In the aftermath of the repressive Taliban regime’s takeover of Afghanistan, some newsrooms fully relocated abroad — but some reporters remained behind, and leak critical stories about the government to their partners in exile.
GIJN’s latest membership class includes its first two members from Francophone Africa and three new members in the Middle East/North Africa. They range from investigative newsrooms and media development groups to university-based centers and cross-border networks. GIJN also welcomed members from six previously unrepresented countries: Cameroon, Malta, Paraguay, Palestine, Senegal, and the Slovak Republic.
Architect Alison Killing says that exploring blanked-out tiles on the mapping site Baidu was the first step in tracking down and identifying the detention centers being built by China in Xinjiang, where up to 1 million people are believed to have been detained.
On the evening of August 4, 2020, a devastating blast at the port in Beirut shook the Lebanese capital. It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. GIJN spoke to three outlets whose investigations all played a pivotal role in understanding what led to the explosion and why a ship and its deadly cargo were stuck at the port for so long.
In the project Migrantes de otro mundo — Migrants from Another World — a team of more than 40 journalists in more than a dozen countries decided to collaborate to tell the untold story of the migrants from Asia and Africa who travel through Latin America each year. As the creators of the project put it: “By its wandering nature, migration is a story that can only be properly told through collaboration.”
Media organizations across Latin America are working together to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic is playing out in the region. Reporters say that cross-border collaboration is helping them report the story of a lifetime so that jointly they can work to “connect the dots.”
To expose the massive, cross-border corruption scandal that came to be known as Operação Lava Jato, or Operation Car Wash, journalists from across Latin America had to find ways to work together. In the process, they transformed investigative journalism in the region. GIJN Spanish Editor Catalina Lobo-Guerrero wrote the story of their epic collaboration.
The winners of the Eighth National Investigative Journalism Awards, organised by Venezuela’s Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, highlight the relevance and importance of collaborative journalism. By building transregional teams, Venezuelan reporters were able to investigate issues that the Venezuelan state tries to hide.
After the 2008 economic crisis, western media companies sold their interests in the Czech Republic’s biggest media houses, radio stations and newspapers to Czech and Slovak billionaires. But the concentration of media in the hands of a few powerful owners has had an unexpected, positive impact. It has led to the emergence of smaller, independent investigative journalism sites, as well as new initiatives to fund them.
Newsrooms in Asia have traditionally worked alone, guarding their sources and tip-offs fiercely and keeping their stories and investigations in-house. However, after attending GIJN’s Asian Investigative Journalism Conferences and participating in the global Panama Papers investigation, Indonesia’s top newsweekly and leading investigative outlet Tempo have been inspired to pursue their own cross-border collaborations.
