Guide Resource
GIJN’s Global Guide to Freedom of Information
More than 115 countries worldwide have laws that require officials to turn over public records.
Topic
Reporting Tools & Tips
556
posts
Reporting Tools & Tips
25 Ways Community Members Can Support Your Newsroom
Media outlets’ communities have a lot to offer — and often, they would like to help. Here are 25 jobs that community members can do to aid newsrooms and examples of how to best include them.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Document of the Day: Online Pest Control for Journalists
It is unfortunately becoming easier and easier to harass journalists online through the use of technology such as bots, with the intent to intimidate and silence truth-tellers. These attacks can be relentless and if left unchecked, can be a real threat to journalists’ mental health and reputation. To deal with these online “pests,” TrollBusters created an infographic that offers clear steps on how to deal with various types of cyberviolence ranging from doxing to sexually explicit photos.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Where Do ProPublica’s Investigative Reporters Find Their Story Ideas?
A reader asked ProPublica Illinois how the media organization finds new story ideas. Reporter Jodi S. Cohen, who was just as curious as the reader, spoke to her colleagues to find out where they got their inspiration. From fleshing out ideas found in other colleagues’ stories to digging into data anomalies, and even paying extra attention to an idle truck parked at an abandoned gas station, their answers show that there are a myriad of ways in which inspiration for your next big story could strike.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Mojo Workin’: Choosing Your New Mojo Smartphone
When it comes to doing mobile journalism, is there a big difference between expensive Androids and iOS phones? Is using an old phone fine and, if not, which phone should one upgrade to? Mobile journalism trainer Ivo Burum offers up the skinny on phone basics, the truth about pixels, lenses and more to help journalists decide the best phone to get the story done well.
Guide Resource
Land Ownership Records: So Useful, but Challenging to Find
Finding out who owns land can be tough. While property registration systems exist in almost all countries, the quality and availability of the information vary widely. World Bank experts estimate that only 30% of the world’s population has a legally registered title to their land, a widely quoted figure that Bank officials stress is a […]
Reporting Tools & Tips
Essential Reading: A Cheat Sheet for Open Source Digital Security Options
What’s the best way to protect you and your sources from commercial spyware? When the actual systems and applications used in everyday communications aren’t transparent and lack adequate security measures, using open source programs with encryption can be the best line of defense. Katarina Sabados rounded up some options for open source digital security for GIJN.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Making an Impact: Here’s How to Take Your Story to the Next Level
Measuring the impact of journalism can help newsrooms reconnect with its audience and attract new funders. But the wider journalism ecosystem has yet to embrace the concept of keeping track of journalism’s impact. Impact Makers Bernadette Kuiper talks to the European Journalism Centre about why journalists should care about impact, how to create it and where to draw the line between journalism and advocacy.
Reporting Tools & Tips
The Toolbox: Digging for People, Trawling the Web and Keeping Yourself Safe
Effective digital investigative research relies heavily on gathering small pieces of information on a person or group and combining those to build a more comprehensive picture. Being able to find things like email addresses, usernames and sites with which they have accounts helps build out a profile that can be used for further investigation. GIJN’s Alastair Otter rounds up some tools worth checking out.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How Innovative Newsrooms Are Using Artificial Intelligence
Many in the journalistic profession fear Artificial Intelligence will leave them without a job. But AI could become the savior of the trade, making it possible to better cover the increasingly complex, globalized and information-rich world we live in. Open Society Foundations’ María Teresa Ronderos writes about the ways some of the world’s newsrooms are using it now.
Resource
Document of the Day: Visual Vocabulary
Inspired by the Graphic Continuum by Jon Schwabish and Severino Ribeca, the Financial Times graphic team came up with their own neat chart of visualizations. The Visual Vocabulary is a guide to help journalists pick the right type of visualization for their story.
Reporting Tools & Tips
9 Types of Visual Storytelling on Mobile
In September 2017, the lead producer for the BBC Internet Research & Future Services, Tristan Ferne, identified 12 different story formats used in digital news. With new formats constantly emerging, Emma-Leena Ovaskainen, a visual journalist for Finland’s biggest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, has modified the list and made her own additions.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Want to Launch a Membership Program? Here Are 6 Things to Consider
Paywalls, live events, special print editions, paid newsletters, the list goes on. From new editorial products to exclusive experiences, news organizations of all types and sizes are looking for new revenue streams. Paula Montañà Tor offers six questions that you should consider before launching a membership program.
Reporting Tools & Tips
MOUs: How to Get Everyone on the Same Page for Collaborative Projects
As collaborative journalism becomes a common practice across the media industry, news outlets may need clear documentation to guide their projects. Drafting a memorandum of understanding between collaborating partners can help get everyone on the same page. Stefanie Murray, from the Center for Cooperative Media, gathered six MOU template examples as a guide.
Reporting Tools & Tips
A Tiered Approach to Researching and Pitching Investigative Stories for Freelance Writers
How do freelancers carry out a yearlong investigation when they only get paid at the end? Investigative reporter Samantha Sunne has a tiered approach to keep you from spending precious time and resources.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Want People to Read Your Investigation? Make Sure You Tell a Good Story
It’s not difficult to figure out if your story is understandable — if your grandmother can’t understand it, you have failed. At this summer’s MezhyhiryaFest, the annual investigative journalism festival in Kyiv, the OCCRP’s Ilya Lozovsky offered up some tips to help investigative journalists tell better stories. GIJN’s Olga Simanovych pulled them together.
Reporting Tools & Tips
GIJN Toolbox: Backgrounding People and Companies
When it comes to doing investigations using online tools, there is no one tool that will answer all of your questions. Instead you’ll most likely need to build slowly towards the answer using a jumble of jigsaw pieces — a name here, a connection there. The good news is that there are dozens of tools that can be used to find the pieces to your puzzle. GIJN’s Alastair Otter has pulled together tools that can be used to help build a profile of someone — or their business.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Identify Bots, Trolls, and Botnets
Over the past two years, words like “bots,” “botnets” and “trolls” have entered mainstream conversations about social networks and their impact on democracies. Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab laid out some of the working definitions and their methodologies to help identify, expose and explain disinformation online.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Considering a Collaborative Reporting Project? Here are 8 Lessons From 6 Projects
Pick your collaborators like you pick your friends, if you can help it — trust is critical. Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University funded six collaborative reporting projects across the United States and gathered some of the lessons learned and main takeaways for other media considering collaborative reporting projects.
Reporting Tools & Tips
4 Digital Security Tips Every Journalist Needs to Know
With daily headlines about massive data hacks, everyone should be worried about digital security. But investigative journalists may even be deliberately targeted. Digital security expert Chris Walker shared his top tips.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Track Chinese Business Around the World
Want to track what Chinese businesses — big or small — are up to in Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia? These tips from reporters from The New York Times, The Guardian and The South China Morning Post will help.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Want to Track the Pentagon’s Funding? Here’s How You Can Follow the Money
Hundreds of billions of dollars flow from the US government to contractors around the world, but knowing how to dig into these contracts can be daunting. Here’s Michael Morisy from MuckRock with tips on how to dig in.
Reporting Tools & Tips
8 Ways Journalists Visualized California’s Out-of-Control Wildfires
California officials and firefighters are becoming increasingly concerned that the drier, windier conditions spurred on by the warming climate will make wildfires more devastating and their seasons longer. But are enough people paying attention to their root causes and dire consequences? Here are eight ways US journalists have been chronicling this year’s wildfires.
Reporting Tools & Tips
5 Tools for Professional Looking Infographics for the Non-Designer
For newsrooms that want to produce professional looking infographics but don’t have the technical skills or budget to hire a professional, Kat Duncan came up with five user-friendly tools to help you create neat looking infographics without worrying about too much coding.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Start Your Own Media Newsletter
Your newsletter mailing list is made up of real people who have allowed you into some of the most prime real estate in the world: their inbox, and this privilege should not be abused. Splice Newsroom offers their tips to offer your subscribers quality content.
Data Journalism Reporting Tools & Tips
Document of the Day: DataViz Cheatsheet
Economist Jonathan Schwabish created a handy data visualization cheatsheet with straightforward key principles to adhere to when creating data visualizations. Remember: avoid 3D, make labels easy to read and try small multiples.
Reporting Tools & Tips
The Dirty Words Journalists Have to Say Without Blushing
Customer, profits, monetize. These are just some of the words that make journalists cringe because they sound so dirty when associated with our ethically-produced investigative journalism. But university professor James Breiner argues that journalists and the media need to add these words to their vocabulary without feeling squeamish.
Reporting Tools & Tips
The Toolbox: How to Share Sensitive Documents, Mine Twitter and Monitor Website Updates
In this month’s Investigative Toolbox, GIJN’s Alastair Otter delves into how to share sensitive documents with OnionShare, mine Twitter with Treeverse and FollowerWonk and monitor website updates with Versionista and VisualPing.