Pioneering British journalist David Leigh, former Guardian investigative editor, shares his insights on story-led investigations, defending your work from lawsuits, dealing with donors, and lifelong learning in journalism.
What a year… We’ve been Trumped and Brexited, blitzed by bogus news, and fighting to protect good journalism pretty much everywhere. But there were flashes of hope and better days. The Spotlight movie and Panama Papers showed the world what great reporting can do. As the year draws to a close, we’d like to share the 10 most popular stories on our site that have grabbed the attention of our dear readers.
December might be when thoughts turn to the holidays, but this year it’s also when anti-corruption activists and advocates for transparency and accountability came together at two major international events: the 17th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) and the 2016 Open Government Partnership summit.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is delighted to welcome seven new member organizations, including first-time representation from Malawi and Ireland. Among them are investigative units from Ukraine and Slovenia, an Irish investigative fund, and a collaborative U.S. site specializing in Freedom of Information requests. The new members bring GIJN’s membership to 145 groups in 62 countries.
What are the hot data journalism tweets? Here are top links for Dec. 5-11: pie chart abuse (@johngrimwade); transit data tool (@ddjournalism); big data stories (@BigDataGirl); US diversity map (@PostGraphics); ddj survey (@Bahareh360); Swiss sprawl (@srfdata); dataviz types (@pol_ferrando); more.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network exists to support the world’s truth tellers and provide them with the training, strategies, and networks that help them hold the powerful accountable and give voice to those who otherwise have none. Your support today can help us meet the tremendous demand for these capacity-building efforts in the months to come.
Scraping the Heathrow Airport operational data website revealed that since the start of 2016, an average of 72 people have complained about the level of noise pollution every day. Here’s how BBC Online data journalist Daniel Wainwright did it.
The second-annual Hitchens Prize—honoring the memory and legacy of the late Vanity Fair contributing editor and columnist Christopher Hitchens—was given to Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, at a dinner held at New York City on November 28, 2016. This year’s citation acknowledged Baron’s long career in journalism and his work as editor at The Washington Post and earlier at The Boston Globe (featured in the Academy Award-winning movie Spotlight this year). In accepting the Hitchens Prize, Marty offered words of wisdom for journalists in the Trump Era.
What are the hot data journalism tweets? Here are top links for Nov. 28-Dec 4: Data Journalism Awards (@GENinnovate); ddj survey (@ddjournalism); US infrastructure (@PostGraphics); Trump chart + cartoon (@albertocairo); Trump & Breitbart tweet analysis (@lamthuyvo); data blog (@Creatuluw) & more.
Editor’s Note: It is with great sadness that we at GIJN announce the passing of David Donald, a much-treasured colleague and teacher in our community. David died on Saturday after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 64. We asked his longtime friend, GIJN Board Chair Brant Houston, to write this remembrance.
Five Arab journalists who exposed torture and injustice in their societies won the 2016 ARIJ Prizes at the end of the 9th Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) forum during a gala dinner on Dec 3. The awardees shone a spotlight on important stories and tackled them with courage and dedication, taking care to highlight the depth of human feelings in their stories.
Investigations into extrajudicial killings, violent conflicts over land and timber, and trafficking of cultural heritage items took home the top three prizes at the 2016 Latin American Investigative Journalism Award (#COLPIN2016), held in Panama last weekend. The jury also highlighted the existence of networking, collaborative, and transnational work methodologies streaming from data journalism
What are the hot data journalism tweets? Here are top links for Nov. 21-27: Korea president scandal (@ReutersGraphics); post-truth questions (@nicolaskb); UK beneficial ownership (@Global_Witness); exhaust data (@paulxmccarthy); dataviz catalog (@SR_Visual_Info); Turkish schools (@dagmedya) & more.
Investigative reporting has never been a profitable business, especially when it relies on the support of governments or non-profit foundations. But now the funds are dwindling and costs are on the rise. Donors have new priorities, not least a global and intensifying refugee crisis and de-radicalization. However, Arab journalists fought to initiate free speech and honest reporting in the Arab region and continue to fight to maintain them, with no intention of giving up now.
Even as the Panama Papers disclosures have sparked almost 150 official investigations in at least 76 countries, they have also provoked pushback from individuals and governments displeased with revelations of the hidden economic holdings of the global elite. Politicians, business executives and thousands of their supporters have responded with vitriol, threats, cyber attacks and lawsuits. But one of the benefits of collaboration is the way journalists can band together to overcome these issues.
In a post-truth future, it can be frustratingly hard to fight fake news and rumors beyond one’s immediate reach. In a system where no source is deemed fully trustworthy, research and citations are diminished to just another set of opinions. This has been China’s story for decades. In 2016, it is starting to be the U.S.’ story as well.
What’s the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for Nov. 14-20: #USElection2016 (@visualisingdata, @simplystats); mapping Turkish women murders (@FemicideMap); polarized America (@LazaroGamio); visual vocabulary (@martinstabe); drug overdose deaths (@nytgraphics); & more.
Last week, Google announced funding for 124 European media projects in the second round of its Digital News Initiative (DNI) Innovation Fund. Among the awardees are seven members of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN): Correct!v, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), the RISE Project, the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism, Direkt36, and Atlaszlo.hu.
What’s the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for Nov 7-13: guide to be a data journalist (@willems_karlijn); infobeautyaward winners (@ddjournalism); bulletproofing data course (@ejcnet); data pitfalls (@journalismnews); EU & US economic data (@github); & more.
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has given rise to questions about credibility of traditional media outlets, the role of the media in shaping public opinion, and a changing media landscape. Even the future existence of free media as it is known today is a cause of concern for many in the media community if Trump’s attacks against the press during his election campaign are taken into account. GFMD has complied a selection of articles encompassing these wide-ranging issues.
The paper trail has changed — money now moves digitally and business registries are databases — and this lets journalists do more than ever before in tracking people and companies across borders. Here’s a useful list of which business databases to start looking into if you’re background companies in China, India, and the Philippines.
What’s the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for Oct 31-Nov 6: election maps vs. cartograms (@LazaroGamio); US political geography (@nytgraphics); data pitfalls (@journalismnews); affordable healthcare (@sangerkatz); French literary awards @dataletemps); & more.
This year’s African Investigative Journalism Conference, boasting about 250 attendees from 28 countries, concluded an enthusiastic three days of workshops and presentations on Wednesday in Johannesburg, South Africa. Now in its eleventh year, the AIJC is the largest gathering of investigative journalists in Africa. With 70 sessions, the conference was, as one attendee put it, “a candy store for journalists.”
Earlier this month the Indian news site Newslaundry won a prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for a series of stories based on Right to Information (RTI) requests. The information — over 2,000 letters from Indian state-owned enterprises revealed how political leaders routinely misused up to US$15 million in public funds by asking for media ads or sponsorships for their pet organizations. Here’s the inside story of how the piece almost didn’t come to light.
What’s the data-driven journalism crowd tweeting? Here are top links for Oct 24-30: Clinton/Trump facial analysis (@benheubl ); 10K edits to Clinton/Trump Wikipedia pages (@chrisalcantara); Amnesty 36-year dataviz (@jwyg); Latinos in office (@UnivisionData); open source tools (@M_Mandalka); & more.
“Stolen Memory” is the investigation that led to the creation of the first journalistic platform that collects massive data on illicit trafficking of cultural artifacts from Latin American countries. It is a project of Peruvian digital investigative journalism site Ojo Público, which invited four important media in the region to participate in a transnational and collaborative investigation.
For International Day to End Impunity, our excerpt today is an annex from a new UN report. It makes for a chilling read — an updated list of the status of judicial inquiries into journalist killings from 2006 to 2015. Out of 827 journalists killed in the past decade, only 63 have been resolved. The message right now is clear: opponents of a free press can literally get away with murder. Until we fix the problem of impunity, it will be impossible to meet the UN development goal of ensuring public access to information.
Today, November 2, marks International Day to End Impunity. Since 2014, the UN and press freedom groups have commemorated the day to spotlight the glaring number of unresolved journalists’ murders and the lack of punishment for their perpetrators around the world. This year’s awareness campaign is aptly titled “My Killers Are Still Free.”
