At least 462 journalists have died from COVID-19, from 56 countries — with Latin American countries accounting for more than half this grim tally and a recent surge striking India and Bangladesh. One NGO tracking these deaths told GIJN that most journalists who died in the pandemic since October 1 were under the age of 60.
“Superspreading events” have emerged as major drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic. While available data on these events is limited, new information — including an interactive database of 1,500 events — offers reporters the means to map the patterns of past coronavirus outbreaks, and to evaluate the risks of planned gatherings.
Citizen Matters is the flagship publication of the Bengaluru-based Oorvani Foundation, a nonprofit working on open knowledge platforms that help develop better cities. Today, it has successfully transitioned to become an online-only news site, and has been expanding its reach to other cities, writes Amruta Byatnal for GIJN.
From the global coronavirus pandemic to the soul-searching that has come as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests, 2020 has cracked open society’s fault lines. Organizations are questioning their role, and journalism has not been spared this moment of introspection.
When journalists are killed or threatened for investigating environmental crimes, the story can go cold. But the Paris-based Forbidden Stories nonprofit brought together 40 journalists in 15 countries with the aim of completing the work local reporters could no longer pursue. The result is the Green Blood project.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with Katherine Eban, who has won awards for her work on gun trafficking, pharmaceutical counterfeits, and CIA interrogations. She described some of the low-tech tools and old-school strategies that have helped her break major stories on the COVID-19 pandemic.
A group of Indian journalists have been calling out the government on social media over its opacity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The collaborative effort continues to press for official answers on overall health preparedness, such as drug availability, access to care, health inventory, and insurance schemes.
Governments around the world, some which have sent workers home, are announcing interruptions in responding to freedom of information requests. Journalists are being told to expect delays in more than a dozen countries. But press freedom advocates warn that countries are taking big steps backward just when the free flow of information is most needed. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh rounds up some of the nations which have been affected.
Reporters Sans Frontieres published, for the first time, a list of press freedom’s 20 worst digital predators in 2020. Whether state offshoots, private-sector companies, or informal entities, they reflect a reality of power at the end of the 21st century’s second decade, in which investigative reporters and other journalists who cause displeasure risk being the targets of predatory activity by often hidden actors.
In the run-up to the 2019 Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Hamburg this September 26 to 29, we’re featuring one Global Shining Light Award finalist per day. Check out “Operation 136,” by Cobrapost.
