We are six months into the COVID-19 crisis, and this global pandemic is far from over. To mark this milestone, GIJN is pleased to offer its 18th webinar in our series Investigating the Pandemic. Where Do We Go From Here? – New Avenues for Investigative Reporting on the Pandemic will reflect on what investigative journalism has achieved so far and what challenges lie ahead.
In this week’s Friday 5, where we round up key reads from around the world in English, one journalist from Zimbabwe and another from Pakistan were abducted and detained, the Reuters Institute report on Race and Leadership in the News Media was released, and NPR’s Terry Gross and The New York Times’ Michael Barbaro offered up some tips on interviewing.
How widespread is mask use in your country? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from July 13 to 19 finds The New York Times mapping the odds of people encountering other mask wearers in the United States, two university professors quantifying the number of interruptions a parent suffers on average every hour while working from home, the Committee to Protect Journalists talking to data journalists about the struggles of reporting on COVID-19, and openDemocracy documenting cases of mistreatment of women in labor around the world since the pandemic started.
There is no singular “right” way to set up technology for an audience-centric newsroom. What’s most important is not which tool you choose, or the method by which you implement them, but that your system is well-integrated. Each part must be able to speak to all the others, allowing your data to flow seamlessly, and empowering your team with easy-to-understand workflows that help you better connect with your audience.
The South African investigative site Oxpeckers uses a combination of data analysis, collaboration, and interactive data visualization tools to tell the most compelling stories about the land and those accused of damaging it. From mining to environmental crimes and wildlife trafficking, it has brought investigative techniques to beats like mining that were once the preserve of business reporters.
In a filing to the Supreme Court in the United States, a raft of media organizations including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Associated Press, The Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, The Center for Investigative Reporting, The Daily Beast, Dow Jones, VICE ,and The Washington Post, have argued that the interpretation of the country’s Computer Fraud and Abuse Act needs to be narrowed to avoid “serious constitutional concerns.” In the document, which can be read in full here, the organizations argue that an interpretation of the law by the court of appeals “chills ordinary journalistic activity protected by the First Amendment.”
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the world in English, we found a helpful database that’s tracking government responses to COVID-19 with the help of 400 researchers, a multimedia project on how eight journalists from around the world are coping with reporting during the pandemic, and a piece on how autocrats are cracking down on independent news sites.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of people around the world, but some communities are especially hard hit. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from July 6 to 12 finds The New York Times analyzing data that reveals Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, The Washington Post highlighting that business relief funds for the pandemic have gone to the rich and well-connected, and Bloomberg looking at more than 120 US businesses that say the coronavirus helped force them into bankruptcy.
In this third Africa-focused GIJN webinar, we bring together three journalists from Zimbabwe, South Africa and Kenya who have used open-source tools during the COVID-19 crisis to produce groundbreaking investigations. They will share tips and insights on the tools they have used, the information they unearthed, how they turned their findings into compelling stories, and the impact that those stories have had.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with Craig Silverman, who leads a global beat on misinformation and media manipulation for BuzzFeed News. An author and award-winning journalist, Silverman shared some his top open source tools for digital investigations and for probing disinformation.
The investigative team behind a story in The Washington Post that focused on two military helicopters that roared over demonstrators in Washington, DC on June 1 shared the exploratory scripts used to analyze and visualize flight data for the aircraft which monitored protesters in the city that day.
When Jeff Gerritt first started asking questions about deaths in Texas jails, he was told “it’s not news for someone to die in county jail.” But his reporting and the Op Ed pieces that resulted from it led to a Pulitzer Prize, a rare win for a scrappy thrice-weekly paper in an era where the journalism industry is seeing increasing cutbacks and layoffs.
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the world in English, includes a toolkit for journalists on systems thinking from The New School, freelancer tips from the Pulitzer Center, and Bellingcat’s latest guide on tracking the locust swarms affecting East Africa.
It is hard to comprehend the true impact of COVID-19 around the world. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 29 to July 5 finds Reuters trying to visualize the alarming rate of deaths related to the coronavirus pandemic, Datawrapper examining which employees can actually afford to work from home, and data journalist Carmen Aguilar García writing about using R programming language and automating repetitive data processes in order to keep up with the demand for pandemic news.
With fact checking organizations having already debunked thousands of falsehoods about COVID-19, investigative reporters are turning their focus to the people and the money behind deliberate disinformation surrounding the pandemic. In a series of interviews with GIJN, seven journalists shared the inside story on how they exposed the forces behind the lies, as well as key tips on the tools and techniques that aided their investigations.
An investigative outfit with an advocacy program may raise eyebrows. But in South Africa, amaBhungane has scored major wins for transparency and free speech.
Freelancing as an investigative journalist is challenging in the best of times, and more so during a pandemic. GIJN’s latest guide offers broad guidance on pitching, financial support, and networking for freelancers as the COVID-19 crisis continues. Be sure to catch our free webinar — Freelance Investigative Journalism During the Time of COVID — on Thursday July 9 at 9:00 EST as part of GIJN’s Investigating the Pandemic series.
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a recent algorithm change on Facebook’s News Feed that will boost original news stories, lessons learned on an academic and investigative journalism collaboration, and European media’s race problem.
In this GIJN webinar, Surviving as a Freelance Journalist, we bring together five senior investigative journalists, four with hard-won years of freelance experience and one who has commissioned and worked with freelancers and independents for decades. They will suggest concrete steps to improve conditions for freelance investigative reporters, and share the best services and resources.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 22 to 28 finds The New York Times analyzing travel patterns and genetic data to show how the disease spread across the United States, and the impact it has had on nursing homes and elderly care facilities. The Washington Post is responding to the increasing importance of visual data communication by expanding its data and graphics team, and the Pulitzer Center is calling for data journalism story proposals.
Last year The New York Times published an interactive article on white extremist killings from New Zealand to Norway to the United States. Using maps and a timeline to plot the data, the project revealed the troubling frequency and, in some cases, strange connections between the events. Here graphic designer Weiyi Cai explains how they obtained the data for project and the decisions they made about visualizing it.
In the latest webinar in GIJN’s series on Investigating the Pandemic, a leading data journalism trainer and a Pulitzer Prize winning data scientist shared insights on data sources that can illuminate COVID-19 impacts beyond health.
Since it was founded in 2010, Forensic Architecture has “hacked into the source code” of architecture to produce innovative and ground-breaking investigations that use 3D modelling, data mining, machine learning, and audio analysis. Working like a lab for the development of new tools, the outfit uses many of the forensic methods of investigation that have historically been the preserve of law enforcement to investigate social and political topics and injustices.
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a report from The Guardian and GIJN member Forbidden Stories about a Moroccan journalist targeted by Pegasus spyware, five books on cybersecurity that you should be reading, and, in the midst of the global Black Lives Matter movement, AP Stylebook’s decision to capitalize Black.
During the pandemic, African countries have received hundreds of billions of dollars in loans and grants from global financial institutions, humanitarian agencies, and donor countries, to tackle the global health crisis. In this second Africa-focused GIJN webinar, Following the COVID-19 Money in Africa, three experts from Africa will share their insights on how they are keeping tabs on government budgets.
Once confined to bands of protesters, the Black Lives Matter movement has spread across America. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 15 to 21 finds The New York Times mapping the protests in more than 2,000 US cities and towns over a two week period. On the coronavirus front, The Telegraph analyzed the widening racial wealth gap caused by the pandemic, the Guardian and Liberty Investigates looked into police enforcing lockdown measures disproportionately against Blacks, Asians, and other minorities, while Important Stories and Holod Media examined the fines issued by Russian courts for lockdown violations during the pandemic.
