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Methodology

138 posts

Chapter Guide Video Investigative Techniques Methodology Organized Crime

Guide to Investigating Wildlife Trafficking: Short version

The illegal trafficking of wild animals and plants is damaging biodiversity worldwide and spreading diseases. It’s an international story, with great opportunities for investigations in virtually every country. GIJN’s new guide encourages deep reporting about the subject with tips and tools for covering a global trade.

Investigative Techniques Methodology News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips

Investigating Sexual Assault and Abuse

In a GIJN webinar three journalists who have experience reporting on the #MeToo movement and sexual abuse told reporters how to investigate an often-hidden crime. Among their tips are preparing interviewees for the process, investigating the story doggedly, and using alternative forms of evidence to verify your story. Read these and other tips for investigating sexual abuse allegations in GIJN’s latest tipsheet.

Guide Resource

Planespotting: An Updated Guide to Tracking Aircraft Around the World

In 2019, GIJN first launched its guide to planespotting and flight tracking around the world. In the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which led to a great migration of Russian oligarchs and their assets, as well as Elon Musk’s efforts to block bots from tracking planes in real time on Twitter, we’ve now […]

Methodology

Lava Jato: A Case Study in Cross-Border Investigation

What appeared to be a case of money laundering done through a network of laundromats and car washes turned out to be the largest corruption network in Brazilian history, and one that ultimately extended to at least 12 countries. If it weren’t for the collaborative efforts of journalists and media houses across the continent – and into Africa – the whole story could not have been told.

Resource

How To Create a Data Journalism Team

You don’t need the resources of The New York Times to create a data journalism team in your newsroom. But you do need to think out the structure. Here are 10 things you should consider if you are considering setting up your own team.

Data Journalism Methodology

La Nación Maps Pollution on Argentina’s Matanza River

There is a huge amount of data available on pollution and disease caused by the Matanza River – widely known as River Riachuelo – the problem was transforming it into information that those affected could easily understand. In a special multimedia report, La Nación used open data and data visualization to illustrate the extent of the problem.

Methodology

Tracking a Mysterious Missile Launcher Inside an Information War

Egyptian traffic cops found a mobile launcher lying in a piece of pile near the airport of Cairo. The story was quickly dismissed by Egyptian media. But others believed it. In this detective & research adventure recorded by web research specialist Henk van Ess, you’ll learn how to find the truth midst of an information war.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

The Challenges of Coordinating a Multinational Investigative Team

Transnational investigations pose a different set of additional challenges. Coordinating journalists across borders, who have different priorities, and making them work as if they were sitting in the same newsroom, is not an easy task. Here are some lessons Investigate Europe has to share based on their experience.

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

How I Built a Scraper To Measure MP Activity

When the president of the parliament states that there are some MPs “doing nothing,” you know what to do as a data journalist: you turn to the numbers. This is how I did that and how I got a scatter plot in a printed paper and an interactive one online.

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

Getting Started in Online, Open-Source Investigations

At First Draft, we frequently receive emails from a whole range of people asking how they can start doing the sort of online open-source investigation and verification that they’ve seen us doing. The skills and methodologies used are all something that can be learnt through a little persistence, but here are a few pieces of advice to get you started.

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

New Tools Open Up Virtual Reality to Journalists

When Gustavo Cerati, a legendary Argentinian musician and songwriter, was asked to share his best advice for new musicians, he refused—saying instead that “experiences are not transferable.” You may agree or may not with his statement, but if you’ve ever worn an Oculus Rift or a similar virtual reality (VR) headset, you’ll know we are getting closer and closer to transferable experiences.

Resource

When Virtual Reality Meets Data Journalism

Isn’t the best journalism always immersive? Whether it’s Walter Kronkite’s journalistic take on history “You are There” from the 1950s or Declan Walsh’s mobile phone reporting from Syria in June, the best journalism makes you feel like you are part of the story. You care what happens. Virtual Reality is a powerful tool in making journalism more […]

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

My Data Is Dirty! Basic Spreadsheet Cleaning Functions

In an extract from his book Finding Stories with Spreadsheets Paul Bradshaw explains how to use basic cleaning functions in spreadsheets to make it easier to combine data, including a case study where the same functions were used to speed up a research process for a story.

Data Journalism Methodology

The People and the Technology Behind the Panama Papers

The trove of files that make up the Panama Papers is likely the largest dataset of leaked insider information in the history of journalism. For ICIJ’s Data and Research Unit, it offered a unique set of challenges. The overall size of the data (2.6 terabytes, 11.5 million files), the variety of file types (from spreadsheets, emails and PDFs to obscure and old formats no longer in use), and the logistics of making it all securely searchable for more than 370 journalists around the world are just a few of the hurdles faced over the course of the 12 month investigation.

Data Journalism Methodology

Investigating Uber Surge Pricing: A Data Journalism Case Study

The story published in the Washington Post’s Wonkblog ended up being about race, but it didn’t start out that way. Nick Diakopoulos, who leads the lab, wrote for the Wonkblog last year with a story on how surge pricing motivates Uber drivers to move to those surging areas, but does not increase the number of drivers on the road as Uber claims.

Data Journalism Methodology

Behind the Panama Papers: A Q&A with ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle

“Hello,” wrote the anonymous source to a German newspaper, “this is John Doe. Interested in data?” Thus began what would soon become an international financial investigation into what are being called the Panama Papers—an investigation so massive that even whistleblower Edward Snowden, on Twitter, called it the “biggest leak in the history of data journalism.”

Resource

How to Save Online Evidence and Why It Matters: Part One

As journalists we are used to saving information. We securely store documents, keep meticulous notes, save and back up important emails on our computers. But what about the information we find online during the course of our investigations?

Data Journalism Methodology

Inside a Pioneering Italian Data Journalism Collaboration

Confiscati Bene, released in mid-December in Europe, is a pioneering data journalism collaboration that digs into the $4 billion of goods in the EU confiscated from criminals by European authorities. An international team of journalists and their allies sought to create a European database of seized assets and answer troubling questions about the accountability of the process. Confiscati Bene (literally, Well Confiscated) received support from GIJN member JournalismFund.eu; the main project can be seen at http://eu.confiscatibene.it.

Resource

Research Desk: Violation Tracker, Road Safety, Biz Regs

We’re back with another Research Desk post. We’ve curated a collection of two new research databases and thirteen new or updated research reports. All of the resources listed and linked below are free to access and use.

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

On the Ethics of Web Scraping and Data Journalism

Web scraping is a way to extract information presented on websites. As I explained it in the first installment of this article, web scraping is used by many companies. It’s also a great tool for reporters who know how to code, since more and more public institutions publish their data on their websites.
With web scrapers, which are also called “bots,” it’s possible to gather large amounts of data for stories. But what are the ethical rules that reporters have to follow while web scraping?

Data Journalism Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

Web Scraping: A Journalist’s Guide

$8 billion in just a few hours earlier this year? It was because of a web scraper, a tool companies use—as do many data reporters. A web scraper is simply a computer program that reads the HTML code from webpages, and analyze it. With such a program, or “bot,” it’s possible to extract data and information from websites.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips Teaching & Training

Environmental Investigative Reporting: Resources & Methods

In this just-released video, investigative reporter Mark Schapiro goes in-depth on how to use investigative techniques in probing often complex environmental issues. Schapiro, a veteran of the original Center for Investigative Reporting, gave this talk in Hamburg at NR15, the July 2015 annual conference of Netzwerk Recherche, Germany’s investigative journalism association.

Resource

The Research Desk: Drones, Cool Tools, Green Companies

The latest tools and resources from the Research Desk: new world of drones databases available, reports from the European Parliament Research Service, Top Green Companies in the World 2015, a handy free extension to download entire pages or individual files, and more.

Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips

Drones in Media Bring New Perspectives, Ethical Issues

We’re already seeing the use of drones proliferate across a whole variety of stories — from incredible imagery of the vastness of the natural world to investigations that couldn’t be told with conventional cameras, to views of the inaccessible right under our noses. So how are the drone journalists of the future being trained for their work?

Data Journalism Methodology

The Research Desk: Tools for Tweets, Domain History, Data

We’re back with another selection of web resources and reports that might be of interest to journalists around the world. On the list this week: new reports from the International Labour Organization, Congressional Research Service, and UK House of Commons; and tools to search domain ownership, load tweets into a spreadsheet, and search open data. Good hunting!