Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://gijn.org/tag/organized-crime/)
In the latest webinar in GIJN’s series on Investigating the Pandemic, a leading data journalism trainer and a Pulitzer Prize winning data scientist shared insights on data sources that can illuminate COVID-19 impacts beyond health.
GIJN asked investigative journalists around the world to look ahead at what’s in store for 2020. Here are the trends, key forces, and challenges they expect will affect investigative and data journalism in the coming year, as well as the new skills and approaches we should be thinking about.
Winners of the Javier Valdez Latin American Award for Investigative Journalism were honored during the 2018 Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism (Colpin), which was held from November 8 – 11 in Bogota, Colombia.
Alongside the advantages available for criminals of operating on a global scale, making it harder to track them down, there are also disadvantages that the clever journalist or law enforcement official can exploit to expose them. How do we do this? Firstly, through data: more data means more transparency, provided the quality of information is there and supported by tools that allow proper analysis. Secondly, by journalists using advanced techniques.
Investigative journalists and other citizens interested in uncovering the organised crime and corruption that affect the lives of billions of people worldwide gain, with each passing day, unprecedented access to information. Huge volumes of information are being made available online by governments and other organisations, and it seems that the much-needed information is in everyone’s grasp. However, corrupt officials in governments and organised crime groups are doing their best to conceal information and to hide their wrongdoings.
Paul Radu of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project gave an engaging talk at the recent TEDxBucharest gathering, looking at the globalization of crime and how investigation reporters and public-interest hackers can push back. Among the topics he covers: Russian money laundering, European horse meat, and Azerbaijan corruption. Says Radu: “In order to fight a network, you need to create a network.”
Journalist Marcela Turati has gained global attention for her compassionate and committed reporting on the victims of Mexico’s drug wars. An investigative reporter for the magazine Proceso, she is co-founder of Periodistas de a Pie (Journalists on Foot), a network that supports journalists covering issues such as poverty and human rights. The Nieman Fellows at Harvard University, in choosing her for the 2013 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism, called Turati “a standard-bearer for the journalists who have risked their lives to document the devastating wave of violence in Mexico,” and saluted her “courage… journalistic excellence and leadership.”
On June 25, Turati gave the keynote speech at the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) annual conference in San Antonio, Texas.
