Journalist Shiori Ito directed the Oscar-nominated documentary ‘Black Box Diaries,’ spending years reporting on her attacker and helping to spark the #MeToo movement in Japan.
At the 2024 Journalism Practitioners Forum conference (J-Forum) in Japan, watchdog reporters came together to discuss their successful stories and share skills.
Our NodeXL mapping from July 19 to 25, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, found imaginative data-driven coverage of the Olympics by The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other major outlets. In this edition, we also feature a piece by Reuters Graphics on how a Chinese lake has been decimated by sand mining, a cross-border investigation into the billion Euro business of elder care, and a deep dive into TikTok’s secretive algorithm by The Wall Street Journal.
More universities are devoting resources to the teaching and practice of investigative journalism than ever before, and six recently-launched university-based investigative centers joined GIJN late last year. Olivier Holmey spoke to outlets in Norway, Japan, South Africa, and the Americas to find out what lies behind this growing trend.
Frustrated by journalism that gave voice to those in power rather than the voiceless, Yasuomi Sawa was inspired to become an investigative journalist. He shares with Scilla Alecci about the state of journalism in Japan, including the limitations to its existing freedom of information laws and how preventing institutional or individual embarrassment can hinder a relentless free press and uncomfortable public debates.
A record 350 journalists gathered in Tokyo over the weekend for Japan’s third investigative journalism conference, by far that nation’s largest and most sophisticated effort to network and train investigative reporters. The conference marks an important milestone for Japan’s beleaguered watchdog press, which has been under sustained assault by powerful political interests.
Recent shifts in Japan’s legislation have threatened the country’s history of free expression and undermined Japan’s democratic principles. But there are signs of hope. In September, two crucial supporters of investigative journalism in the country were honored by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
In the midst of increasing threats to press freedom, the journalism community in Japan met in June for a two-day international symposium at Sophia University and Waseda University to discuss investigative journalism.
Got time for a deep dive? From Journalism After Snowden to Press Freedom in Contemporary Japan, here’s a round-up of some of the books that have come across our desks at GJIN.
As Japan imposes new laws that threaten to restrict the freedom of the press, some Japanese reporters and activists are seeking new ways to conduct investigative journalism. The problem for Japan now is finding its own sustainable business models, as happened in other Asian countries such as South Korea or the Philippines, where there are now thriving investigative reporting centres.
