In this harrowing account, Sudanese freelance journalist Fateh Al-Rahman Al-Hamdani recounts how he went undercover to document child abuse that was occurring in Islamic educational institutions, known as khalwas, in Sudan. He also writes about his personal experience as a teenager being abused by sheikhs, as well as the actions Sudan’s transitional government has taken since the publication of his investigation.
The perpetrators of violence in South Africa tend to receive little sympathy and sparse coverage in the national press. But when Ruth Hopkins started to explore allegations of wrongdoing inside the country’s prisons, she was inundated by claims of abuse and torture. This story explores her decade-long investigation into incarceration in the country.
In this year’s GIJN’s Editor’s Pick series, Africa editor Benon Herbert Oluka compiled a list of some of the top investigative stories produced and published or broadcast by media organizations based in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020.
In this behind-the-scenes look at an important investigation into sexual abuse by international aid workers, The New Humanitarian investigations editor Paisley Dodds recounts how reporters collected the heartrending stories of abuse from the front lines of the Ebola response.
How did a crack South African investigative team, on the country’s biggest and richest newspaper, go horribly wrong? A new book by Anton Harber does a deep dive into the best and worst of the country’s journalism.
A French freelance journalist tracked down a man accused of being involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Here’s how French journalist Théo Englebert delved into the eight-month investigation, including his top tips for finding someone who wants to disappear.
In this global GIJN webinar, “Investigating the Police: Reporting Tips and Tools,” co-organized with the African Investigative Journalism Conference, we bring together four experienced journalists: two from Africa and two from outside the continent, who have investigated law enforcement. They will share their experience and reporting techniques ranging from source development to forensic analysis.
We’re delighted to announce that GIJN has launched a new initiative: GIJN Afrique. We’ll be sharing the best investigative tips and tools, groundbreaking stories, grants and fellowships, data sets and more, in French, with a focus on French-speaking countries across the African continent.
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.
An investigative outfit with an advocacy program may raise eyebrows. But in South Africa, amaBhungane has scored major wins for transparency and free speech.
Africa’s investigative journalists are playing a critical role in unpacking the continent’s expanding pandemic and have already snapped some governments out of their early complacency on COVID-19 preparedness. However, amid warnings about the potential impact of the virus on the continent’s 1.1 billion citizens, four leading African journalists shared strategies for coverage in this critical time in a webinar attended by reporters from 57 countries.
An investigative journalism nonprofit based in Nigeria, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, has pushed the envelope with its approach to investigating the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Executive Director Dayo Aiyetan talks about how the unit has carried out its investigations in the midst of the lockdown and how reporters are holding the government to account over its response.
Mia Malan is the founding editor-in-chief of the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, a pioneering, donor-funded media start-up in South Africa. In this interview Malan gives an overview of the work of her colleagues and gives some tips on how to cover the current crisis.
What is the best way into the COVID-19 story? Pick an angle. No matter what your beat is, the pandemic is seeping into almost every story. In response, the Kampala-based African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) created a running list of story ideas on COVID-19 which stretches across beats: from agriculture and food to the economy, education, religion, sports, and arts and entertainment.
In South Sudan, conflict and government repression make it difficult to do on-the-ground reporting, so a team of journalists designed a mobile phone survey to gather data on forced displacement and destruction across the country. Carolyn Thompson explains why their award-winning investigation may offer lessons to others working in repressive environments or facing movement restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Newspapers around the world are vulnerable to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, and many of Africa’s print publications might not survive it. Ntibinyane Ntibinyane from the INK Center for Investigative Journalism in Botswana writes about what’s to come and what can be done to support the industry.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with investigative reporter Susan Comrie, whose corruption exposes have helped shake South Africa’s political scene. She described some of the tools and techniques she has deployed in ground-breaking investigations as part of the team at investigative journalism center amaBhungane.
Nigeria has a stubborn legacy of corruption that dates back decades. The MacArthur Foundation is investing some $67 million in investigative journalism, transparency, and good governance in the country — an ambitious experiment that could serve as a model for other states plagued by corruption.
In Kenya, the NGOs Transparency International and Fojo Media Institute have paired up to train budding investigative journalists and offer them reporting grants. GIJN’s Rowan Philp reports.
Initially founded by the UN, The New Humanitarian became independent five years ago and is stepping up its investigative work into the multi-billion dollar aid industry. Rowan Philp profiles the organization working to hold the humanitarian sector to account.
Investigative journalist Ignace Sossou was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $338 for “harassment ” by a court in Benin. His crime? Sossou posted three tweets quoting the country’s public prosecutor, who had been speaking candidly about digital regulations.
Journalists for the Daily Trust in Nigeria told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the military conducted forensic searches on their computers and mobile phones following the publication of a story about a military operation. CPJ’s Jonathan Rozen writes that these raids are emblematic of a global trend of law enforcement seizing journalists’ phones and computers — some of their most important tools.
Two investigative editors took huge pay cuts to launch Botswana’s first nonprofit newsroom. A year later, they took another, temporary cut just to pay for a single satellite image that proved that the country’s president had abused state funds to build a private lodge. Here’s Rowan Philp on the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism for GIJN’s member series.
The African Investigative Publishing Collective recently conducted a multi-part investigation into the associates that handle business for African kleptocrats. Evelyn Groenink shares how the story took form and the massive challenges faced by reporters spread across multiple countries.
A small nonprofit investigative newsroom played an outsized role in the removal of South Africa’s president and his corrupt inner circle last year. Now, amaBhungane is building a separate hub to help new investigative start-ups throughout southern Africa. Rowan Philp writes about the newsroom and its latest initiative for GIJN’s new series about its members.
In an era of digital media disruption, Africa Confidential has avoided the complicated revenue tools many news media have been forced to experiment with, like soft or metered paywalls, crowdfunding, programmatic ads, blockchain systems or slashed costs and access fees. Instead, the London-based political news group has defied global trends by not only retaining its old school subscription model, but actually increasing its annual cost to a sky-high 902 British pounds. Rowan Philp writes for GIJN on AC’s secret to success.
Despite difficult reporting environments, journalists in sub-Saharan Africa produced some seriously impressive investigations in 2018. GIJN Africa editor Raymond Mpubani compiled a list of some of the top stories produced this year, published by outlets based in the region.
Earlier this year, Botswana’s INK Centre for Investigative Journalism tracked down a dossier which detailed the heinous crimes of Gukurahundi — a series of massacres of civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army in the 1980s — which had been kept under lock and key for decades. It was the first time the names of the deceased and blow-by-blow accounts of how the executions were carried out were made available to the public. INK’s Ntibinyane Ntibinyane writes for GIJN on how they did it.
