A record 350 journalists gathered in Tokyo over the weekend for Japan’s third investigative journalism conference, by far that nation’s largest and most sophisticated effort to network and train investigative reporters. The conference marks an important milestone for Japan’s beleaguered watchdog press, which has been under sustained assault by powerful political interests.
Following the suicide of Peru’s former president Alan García, the investigative group IDL-Reporteros has fielded accusations that their reporting into corruption caused his death. The team has also received serious threats. Its director Gustavo Gorriti responds in this editorial.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 15 to 21 finds an informative interactive tool about the health of our generation by @srfdata, a piece by academic @wsaqaf explaining how journalism can utilize blockchain for investigations, data visualization teaching materials by @R_Graph_Gallery, and a book draft on data feminism by @kanarinka and @laurenfklein.
Norway’s VG set out to investigate the story of an Israeli conman and ended up capturing — and engaging — 2 million readers around the world in a longform story told in less than 1,000 words.
Watchdog workshops can be a good way for media organizations to get a bit of help with investigations — but also, crucially, they foster engagement. Here’s how Detroit’s Detour brought readers together to investigate bulk buyers in a local tax auction.
Climate change is such a big and important topic that there are many opportunities for journalists to investigate it, writes James Fahn, and so far they may just be scratching the surface.
Most investigative journalists and others interested in our work don’t know much about what goes on behind the scenes at GIJN. But on April 10 at the Frontline Club in London, over 100 people heard about the challenges faced by GIJN’s regional editors and the journalists they work with around the world.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 8 to 14 finds a zine focused on machine learning-powered investigative journalism produced by @bxrobertz, a video explainer from @FT on whether big corporations are really generous or just avoiding taxes, @knowtheory and @amandabee reviewing seven optical character recognition tools and @workbenchdata offering a tutorial on visualizing @Twitter data.
Yemeni journalist Fuad Rajeh, who is based in Jordan, decided to expose threats to freedom of expression in his country by looking into the cases of two activists and two journalists who faced online threats — and, in one case, ended up being killed — for speaking their minds on social media. Here’s how he did it.
Gräv, Sweden’s annual investigative journalism conference, took place in the seaside town of Kalmar on April 5 and 6. An estimated 600 journalists from nearly a dozen countries were in attendance to mark the 30th anniversary of Gravande Journalister, one of the world’s oldest associations for investigative reporters
Private records can be just as illuminating as public records. A team of ProPublica Illinois journalists used an unusual private record — a mother’s diary — as the primary material in an investigative narrative that exposed the human impact of a clinical drug trial of children with bipolar disorder.
Nonprofit newsrooms are increasingly turning to syndication partnerships that expand their reach and collaborations that expand reporting capacity. The Shorenstein Center surveyed eight of these news organizations to find out how these types of partnerships work in practice and how they are evolving.
Many people have been using some of the most common OSINT tools and techniques unwittingly. There’s one tool in particular that anyone with an internet connection has used: Google, or other search engines. Here are examples of how good ol’ Google search queries can be more effective than any fancy reverse image search tool.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from April 1 to 7 finds @JuliaAngwin sharing do’s and don’ts of data journalism projects at @journalismfest, @elconfidencial highlighting the negative effects on Spain’s economy if women stopped working for a day, @azcentral and @USATODAY revealing just how many bills in the United States are copied from model legislations, and @justiceinfonet visualizing data on trials for the Rwandan genocide.
GIJN’s managing editor Tanya Pampalone went to the International Journalism Festival Perugia last week. As she navigated the patchwork red bricked roads and listened to some of the biggest names in journalism, she considered the heart-breaking state of our broken industry which is limping along in a dystopian world of authoritarian governments and unchecked tech behemoths and wondered where we’re headed.
In the hot summer of 2018, Hungary’s Atlatszo tracked two luxury vehicles – a private plane and a yacht – that the Hungarian government elite, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his closest allies, used to travel to business meetings, football games and vacations abroad. Here’s how they did it.
If you’re like most people, there are bits of information about you scattered around the internet. These breadcrumbs can be used to “dox” journalists, which is when malicious actors track down and share private information. Here’s how to dox yourself and safeguard your information before someone else can dox you.
Journalism has taken Bektour Iskender through revolutions, death threats and even a crowdfunded space venture. Along the way, he’s trained dozens of teenage investigative journalists in Kyrgyzstan.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 25 to 31 finds @ajlabs visualizing air raids through sound, @infobae exposing secret dictatorship decrees in Argentina, @albertocairo presenting on how charts can be misleading and how to fix them, and @TheEconomist laying bare the “crimes” against data visualization they have committed.
The Global Investigative Journalism Conference is the world’s premier international gathering of investigative journalists held every two years. The next conference in 2021 will be an especially significant event as GIJC will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. GIJN, which oversees the conferences, is now accepting proposals from GIJN member organizations for the 12th Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are showing rigorous development in investigative reporting, which has grown in popularity since the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Here’s an overview of the region’s most popular and innovative investigative projects.
After an incorrect report spread on WhatsApp, a mob lynched two men in Acatlán de Osorio, Mexico. Fact-checkers came in and tried to uncover the truth of what happened. Here’s their story.
Writing a nonfiction book is nothing like writing an article — or is it? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel argues that the research process is not so very different. Here’s how he unearthed the fascinating stories behind two iconic western movies, “The Searchers” and “High Noon.”
The figures for Canada’s Jewish population dropped by half in five years. But nothing happened to this Jewish population. Rather, this is a perfect example of how careful we must be about data collection methods.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 18 to 24 finds a collection of beautiful news graphics by Megan Jaegerman curated by statistician @EdwardTufte, @tagesanzeiger’s quiz testing readers’ level of populist leanings, a new collaborative fact-checking effort by the name of @FactcheckEU, and @briromer’s interesting piece on maps that break strict geography rules.
Keeping track of research is often the most important, but most overlooked component of online investigations, as is the ability to verify the material that you have already found. In this month’s edition of the GIJN Toolbox, we look at tools for keeping real-time records of online research, some tools for verifying videos and examples of how they can be used, as well as a search engine that offers a number of different ways to view search results.
There are no silver bullets, no hard-and-fast rules, no magic answers to running a membership-driven news organization. It takes a lot of effort, coordination and putting members at the core of everything. Media consultant Tim Griggs shares 10 essential ingredients for making it work.
Particularly for media organizations committed to engaging those people “formerly known as the audience,” campaigns are a great way to connect with and build a meaningful relationship with communities, writes The Bristol Cable co-founder Adam Cantwell-Corn.
