Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips to Amplify Investigative Impact
Impact experts say there are several ways to help direct the attention of change-makers — as well as other media — to your key findings, and even nudge them to action.
Topic
Methodology
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posts
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
10 Simple Data Errors That Can Ruin an Investigation
At the 2023 NICAR conference, GIJN talked with several data journalism experts and learned 10 simple data journalism errors to avoid that could ruin your investigation.
Guide Resource
Asset Disclosure
Required disclosures by public officials about their income and assets can be invaluable to investigative journalists. And information about wealth and its sources can play a vital role in uncovering corruption. Official filings are often the starting point for classic follow-the-money stories. However, disclosure laws have gaps, so the public records don’t always reveal the […]
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
New Reporting Tools to Archive Videos, Find QAnon Networks, and Track Targets via Online Reviews
These new reporting tools and apps, which recently debuted at two Bellingcat Hackathons, can help journalists easily archive videos, locate satellite imagery, and track people via online reviews.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Organizing Audio and Video Files and Making Them Searchable
There are different tools reporters can use to make video and audio files searchable, they should be an essential part of any investigative journalist’s toolkit.
Resource
10 Investigative Questions to Ask after a Natural Disaster
Watchdog reporters should discard the idea that damage from natural disasters is simply due to “acts of nature,” and rather think of it as a mix of hazardous events and human actions.
Methodology News & Analysis
How to Report on Scientific Findings
When news outlets report that new research studies prove something, they’re almost certainly wrong. They find evidence — sometimes, extraordinarily strong evidence. It’s important journalists understand that science is an ongoing process of collecting and interrogating evidence, with each new discovery building on or raising questions about earlier discoveries.
Case Studies Methodology News & Analysis
Q & A with OCCRP’s Czech Reporter Pavla Holcová
Pavla Holcová is an investigative journalist and founder of the Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism, an independent outlet that does cross-border investigations on organized crime and its impact on the Czech Republic (Czechia) and Slovakia.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
5 Tips for Using Academic Research in Investigative Journalism
Academic research is a crucial tool for investigating societal problems and holding the powerful accountable. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Neil Bedi, criminologist Rachel Lovell, and Denise-Marie Ordway of The Journalist’s Resource share practical advice on using academic research in investigative journalism.
Case Studies Methodology
Is It Ever OK for Journalists to Lie to Get a Story?
In a new book on undercover reporting, Australian journalism professors Andrea Carson and Denis Muller examine whether deception is ever an acceptable method for journalists to use.
Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Using Flourish to Visualize Elections Data
In Flourish’s recent webinar on effective elections and polling visualization, data journalist Mafe Callejón shared essential tips for building an interactive map from election results.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Using Telegram Chats to Reveal Life in Bucha Under Russian Occupation
How reporters at OCCRP took a neighborhood Telegram chat from Bucha, Ukraine and turned it into an investigation of life under Russian occupation.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
New Technology and Online Resources to Conduct Investigations With Old Photos
Bellingcat’s Foeke Postma offers tips and tools for using new technology and online resources to investigate old photographs.
Resource Video
How Journalists Investigated the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Palestinian-American journalist working with Al Jazeera, was killed by a gunshot to the head on the morning of May 11, 2022, while reporting from Jenin, a city in the West Bank. Abu Akleh was covering a raid by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The controversial killing has drawn global media […]
Methodology
Journalists Lift the Lid Off Abortion Issues in Germany and Worldwide
In 2021, nonprofit journalism site CORRECTIV.Lokal set out to investigate the impact of restricted access to abortion on the health and well-being of pregnant people in Germany. As the recent US Supreme Court ruling shows, ongoing changes to abortion rights and legislation affect millions of people around the world and make this a crucial topic for investigative journalists.
Resource Video
How to Investigate the World Cup
Football (soccer to Americans) is the world’s most popular sport and the World Cup one of its highlights, anticipated by millions, even billions around the globe. The next World Cup takes place in November-December this year in Qatar, based on a decision made in 2010 by football’s governing body, FIFA (the International Federation of Football […]
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Q & A: Investigating TikTok Content Across the Russia-Ukraine Border
To investigate what the Russian invasion looked like to TikTok users in Russia and Ukraine, and how the content available differed from one side of the border to the other, a team of journalists from the Norwegian broadcasting company NRK set out to investigate the social networking site’s algorithms and how a user’s location provides differing digital narratives about the war.
Methodology News & Analysis
5 Takeaways from an Award-Winning Interactive Exposé of a Miami Condo Collapse
The Miami Herald’s award-winning House of Cards investigation of the Champlain Towers South collapse used a dynamic, multimedia scrollytelling format to take readers inside the causes of a deadly construction tragedy.
Resource Video
So You Think You Can Google? – Workshop With Henk van Ess
We need to talk about Google! The world’s most popular search engine tries to please as many people as possible. But for journalists, the quality of results has rapidly declined. What is the issue and what can investigators do about it? GIJN is pleased to announce a hands-on session with search guru Henk van Ess, […]
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative Masterclass: Tips from Mediapart’s Fabrice Arfi
Mediapart’s co-director of investigations, self-taught journalist Fabrice Arfi, offers his tips and best practices for educating oneself, cultivating sources, confronting targets fairly, and avoiding legal trouble.
Methodology News & Analysis
9 Tips for Investigative Journalists to Improve Their Writing
From respecting that different journalists have different styles of reporting to using voices from the field to tell the story, and from keeping it simple with clear language to just ‘getting started,’ here are tips from two experienced reporters for the write-up stage of an investigation.
Resource Video
How to Investigate a Billion-Dollar Corporate Fraud
Once a $30 billion global bluechip financial services and tech company, Germany’s Wirecard filed for insolvency in 2021 in what is one of the biggest corporate frauds of the modern era. The tenacious and prolonged investigative reporting by the Financial Times, helped to uncover widespread fraud, malpractice and negligence. Dan McCrum, a senior Financial Times […]
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Megha Rajagopalan: What I’ve Learned About Investigative Journalism
Megha Rajagopalan has reported from over 23 countries in Asia and the Middle East, on stories ranging from the North Korean nuclear crisis to the peace process in Afghanistan. Her team’s investigation into prison camps in Xinjiang, China won a Pulitzer Prize. In this podcast, she discusses how she got into investigative journalism and gives her tips for speaking to vulnerable sources.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Global Lessons from Exposing War Abuses in Yemen
Open source tools like the Yemeni Archive have allowed investigative journalists to track the impact of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in the Yemen civil war as well as identify Western allies’ role in possible war crimes or abuses.
Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
Using Satellites to Reveal the Burning of the UK’s Protected Moorlands
How Greenpeace’s investigative site, Unearthed, used satellite imagery and database mapping to reveal hundreds of fires on environmentally protected land in the English moors – including dozens that could be illegal.
Case Studies Methodology
Tracking Down Horses Owned by Families of the Oligarchs
Reporters at the OCCRP are used to cataloging shell companies and trawling through bank records in search of assets. But when they received a tip-off about show jumping horses linked to the oligarchs, they decided to dig into the subject as part of the Russian Asset Tracker project.
How They Did It Methodology
How They Did It: Uncovering a Vast Network of Illegal Mining in Venezuela
A behind-the-scenes look at a reporting collaboration that uncovers the vast scale of illegal mining and illicit smuggling in Venezuela’s Amazon region.
Methodology News & Analysis
How the NYT’s Pulitzer-Winning Series Exposed Civilian Deaths in the Air War on ISIS
To get a behind-the-scenes look at The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the civilian death toll of US airstrikes, GIJN interviewed two key members of the reporting team: Christoph Koettl, a member of the Times’ visual Investigations team, and the series’ lead reporter, Azmat Khan.