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Tag

freedom of information

44 posts

News & Analysis

Document of the Day: UK Cities Refuse Public Scrutiny of Accounts

by GIJN Staff • October 4, 2019

When the Bureau of Investigative Journalism asked to see a contract between property developers and the North London borough of Haringey, its reporters were disappointed to receive a heavily-redacted document. This was part of a drive by the UK nonprofit to test the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, which gives citizens and journalists the right to access the accounts and related documents of city councils and other local authorities.

News & Analysis

A Funny Thing Happened on Our Way to FOIA

by JPat Brown • March 15, 2019

After nine years and over 60,000 requests, MuckRock — the Massachusetts-based news site that specializes in using the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — has been witness to some pretty impressive efforts to keep public information from the public. In the spirit of Sunshine Week, they compiled some of the weirdest, wildest and downright hilarious redactions they’ve received since launching in 2010.

Resource Video

Nils Mulvad – The story behind the data

More than ever, investigative journalists need to understand electronic data to do their jobs. To find, extract, analyze and tell stories, increasingly they need to deal with spreadsheets, databases, and visualizations. Nils Mulvad (https://x.com/nmulvad) is an Investigative journalist based in Denmark, who has worked with data journalism for more than 20 years. Visit GIJN’s resource […]

Case Studies

How They Did It: Digging up Zimbabwe’s Gukurahundi Massacre Dossier

by Ntibinyane Ntibinyane • December 3, 2018

Earlier this year, Botswana’s INK Centre for Investigative Journalism tracked down a dossier which detailed the heinous crimes of Gukurahundi — a series of massacres of civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army in the 1980s — which had been kept under lock and key for decades. It was the first time the names of the deceased and blow-by-blow accounts of how the executions were carried out were made available to the public. INK’s Ntibinyane Ntibinyane writes for GIJN on how they did it.

Reporting Tools & Tips

How to Fact-Check Politics in Countries with No Press Freedom

by Daniel Funke • July 11, 2018

Starting a fact-checking organization in a country with limited media freedom is difficult, but not impossible. Some, like Rouhani Meter, which fact-checks Iran’s president, may have to operate from outside the country and be creative about how they distribute their content. Daniel Funke writes about fact-checkers who have found a way to work in less-than-friendly environments.

Data Journalism

GIJN’s Data Journalism Top 10: Sex in Parliament, Peace and Press Freedom and Vanishing Global Water

by Eunice Au & Connected Action • May 24, 2018

What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 14 to 20 finds @FinancialTimes highlighting @NASA data on high risk drought areas across the globe, @infogram juxtaposing press freedom with global peace rankings and @BBCNews showing how smuggling mobile phones is a rampant problem in English and Welsh prisons.

FOI’s Man in the Middle East

by Majdoleen Hasan • January 16, 2018

In 2007, Jordan became the first country in the Middle East to enact freedom of information laws — and Musab Al-Shawabkeh is the award-winning journalist who has been taking full advantage of it.

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