For this week’s Friday 5, where GIJN rounds up interesting journalism news in English from around the world, we read about Glenn Greenwald’s resignation from The Intercept, a data journalism collaboration on COVID-19 data which reaches across eight newsrooms, and Bellingcat’s already excellent, and now updated, Online Investigation Toolkit.
Before the emergence of digital tools, recording and (especially) transcribing an interview was a tedious affair. The little microcassette tapes were of dubious reliability—and yes, I once had one fail on me during a crucial and contentious encounter. Transcribing was worse, as you’d sit there constantly hitting the “play” and “rewind” buttons, an imprecise process that risked damage to the tape.
There are a lot of websites out there that can help you find hidden information. But there are also software applications and browser plug-ins that can be of use to investigative journalists. Created by up-and-coming developers and enthusiasts on a budget, many of these programmes are rather unsophisticated, so don’t expect slick interfaces and 24-hour help desks. That said, if you can get past the jargon and rough-and-ready feel, you’ll find nifty little apps that can help you discover nuggets of information which would be unavailable through conventional means.
