corruption, organized crime, and public scandals in Australia, earning several major awards and a reputation for courageous sleuthing along the way. The story highlights her recent podcast, called Liar Liar, which focuses on her investigation into a Sydney businesswoman behind a vast Ponzi scheme.

Interviewed by GIJN senior editor Laura Dixon, her responses include fascinating recollections about stumbling upon oddly similar search warrants, dealing with personal safety threats, and candid and entertaining anecdotes about past mistakes. McClymont also offers insights into the surprisingly hostile and unhelpful legal landscape facing Australian journalists.

The Power of Collaboration: El CLIP and the Plan to Transform Latin America’s Investigative Ecosystem

Illustration: Dante Aguilera for GIJN

Of the many GIJN stories published in a July week entirely dedicated to investigative journalism in Latin America, this piece by contributor Diego Courchay was arguably the symbolic anchor.

That’s because innovative and courageous collaboration represents the principal response among independent journalists to an era of rising authoritarianism and cross-border abuses in the region, and the story profiles the organization that has both championed and developed the collaborative project approach there.

Known as El CLIP for its Spanish acronym, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism has facilitated and produced impactful accountability stories in collaboration with nearly 100 media partners in Latin America — as well as others in Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa — in the five years since its founding.

As co-founder María Teresa Ronderos notes in the piece, “We see CLIP as a solution and service center, not as a media organization that is competing with others.” Courchay explains that some of these services include developing and sharing free digital tools to boost the safety, impact, and digging power of its media collaborators.  The story also supplies an inspirational list of major investigations into migration from Africa and Asia; the use of churches for money laundering; government corruption; and the prominent people behind COVID scams and misinformation.

Going Undercover in Africa: Tips from Recent Investigations

A BBC Africa Eye undercover reporter (left) secretly recording a purchase of codeine cough syrup through a black market dealer. Image: Screenshot, YouTube; BBC Africa Eye

As GIJN explains in its “Guide to Undercover Reporting,” clandestine evidence-gathering remains a stressful and ethically fraught method for investigative journalists. In addition, experts say that editors should only consider it for stories that are clearly in the public interest, and where there is no other way to gather critical information.

However, as this piece by Nigerian freelancer Mohammed Taoheed explains, ethical undercover reporting has emerged as an important and growing method in countries with weak accountability traditions and without laws for public document disclosure. This story reveals how reporters recently used various undercover means — from hidden cameras to posing as accomplices — to uncover public wrongdoing in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, and Kenya. For instance, a story on fraud in the system of student placements in Ghana reveals the need for “a back-up plan” before heading out, because undercover reporters often have only one chance to nail the evidence they require.

It also includes some excellent tips on ethics and stress — such as a strategy from BBC Africa Eye to first check the undercover plan with a trusted, independent journalist outside the outlet.

How to Identify and Investigate AI Audio Deepfakes, a Major 2024 Election Threat

Image: Shutterstock

This first-of-its-kind explanatory and tips story led directly to expert panel sessions at two major journalism conferences — NICAR24 and IRE24 — as well as a GIJN training webinar this year.

One reason for the intense interest was an unexpected revelation from sources in GIJN’s reporting: that, while fact checkers have long feared and prepared to deal with video deepfakes, audio deepfakes, and AI-driven voice-cloned robocalls had suddenly emerged as the greater threat to elections around the world in the seismic year of 2024. The story reveals that audio simulations are easier to make, harder to detect, and more impactful on voters, and that they had already undermined elections in several countries. Worse still: fact checkers and researchers were poorly prepared to respond — a problem the story directly addresses with several new tips and tools to detect, debunk, and back-trace these fakes.

While noting that many “text-to-speech” voice-cloning tools “are designed for pranks, commercial ads, or even fun gifts,” the report lists several that propagandists abuse, as well as several detection tools to unmask them and track their creators.

Building an Independent Newsroom That’s a ‘Pain in the Neck’ to the Powerful, Brick by Brick

Image: Courtesy of Mukhriz Hazim / Malaysiakini

Twenty years ago, hundreds of readers gathered for a vigil in support of Malaysia’s then new independent news outlet, Malaysiakini, following a newsroom raid by police. Government harassment and fines have continued to burden the multilingual digital site during its growth in the decades since — but so has that remarkably robust pride and support from an audience inspired by the courage and independence of its journalism.

In this profile, contributor Ana P. Santos explains how an outlet in the increasingly hostile press environment of Southeast Asia has not only survived and grown to more than 60 staff,  but also diversified its media formats and investigative focus areas, and held public officials accountable.

A GIJN member organization, Malaysiakini will also be the co-host of the 2025 Global Investigative Journalism Conference, which will be held in Kuala Lumpur next November.

And that public support — an inspiration for under-fire newsrooms elsewhere — was underlined by a 2024 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, which ranked the outlet as the most widely accessed online news outlet in Malaysia, with remarkably high public trust rating of 60%.

The profile unpacks how this team built this kind of track record, via recent investigation case studies and multiple interviews. It also explains the significance of the fact that Malaysiakini is the only news outlet in the country to report in four languages: English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, and Tamil.

Loss, Destruction, and a Will to Keep Going: The Regional Outlets Reporting on Gaza

Palestinian relatives mourn over the body of the journalist Akram Al-Shafi’i, who died on January 6, 2024, after being injured during an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. Image: Shutterstock

In the most extreme circumstances, the most important investigative techniques are simply those that help keep reporters safe, cope with trauma, and keep them going.

While GIJN has produced dozens of tipsheets and webinars on the Gaza conflict since the October 7 Hamas terror attack and Israel’s relentless, over-lethal response, this story by Middle East contributor Nader Durgham reveals how three local news organizations are investigating abuses in a war that has also killed scores of journalists.

Journalist safety in this conflict is sometimes beyond strategy. Consider this revelation from the story: that one reporter from the Palestinian news agency Wattan was advised not to cover an IDF attack on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, and rather to stay home for her safety. But she went to the hospital anyway — and later returned to find that her own home in Gaza had been bombed while she’d been reporting. As her editor remarked: “The field is sometimes safer than home.”

However, the story does include useful and inspirational tips on logistics, equipment, and crowdfunding support; on documenting evidence without electricity or internet; and on countering disinformation from military sources. Reporters also share methods to mitigate the psychological fallout of covering the brutal conflict.

Investigating Corruption and the ‘Tanker Mafias’ in Karachi’s Water Supply Chain

Illicit water theft by private companies has left the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board public utility underfunded and suffering from crumbling infrastructure. Image Shutterstock

“As a journalism instructor in Pakistan, if there is one piece that I share with my students — or any other reporter looking for a study in the craft — it’s the story to end all stories on Karachi’s water tanker mafia, published in January 2023 by the English-language newspaper, Dawn.”

This lead paragraph from veteran Pakistani editor and instructor Mahim Maher perfectly summarizes the significance of this piece on how three investigative journalists exposed a vast, complex, and dangerous water corruption scam in Pakistan’s largest city.

Tellingly, Dawn’s 5,000-word investigation was made possible by diligent beat reporting. And Maher reveals that the team used almost every technique in the investigative toolkit to track the many layers of corruption, from document and satellite image analysis to reporter stakeouts at pumping stations and carefully planned interviews at every node of the illicit water supply chain.

Going Undercover to Reveal a Secret Meeting of Germany’s Far-Right

Image: Screenshot, CORRECTIV

“At a pretty lake not far from Potsdam … a breathless runner enters a neo-Baroque villa built in the Weimar era and tries to order a cup of coffee. The runner — actually an undercover reporter working with investigative journalism newsroom CORRECTIV — has deliberately gatecrashed a gathering in the historic Landhaus Adlon hotel.”

This gripping account is how GIJN contributor Sarah Karacs begins this wonderfully readable story on how CORRECTIV exposed a secret summit between Germany’s far-right political party and extremist groups, as well as their “master plan” to expel millions of minority people from the country. Their investigation triggered public protests and “shockwaves” through German politics.

The GIJN piece includes detailed covert reporting tactics on the project — from a “loud” coffee cover story to collaboration with a human rights group and the use of dashcams and cameras on a nearby ship.

Investigating State Attacks on Exiles: Lessons from The Washington Post’s ‘Repression’s Long Arm’ Series

Pro-democracy and pro-China demonstrators clashed during Premier Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco in November 2023. Image: Shutterstock

A recent report from Freedom House revealed a stunning trend that has largely gone unnoticed by media: that 44 governments in the past decade have harassed, attacked, or even killed dissident citizens and exiles while they were residing within the borders of their new countries, even in some democracies. In total, 99 countries were victims of these breathtaking breaches of sovereignty.

This GIJN story reveals how the international investigations unit at The Washington Post is digging into this hidden transnational repression phenomenon in an ongoing series called Repression’s Long Arm. Featuring practical insights from the Post’s Singapore correspondent, the piece unearths novel techniques used to expose incidents of cross-border harassment, and worse, by China, India, and Iran. See this story to learn about the special methods needed to unmask these operations, including tips for tracking state-controlled diaspora groups, the use of advanced facial recognition tools, and tapping private security as sources. Most important: this piece shows that – thanks to government fears of diplomatic fallout — accountability for these abuses lies largely with investigative reporters.

Rowan Philp is GIJN’s senior reporter. He was formerly chief reporter for South Africa’s Sunday Times. As a foreign correspondent, he has reported on news, politics, corruption, and conflict from more than two dozen countries around the world.