In 2018, private investigator Igor Ostrovskiy revealed to US investigative reporter Ronan Farrow that he was spying on him, and became a whistleblower on the threat of “hunting journalists.” Ostrovskiy recently briefed journalists on how to deal with the growing menace of physical surveillance.
At the end of the year, GIJN compiles a list of its most viewed stories and resources. Here’s the listing for 2020’s top performing resources, including information on how to find satellite imagery and land ownership records for your investigations, as well as tips and strategies for freelancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more.
Investigative reporters around the world are tightening their digital safety habits, out of concern that emergency pandemic laws, new spy technologies, and the lockdown itself have exposed journalists to even greater threats of surveillance and harassment. A dozen reporters and experts interviewed by GIJN agreed that sound digital hygiene was no longer optional for journalists in the COVID-19 world — and offered 10 security tips, including threat modelling, encrypted document transfer, and virtual burner phones.
For this week’s Friday 5, where GIJN rounds up key reads from around the world in English, we’re checking out the financial loopholes authoritarians use to fund political interference in democracies, a bevy of COVID-19 resources, and a toolbox for reporters around the world to look into the closely-watched US elections.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with veteran American investigative reporter Ron Nixon. Now the global investigations editor for The Associated Press, Nixon shared the most important tools he uses for research, secure communications, and data analysis on many of his groundbreaking investigations.
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.
Just by committing any act of journalism, you are worthy of a data breach. Whether you’re a freelancer or on staff, here are some tips from digital security experts about what you can do to keep yourself safe from attacks.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from August 26 to Sept 1 finds The New York Times examining the massive amount of digital trackers that follow an individual’s web activity, The Washington Post looking at the stress on global water resources, Data Visualization Society announcing the first #VizRisk challenge winners, and Datajournalism.com sharing tips on how journalists can learn to code.
When it comes to digital security, what does a journalist from West Africa, a Syrian journalist based in Turkey, and a French journalist on a reporting trip to Kashmir have in common? Answer: Very little. While they all need to protect their data, their communications, and their sources, they must each do this in different ways that are adapted to the context, explains Grégoire Pouget of the Paris-based nonprofit Nothing2Hide.
In the public imagination, reporters working with whistleblowers has traditionally meant All the President’s Men-style cloak-and-dagger stealth — meetings in shadowy underground garages, potted plants turned into signals, Hal Holbrook’s whispered exhortations to “follow the money.” But today, journalists’ interactions with whistleblowers are more likely to come in Signal chats or secure drop boxes than Washington, DC garages. And that shift has changed the terms of engagement in often confusing ways.
