Among five leading environmental journalists who covered COP26, there is cautious optimism, but also a recognition that there is still much to be done. Speaking at the GIJC21, they highlighted a wide range of topics related to climate change that are still underreported by newsrooms around the world.
Indigenous communities are often under siege by dominant cultures, and suffer the consequences of colonialism. Their resources stolen, and their people subjected to discrimination and abuse. Indigenous journalists from Australia, Canada, and the United States talk about their award-winning investigations, ranging from forced displacement to fake tribes, and deaths in custody.
Spending time with vulnerable communities and focusing on systems of exploitation were the central takeaways from a #GICJ21 panel on covering inequality, in which journalists based in three of the world’s most unequal societies — Brazil, South Africa, and the United States — shared tips on how to tackle this global crisis.
In the 1990’s when Brazilian investigative journalist Kátia Brasil visited an Indigenous territory in the Amazon biome, the forest was “lush” and intact. But illegal gold mining has led to a surge of outsiders entering the area, and the results have been devastating. Two investigative teams, at Amazônia Real and Repórter Brasil, decided it was time to dig into this secretive industry, to find out who is behind the gold mining that is leaving a toxic scar across the region.
Tracking the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter from September 6 to September 13, we found a visual project by the South China Morning Post explaining the global impact of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in US history, a Guardian investigation into the history of Canada’s residential schools, and a video project by Le Monde exploring the recent history of forest fires around the world.
For our “My Favorite Tools” series, we spoke with Brazilian journalist Gustavo Faleiros, editor of environmental investigations at the Pulitzer Center where he leads the Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN), about mapping deforestation and using data to chart what is happening in global forests.
