GIJN Impact News & Analysis
GIJN in 2025, by the Numbers
The year 2025 was a groundbreaking moment for the Global Investigative Journalism Network. Here are some of the key metrics from all of our work around the world last year.
Stories
3107
posts
News & Analysis
‘A Smaller Budget Means You Have Less Time to Work in the Field, Less Time for Everything’: US Foreign Aid Funding Cuts One Year Later
GIJN speaks to Rawan Damen, the director-general of ARIJ, about the impact of Trump’s funding decisions on their work in the Middle East — and how they have adapted to survive.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Choosing Climate Stories that Make an Impact
Given widespread misinformation and climate skepticism, veteran environmental reporters offer case studies and best practices for pursuing impactful topics of climate investigations.
GIJC25
Using Satellite Imagery to Investigate War Crimes
At GIJC25, reporters explained how remote sensing, open source verification, and visual forensics are now central to covering conflicts that are inaccessible or dangerous for journalists.
News & Analysis
Exposing the Regime from Afar: How Cuban Journalists Report on the Island from Exile
Journalists have a responsibility to “amplify” the voices of people on the island who want to speak out, says José J. Nieves from news site El Toque.
News & Analysis
How the Refugee System Fails the Whistleblowers It Should Protect
For refugee journalists who expose criminal networks, cross-border crimes, and sensitive failures within the camp system — safety and security protocols are poorly funded and inconsistent.
GIJC25
Following the Money, Routes, and Violence: Inside Cross-Border Criminal Enterprises
Expert follow-the-money journalists have documented how criminal networks now operate, via fluid, decentralized systems that are often indistinguishable from legitimate global commerce.
News & Analysis
Strategies for Investigative Journalism Under Pressure: Insights from Pakistan
Despite numerous press freedom threats, Pakistani journalists continue to publish high-impact investigations — and offer lessons for reporters navigating restrictive environments worldwide.
Data Journalism Top 10
US Science Research Cuts, Shadow Fuel from Iran, Trump’s Crypto Wealth, and Mapping Below Antarctica’s Ice
Our round-up of the best in recent data journalism also highlights a deadly train accident in Spain, new migration patterns from Venezuela, and Japan’s nuclear power resurgence.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Elections Under Attack, Shadow Aircraft Fleet, National Park Land Grabs: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories from Sub-Saharan Africa
In 2025, journalists across Africa have courageously reported on illegal activities — and their impact — long after they’ve occurred, and despite attempts to bury this information.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Sanctions Evasion, Army Executions, and a Royal ‘Flying Palace’: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus
Despite numerous obstacles, journalists from the region continue their investigative work through partnerships, cooperation with civil society, and open source research.
How They Did It
Uncovering Syria’s Stolen Children
This collaborative investigation brought together international and local journalists to reveal how the Assad regime used a global childcare charity to aid the disappearance of children.
GIJC25 News & Analysis
Documenting Gaza: How Journalists Can Collect Evidence Even When Denied Access
Journalists have used local reporting, open source analysis, and forensic reconstruction to verify events happening on the ground in Gaza, allowing them to challenge official narratives and preserve evidence for future accountability.
GIJC25 News & Analysis
How Journalists Can Untangle Global Corporate Secrecy
Speakers at this GIJC25 session dismantled the myth that offshore finance is inaccessible or unknowable and argued that the real barrier is not secrecy alone, but confidence, skill, and persistence.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Investigating Gaza, Personal Mobile Data for Sale, and Compromised Supply Chains: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories in French
Featuring stories from France to Tunisia, Canada to DR Congo, touching on allegations of abuses in the labour chain, corruption, and investigations into gold mining.
Getting the Story Out
‘Some Stories Just Work Better Through Film’: On the Strategy Behind Making an Investigative Documentary
Direkt36 co-founder Andras Petho speaks about how an investigative documentary became a rare viral success, what it revealed about Viktor Orban’s Hungary, and what other small newsrooms can learn from its impact.
GIJC25 Sustainability
‘No Cavalry Is Coming’: How Investigative Journalism Must Rethink Money, Metrics and Survival
This GIJC25 panel discussion surfaced a set of unresolved questions about what investigative journalism can sustainably support — and what it may need to leave behind.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
‘Ghost’ Prisoners, Missing Children, Anti-Corruption Wiretaps: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories from Ukraine
Despite domestic threats to press freedom and power cuts and sleepless nights from Russian attacks, Ukrainian independent journalists continue their work with depth and skill.
Data Journalism Top 10
Iran’s Internet Blackouts, TikTok Health Misinformation, Visualizing Venezuela’s Oil, and a Fatal Shooting by ICE
Our round-up of the best in recent data journalism also highlights noise pollution in Singapore, India’s ditching of Bollywood romance movies, and a visual investigation into rocket debris.
GIJC25 News & Analysis
Tips to Investigate AI Labor Abuses in the Global South
Workers in East Africa and South Asia are now paid low wages to perform behind-the-scenes data tasks are used to power AI-driven facial recognition systems around the world.
10 Questions
Lessons Learned Over Four Decades as an Investigative Journalist In India
One of India’s most renowned investigative reporters, Sarin has reported and edited stories digging into security, corruption, and money laundering.
News & Analysis
How to Run a Mission-based Organization: Lessons for Newsrooms from Doctors Without Borders
Investigative newsrooms and humanitarian organizations have a number of things in common, often because they are motivated by a desire to contribute to a broader social mission.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Lethal Firing Orders at Protests, Besieged Bawm Community, an Island Habitat in Peril: 2025’s Top Investigative Stories from Bangladesh
Also featuring in-depth looks at the country’s expansive surveillance state infrastructure, a generation of disappearances, and one company’s massive riverside land grab.
How They Did It
Tracing Lead Pollution in Nigeria to the Global Auto Supply Chain
Investigative reporters traced dangerously high lead contamination in Nigeria — revealing that recycled metal from used car batteries entered global supply chains linked to major US automakers.
GIJC25
Exposing Forced Labor and Human Trafficking in the World’s Oceans
Reporters exposing exploitation in the high seas use a combination of open source satellite imagery to track ships and documents to establish vessel ownership.
Sustainability
Growing a Small Nonprofit Can Be a Bit Like Adolescence — Painful, Difficult, Awkward
The authors, senior leaders at the Global Reporting Centre, write about the difficulties in changing from a fledgling start-up to a robust organization that is ‘set up to succeed.’
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Deadly Gaza Aid Sites, Damascus Dossier, Exploiting Sudanese Refugees: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories from the Middle East and North Africa
Also featuring exposés on sex-trafficking of workers in Dubai, secret mass deportations of Tunisians from the EU, and unlicensed addiction treatment centers in Egypt.
Editor's Picks News & Analysis
Digital Scam Trails, Deadly Hospital Infections, Harrowing Immigration Journeys: 2025’s Best Investigative Stories from India
Also featuring deep dives into rampant worker injuries in automobile factories, health hazards from imported scrap tires, and the politicization of the national archaeological survey.