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corruption

230 posts

News & Analysis

Protecting Journalists Who Cover Corruption: Good For The Bottom Line

Corruption is one of the most dangerous beats for journalists, and one of the most important for holding those in power to account. There is growing international recognition that corruption is also one of the biggest impediments to poverty reduction and good governance. This is why journalists on this beat must be protected, including by multilateral lending institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

News & Analysis

CPJ: Impunity, Lack of Solidarity Expose Indian Journalists to Attack

For eight years India has been a fixture on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free. Perpetrators are seldom arrested and CPJ has not recorded a single conviction upheld in any of the cases of journalists murdered in India in direct relation to their work.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Follow the Money: How Open Data and Investigative Journalism Can Beat Corruption

Alongside the advantages available for criminals of operating on a global scale, making it harder to track them down, there are also disadvantages that the clever journalist or law enforcement official can exploit to expose them. How do we do this? Firstly, through data: more data means more transparency, provided the quality of information is there and supported by tools that allow proper analysis. Secondly, by journalists using advanced techniques.

News & Analysis

Reporter’s Journal: A Malaria Arrest

What happens when a journalist investigates treatment facilities for malaria patients in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo? For Francis Mbala, it led to his arrest and a Kafkaesque tale about the dangers of investigating in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Mbala’s story comes from the ZAM Chronicle and is reprinted with permission.

Case Studies

The Data Sleuths of San José: How Costa Rican Reporters Used Data To Bring Down a System of Sleaze

In the fall of 2003 the story made its way to journalists at La Nación, the leading national newspaper in the Central American republic of Costa Rica. The reporters at the paper’s investigative unit pricked up their ears as soon as the disgruntled real estate agent spoke the name of her exasperating client: Eliseo Vargas, the man in charge of the country’s vaunted national health-care agency. “We didn’t really know what she had,” recalls reporter Ernesto Rivera.

Reporting Tools & Tips

Holding Big Fish Accountable: How to Uncover Corruption

In a 2011 Transparency International survey, more than 3,000 business executives from around the world were asked to assess the effectiveness of various approaches to weeding out corruption. The result: nearly half (49%) indicated that investigative journalism played a critical role. Respondents from Pakistan (73%) and Brazil (79%), countries where the press reports fiercely on suspected acts of corruption, placed particular faith in the media’s ability to uncover wrongdoing. Why did the participants feel so strongly that journalists can help?

Resource

Global Corruption: The 2013 Index by Transparency Int’l

Since 1995, Transparency International has surveyed and analyzed how corruption is perceived around the world. Through its Corruption Perceptions Index, TI has shown that abuse of power, secret dealings, and bribery are widespread and not confined to a handful of developing countries. The just-released 2013 index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 177 countries and territories. It “demonstrates that all countries still face the threat of corruption at all levels of government, from the issuing of local permits to the enforcement of laws and regulations,” according to TI Chair Huguette Labelle.

News & Analysis

Are Wealth Disclosures Dangerous?

About a third of all countries in the world now require officials to publicly disclose their assets. Institutions like the World Bank and the OECD see this as a good thing. Asset declarations, they say, are crucial tools for fighting corruption and holding officials accountable. As an investigative journalist in the Philippines, I found asset statements vital to digging into conflicts of interest and the illegal accumulation of wealth by those in public office. But pushback on official disclosures is coming from an unlikely quarter.

News & Analysis

Business People: Investigative Journalism Best Against Corruption

In a never-ending fight for resources – with editors, owners, donors, and developers – we investigative journalists need to make our case more effectively than ever before. Despite knowing that what we do makes a difference, we often don’t marshal the data and arguments that show why investigative reporting is worth the investment.