GIJN’s Document of the Day: The 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) from Transparency International concludes that 95% of countries have made little to no progress fighting corruption since 2017, and notes the link between corruption and increased violence around the world.
A recent Reuters Institute webinar dug into a highly embarrassing, retracted investigation by India’s The Wire and also laid out best practices for investigative newsrooms to avoid both deliberate and unintentional source errors.
To confront the ongoing legal threats to independent media around the world, the Vance Center and OCCRP are launching Reporters Shield, a multi-million dollar legal support program and defense fund for investigative journalism and newsrooms.
GIJN’s global team has reviewed some of our favorite investigative podcasts from 2022. Some dig into scandals and allegations of sexual assault. Others take a deep dive into the backgrounds of leading political figures or explore national scandals. There are tragedies, public interest stories, politics, crime, and corruption, with stories drawn from around the world.
Practicing good mental hygiene is a continuous process for investigators that requires active input at all times. Bellingcat offers these small steps to minimize and mitigate your exposure to distressing content, to possibly save you from burnout or worse.
Being an investigative journalist in the Middle East and North Africa was immensely challenging in 2022, thanks to the dramatic decline in press freedom in places once considered safer for journalists such as North Africa, the lack of human and financial resources, and the inability to access data and public information in most Arab countries.
Is measuring reach, attention, and engagement the same as measuring the impact of your journalism? The model and technology are not yet there to measure the real impact of a story on behavior and policy.
Like spyware, forensic tools can access everything on a phone or computer, but unlike spyware, such tools are in widespread, open usage in democracies as well as more repressive regimes. Their use has accelerated threats to the press while protections and public awareness lag behind.
Some of the most notable stories in German-language journalism this year revealed that many good guys in public life were, as it turned out, not so good. The following stories examine public figures from sports, the media, and far-right networks, and also show how big players — such as sportswear behemoth Nike, the fintech company Wirecard, or multinational energy giant RWE — behave when they think nobody’s watching.
Geographical diversity, the stories’ impact and uniqueness, the risks taken, and the techniques used were some of our criteria for selecting the strongest French language investigations of the year, selected by GIJN French Editor Alcyone Wemaëre, GIJN Francophone Africa Editor Maxime Domegni, GIJN French Assistant Editor Moran Kerinec, and Africa Assistant Editor Aïssatou Fofana.
In the past three years since the first known case of COVID-19 was identified, watchdog reporters around the world have taken on one of the most difficult and deadly investigative topics in modern history. Here, we look back at some of the most innovative and impactful stories written about the pandemic and its consequences.
Accusations of sexual harassment against the head of a state-owned bank, the transnational growth and influence of Salvadorian gang MS13, and the striking accumulation of wealth by the president and his family in one of the poorest countries in Central America. These were some of the investigative topics among the prize-winning stories featured at the 2022 Latin American Conference on Investigative Journalism.
Because of growing threats to democracy, and a recent series of ever more extreme societal and planetary crises, funders now see more clearly the pivotal, central role that independent public interest media play in keeping our societies and economies open. And what’s even more encouraging is to see this positive talk backed up with concrete measures and actions.
The year 2022 has seen a number of noteworthy books about investigative journalism, from going undercover to dig into corruption to investigating the underbelly of the global migration crisis, and from a deep dive into dodgy COVID contracts to a book from Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa.
The Outlaw Ocean Project — a nonprofit journalism organization that reports on the “watery two-thirds” of our planet — used material from several years of investigations on the high seas to create a new, seven-part podcast.
Radio Zamaneh Executive Director Joris van Duijne discusses how his exile media site is reporting from afar on the widespread political protests reverberating across Iran.
Two local journalists from Syria have begun using virtual and augmented reality to bring immersive reporting experiences to news audiences far outside their country.
Investigative journalists face a range of threats — from physical attacks to legal challenges — and sometimes the toll becomes just too much. Hear from two reporters who took time out to rest, recover, and recoup.
Forensic Architecture, a research agency based in London, blends human rights expertise with research, architectural capabilities, and investigative firepower. Our interview finds out how the team tackles investigations in the Middle East.
Films that captured ‘the death of democracy’ headlined the 2022 Double Exposure documentary festival in the US. In a parallel symposium, investigative reporters and directors stressed the importance of visual storytelling to describe the current, global erosion of democratic freedoms, and shared tips on how to capture this mass theft of human rights.
From shared bylines to awards credit, and from fair pay to due recognition, read the best-practice tips for working with local journalists or fixers when collaborating on investigations, from Frontline Freelance Mexico.
US-based nonprofit Freedom House released its latest annual study of global internet freedom yesterday, titled Freedom on the Net 2022: Countering an Authoritarian Overhaul of the Internet.
Kenyan journalist John-Allan Namu discussed the emotional toll and significant impact on work-life balance that investigative reporting can have during a webinar hosted by the Reuters Institute.
Fourteen newsrooms and independent journalists from 13 countries collaborated on the Oceans, Inc. project, to uncover stories about illegal fishing and forced slavery on the South China Sea and the oceans near Antarctica. Their cross-border reporting won the 2022 SOPA Award for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment.
Investigative journalism of environmental issues has grown substantially in recent years in Africa, thanks to a number of new initiatives and reporting projects.
A press freedom crisis is rippling across Latin America and in some places the technological, legal, and physical threats have grown so severe that investigative journalists feel compelled to flee their home countries to keep reporting.
This investigation into the suspicious death of a Ukrainian immigrant while in police custody won Gazeta Wyborcza reporter Jacek Harłukowicz Poland’s top prize for journalism in 2021.
From a one-hour French documentary about the Russian Wagner group of mercenary fighters to a short film about the final, desperate phone calls of a Tunisian president facing an uprising, many of the winning entries from this year’s DIG festival focus on exposing stories about the powerful and what happens behind closed doors.
