Stories
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: How The New York Times Scooped Its Own Collaboration with ICIJ
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes a story from The Washington Post about how The New York Times scooped its own collaboration with ICIJ, Ben Heubl’s tutorial on how investigative journalists can use machine learning in their reporting, and tips from Witness on how to capture and preserve video documentation during internet shutdowns.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Women and the Oscars, February’s Sad Songs, Hollywood’s Franchises, Moscow’s Elite Owners
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 3 to 9 finds UOL highlighting the lack of gender equality among Oscar winners and G1 looking into problems of ageism in the Best Actress category. This edition also has The Economist analyzing Spotify data to find the most depressing month for listeners, Proekt Media investigating property owners in a prestigious residential area in Russia, and The Financial Times spotlighting the lack of innovation in the movie industry.
My Favorite Tools Reporting Tools & Tips
My Favorite Tools: Sally Hayden
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with freelance journalist Sally Hayden, who has won multiple awards for her reporting on migration. She told GIJN’s Helen Massy-Beresford about the tools she uses to communicate securely with sources, record interviews, manage a freelance career, and more.
Reporting Tools & Tips
10 Newsletter Tips for Media Outlets
Everyone seems to produce email newsletters these days. But not everyone is doing it well. Mark Jacob of the Local News Initiative asked newsletter experts about what works and what doesn’t.
Case Studies
In Kenya, NGOs Bet on Investigative Journalism to Boost Transparency
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.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: The Ukrainian Investigative Journalists Who Helped Light the Trump Impeachment Fuse
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes the backstory to Ukraine’s YanukovychLeaks, how journalists around the world are using defamation laws to protect themselves against online harassment, and a new free tool that could help journalists spot doctored photographs.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Coronavirus Outbreak, Misleading Graphs, Smartphone Tracking, Trash Can Banging, Mexico Murders
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 27 to February 2 finds The New York Times and Der Tagesspiegel tracking the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, TED-Ed educating viewers about how graphs can be manipulated to mislead readers, and a baseball fan watching every Houston Astros home game in 2017 to log each time they banged a trash can as part of a sign-stealing scandal.
Case Studies
The New Humanitarian Expands Its Investigations into the Aid Sector
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.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative Team’s ‘Trust Nuggets’ Inject Transparency into Long Stories
Instead of writing an entire behind-the-scenes article to explain how you carried out an investigation, consider instead incorporating this information in the investigation itself in the form of “trust nuggets” to reach more readers, writes Trusting News’ Joy Mayer.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Pegasus and The New York Times Journalist
This week’s Friday 5 surfaced some of our must reads from around the English-language web, including research from Citizen Lab on Pegasus targeting a New York Times reporter, the Media Impact Fund’s insight for nonprofit media donors, and the out-of-beta Google Dataset Search.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Mapping Coronavirus, Saving the Nile, Protests in Hungary, Annotating Visualizations
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 20 to 26 finds the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering mapping the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Al Jazeera analyzing the impact that Ethiopia’s mega-dam project will have on the Nile river and its surroundings, Der Tagesspiegel outlining the changes in America over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency, and Alberto Cairo highlighting the importance of annotating data visualizations.
News & Analysis
4 Sundance Documentaries That Shed Light on the Perils of Journalism
This year’s Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 23 to February 2 in Utah, includes four films which put journalism front and center. The films take viewers to Kenya, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, tackling the perils reporters around the world face.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How Tos for Investigative Journalists, Part 1: From Plane Spotting to PDF Extraction
What tools do you need to master as you head into your next investigation? We’ve rounded up some of GIJN’s most popular how tos from our story archives, as well as select items from our growing Resource Center.
News & Analysis
5 Business Models for Local News to Watch in 2020
Predictions are a tricky business, but there is one sure thing for 2020: local news publishers cannot depend on the old ways of doing business. Mark Glaser, a media consultant and advisor, shares five interesting business models that are cropping up, from the co-op ownership model to government subsidies and “information districts,” to state-level ecosystem support.
News & Analysis
11 Tips for Investigative Reporters From a Pioneer in the Arab World
After 14 years at the helm of the Arab world’s leading network of investigative journalists, Rana Sabbagh reflects on what she’s learned and offers advice to investigative reporters, in a farewell letter to Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.
News & Analysis
The Friday 5: What Investigative Journalists Are Reading This Week
From the “cybercrime” charges against Glenn Greenwald in Brazil to the ICIJ-powered Luanda Leaks and a 25-minute video tutorial on OSINT, here are some of GIJN’s favorite reads in English this week.
Data Journalism
GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Luanda Leaks, A Disappeared Lake, Animated Graphics, Data Mapping, NICAR
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 13 to 19 finds the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposing how Africa’s richest woman really made her fortune, The Washington Post using satellite imagery to show the disappearance of an entire lake in the Philippines, El País sharing the behind-the-scenes process of their work, and Mike Reilley curating a mega list of useful data journalism tools.
Case Studies
10 Lessons from Our Global Collaboration on Pangolin Trafficking
The Pangolin Reports brought together more than 40 journalists in 14 countries to investigate the illegal trade in pangolins, a harmless ant-eating mammal which is close to extinction. This is what they learned about collaborative journalism.
Reporting Tools & Tips
My Favorite Tools: Lionel Faull
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with Lionel Faull of the London-based investigative newsroom and training outlet Finance Uncovered. He told GIJN’s Olivier Holmey all about the tools he uses to encrypt his communications, convert PDFs to readable text, find data on company ownership, sync his written and audio notes, and more.
News & Analysis
Watch the Oscar-Nominated Feature Documentaries
The nominees for the best feature documentaries for the Academy Awards include powerful films from Syria, Brazil, North Macedonia and the United States. Here’s a brief introduction.
News & Analysis
The Friday 5: What Investigative Journalists Are Reading This Week
Each day, GIJN editors scan the web for the latest news on investigative and data journalism, reports and analysis on sustainability and innovation in journalism, as well as tips and tools which support the craft. Our new weekly series rounds up some of our favorites from around the web. Here’s what we’re reading this week.