News & Analysis
Journalism Without Fear or Favor: May 3 Is World Press Freedom Day
This Sunday, May 3, is World Press Freedom Day, an initiative to stand up for journalists around the world, particularly those who are facing repression.
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News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: European Media’s COVID-19 Trust Test, New Verification Handbook, Documentaries to Stream
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, features a Nieman Reports story about European media’s eroding trust problem during COVID-19, the latest edition of Craig Silverman’s Verification Handbook, and the free-to-stream investigative documentary playlist from the good people at the DIG Festival.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: WhatsApp Engagement, Media Survival, and Russian Disinformation
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a Bellingcat post on what to look out for when reporting on Russian disinformation, how Documented is using WhatsApp to maximize reporting and audience reach, and the Oxford research group’s global effort to gather publicly available data on the coronavirus.
News & Analysis
Document of the Day: World Press Freedom Index in the Time of Coronavirus
The 2020 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), shows that the coming decade will be decisive for the future of journalism, with the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting and amplifying the many crises that threaten the right to freely reported, independent, diverse, and reliable information.
News & Analysis
COVID-19: Expert Advice on Investigative Angles
With the extraordinary measures being taken to counter the coronavirus outbreak, the work of investigative journalists scrutinizing abuses of power and exploitation of the vulnerable has never been more vital. Amid the fast-unfolding crisis, where should investigative reporters begin? GIJN asked leading journalists in our community for their advice to investigative reporters around the world.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Google Mobility Reports, Pegasus Spyware for Virus Tracking, Justice for Jan Kuciak, COVID Corruption
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes the launch of Google’s Community Mobility Reports that track social distancing trends in 131 countries, how the group behind Pegasus spyware created software for COVID-19, and news that the man who murdered investigative journalist Jan Kuciak was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
News & Analysis
Tips on Making FOIA Requests About COVID-19
Despite government restrictions, journalists around the world are using freedom of information laws to understand the COVID-19 pandemic and the response of international, national, and local authorities. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh outlines how to craft an effective freedom of information request and provides tips and suggestions on where to make requests and important questions to ask.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Tools for Investigating Coronavirus Fakes and Disinformation
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes tool from Bellingcat on investigating mis/disinformation during the pandemic, the Journalist’s Resource on what you need to know about referencing biomedical research preprints, and Oxford’s new Government Response Tracker, a project which is is collecting and aggregating publicly available data on government responses to COVID-19.
News & Analysis
How to Minimize the Impact of COVID-19 on Your Media Business
Media managers, editors, and publishers understandably may be feeling powerless at the threat posed to media businesses globally by the coronavirus. Harlan Mandel, chief executive officer at the Media Development Investment Fund, recommends steps news executives can take to limit the losses they are facing and to give direction to their business decisions.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: COVID-19’s Global Press Crackdown
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a report on the spike in crackdowns on journalists and media organizations reporting on COVID-19 , Transparency International’s suggestions for what to look out for with corruption and coronavirus, and a Citizen Lab report about how China manages social media censorship.
News & Analysis
9 Lessons from Chinese Journalists on Covering COVID-19
The COVID-19 outbreak has sparked a new wave of Chinese muckraking, despite years of suppression of investigative reporting. GIJN’s Chinese Editor Joey Qi speaks with Chinese journalists on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak about their tips for reporters around the world covering the pandemic.
News & Analysis
The 20 Leading Digital Predators of Press Freedom Around the World
Reporters Sans Frontieres published, for the first time, a list of press freedom’s 20 worst digital predators in 2020. Whether state offshoots, private-sector companies, or informal entities, they reflect a reality of power at the end of the 21st century’s second decade, in which investigative reporters and other journalists who cause displeasure risk being the targets of predatory activity by often hidden actors.
News & Analysis
Asian Investigative Journalism Conference Canceled by GIJN
GIJN regrets to announce that it is canceling this year’s Asian Investigative Journalism Conference, which was slated for October 16-18 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Given the unpredictability of the coronavirus and its potential impact on attendees, GIJN asked for assurances that the conference could be canceled if necessary. The hotel refused and insisted that GIJN provide a 100% guarantee of all conference costs. Instead, GIJN will begin work on next year’s Global Conference and a host of new projects, and promises to return to Asia in 2022.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Like Everyone Else, Everything About COVID-19
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes tips for journalists covering COVID-19, news from Investigative Reporters & Editors about a NICAR20 conference attendee testing “presumptively positive” for the virus, and the latest on media conference cancellations around the world — including GIJN’s own Asian Investigative Journalism Conference.
News & Analysis
What Investigative Reporters Around the World Need to Be Asking About COVID-19
As coronavirus spreads globally, investigative journalists around the world are working to hold powers to account as they respond to the crisis. Veteran health journalist and expert on infectious disease and global health security, Thomas Abraham talks to GIJN about the questions investigative reporters need to ask in a rapidly changing environment.
News & Analysis
Donor’s ‘Big Bet’ on Nigerian Anti-Corruption Reporting Could Be Game-Changer
Nigeria has a stubborn legacy of corruption that dates back decades. The MacArthur Foundation is investing some $67 million in investigative journalism, transparency, and good governance in the country — an ambitious experiment that could serve as a model for other states plagued by corruption.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Drawing the Line Between Journalism and Activism
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a piece from the UK-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism, which spells out their tenets around journalism and activism, the much-debated New York Times’ media column with Ben Smith, and the free (!) online video course with investigative journalist David A. Fahrenthold.
News & Analysis
The French Journalists Behind Trail-Blazing Investigations into Sexual Violence
For nearly a decade, the French investigative website Mediapart has made sexual violence a front-page issue through its exposés. GIJN’s French editor Marthe Rubió spoke to journalists Lénaïg Bredoux and Marine Turchi about the methodologies and motivations behind their investigations.
News & Analysis
Document of the Day: White Supremacists Charged with Targeting US Journalists
A small but violent American neo-Nazi group targeted journalists who covered their activities by sending threatening messages to their homes and making fake calls to law enforcement. The harassment and intimidation campaigns were detailed by prosecutors in charges against five men announced last week.
News & Analysis
A Journalist’s Letter from an Egyptian Prison
In late November last year, Egyptian security forces arrested journalist Solafa Sallam and her photojournalist husband Hossam El-Sayyad. Here’s Sallam’s letter from prison, where she is still being held.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Why the US Revoked the Visa of a War Crimes Investigator
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English, includes a report from The Intercept about how a US Department of Homeland Security algorithm revoked the visa of Forensic Architecture’s Eyal Weizman, an interview with Paul Caruana Galizia about his podcast My Mother’s Murder, and why almost half of the tech experts surveyed by the Pew Research Center are saying technology will weaken democracy.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: The Winners of the Inaugural Sigma Awards for Data Journalism
The Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes the Sigma Award winners for data journalism, two stories about increased surveillance on journalists, and an interview with BuzzFeed’s Craig Silverman.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: How The New York Times Scooped Its Own Collaboration with ICIJ
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes a story from The Washington Post about how The New York Times scooped its own collaboration with ICIJ, Ben Heubl’s tutorial on how investigative journalists can use machine learning in their reporting, and tips from Witness on how to capture and preserve video documentation during internet shutdowns.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: The Ukrainian Investigative Journalists Who Helped Light the Trump Impeachment Fuse
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the online world in English each week, includes the backstory to Ukraine’s YanukovychLeaks, how journalists around the world are using defamation laws to protect themselves against online harassment, and a new free tool that could help journalists spot doctored photographs.
News & Analysis
What We’re Reading: Pegasus and The New York Times Journalist
This week’s Friday 5 surfaced some of our must reads from around the English-language web, including research from Citizen Lab on Pegasus targeting a New York Times reporter, the Media Impact Fund’s insight for nonprofit media donors, and the out-of-beta Google Dataset Search.
News & Analysis
4 Sundance Documentaries That Shed Light on the Perils of Journalism
This year’s Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 23 to February 2 in Utah, includes four films which put journalism front and center. The films take viewers to Kenya, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, tackling the perils reporters around the world face.
News & Analysis
5 Business Models for Local News to Watch in 2020
Predictions are a tricky business, but there is one sure thing for 2020: local news publishers cannot depend on the old ways of doing business. Mark Glaser, a media consultant and advisor, shares five interesting business models that are cropping up, from the co-op ownership model to government subsidies and “information districts,” to state-level ecosystem support.
News & Analysis
11 Tips for Investigative Reporters From a Pioneer in the Arab World
After 14 years at the helm of the Arab world’s leading network of investigative journalists, Rana Sabbagh reflects on what she’s learned and offers advice to investigative reporters, in a farewell letter to Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.