Reporting Tools & Tips
3 Quick Ways to Verify Images on a Smartphone
This step-by-step guide explains how to do a reverse image search right on your mobile phone to check whether the photo you saw on social media is the real thing.
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Reporting Tools & Tips
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Reporting Tools & Tips
From the Experts: Tips and Tools for Investigations
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out our new video series on investigative tips and tools. This compact set of crash seminars features leading experts with insights on what investigative journalism is, as well as how to follow public records, investigate with data, understand financial records and the best online search strategies.
Resource Tipsheet
Perspectives on Interviewing Techniques
Advice on the subject of interviewing comes in many flavors — not only for investigative journalists, but for police officers, employers, lawyers, social workers, and others. What’s clear is that the interview is one of the most trusted and effective tools in the investigator’s toolbox. GIJN has prepared a sampling, mainly from journalists, but with […]
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating Trump: A How-To Lesson by Fusion GPS
When Glenn Simpson was an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he was among the best in the biz in following dirty money. Now the US Congress has released Simpson’s testimony on his private investigative firm’s role in digging into Donald Trump, and it’s a case study in sources and methods, showing how the firm tracked Trump’s investments and Russian ties using interviews, public records and smart detective work.
Reporting Tools & Tips
10 Tips for Successful Collaboration Among Journalists
Journalism collaborations across news organizations have reaped countless benefits in recent years, resulting in more accurate and impactful reports, offering protection for professionals in danger and making possible stories which would have been impossible stories to do alone. Here is top notch advice, crowdsourced from collaborations with more than 500 journalists around the world.
Resource Tipsheet
Mobile Journalism Guide: How To Get Your Mojo Workin’
COVID-19 Update: Reporting during the pandemic poses some new risks. Here are some relevant resources. Marc Settle, a BBC Academy smartphone trainer, prepared this article: Coronavirus’ impact on mobile journalism Nico Piro, mobile journalism trainer and special correspondent at Italy’s RAI, shared lessons here: Lessons from Italy: best practices for field reporting during the coronavirus […]
Reporting Tools & Tips
Secrets to Searching for Video Footage
Verifying videos is important, but first you have to find them. This Bellingcat guide will provide advice and some tips on how to gather as much video as possible on a particular event, whether it is videos from witnesses of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.
Resource Tipsheet
Editing and Managing
Crafting Investigative Reportage Into Dramatic Narratives, by Vinod K Jose, Executive Editor of The Caravan, India’s premier magazine for narrative and investigatory journalism. This GIJC19 presentation discusses “ideation,” editorial entry points and reportorial conduct. Also see PowerPoint that includes examples. Using Story-Based Inquiry to Focus, Manage and Build was the topic at GIJC17 for Mark […]
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Fact-Checking & Verification
Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit with resources on image and video verification, social media search, searching people, maps and satellites, and more. Updated 2023. GIJN’s Guide to Fact-Checking Investigative Stories by Nils Hanson (2021) GIJN’s Four Quick Ways to Verify Images on a Smartphone by Raymond Joseph. (2021) Making Stories Ironclad & Bulletproof Line-by-Line, by Nils […]
Resource Tipsheet
What Washington Is Doing in Your Country
Curious about what the US government is doing in your country? Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Martha Mendoza did a popular workshop on this topic at the 2017 Global Investigative Journalism Conference. Her tipsheet uses links to US and international agencies to track the US government’s grants and contracts, international assistance, lobbying, military activity, and more. Mendoza […]
Reporting Tools & Tips
Your 17 Favorite Tools for Journalism from 2017
Ren LaForme, the tool guy over at Poynter who runs their Try This! — Tools for Journalism newsletter, put together a list of his readers’ favorites from 2017. A quick, fun and helpful must read highlighting journalism tools from the Pipl app to FOIA Slack and a dirt cheap phone tripod.
Resource Tipsheet
Drone Journalism
Turbulent with a chance of data: Journalism’s drone-powered futures: A guide to storytelling with UAVs, by Monika Sengul-Jones in datajournalism.com. Tips on Drone Journalism by Raffy Tima, a senior news producer and news anchor with GMA Network Manila, Philippines, as presented during GIJC17. Six Tips for Succeeding at Drone Journalism, a guide prepared by Johnny […]
Resource Tipsheet
Online Research Tools
Online Research Tools and Investigative Techniques by the BBC’s ace online sleuth Paul Myers has long been a starting point for online research by GIJN readers. His website, Research Clinic, is rich in research links and “study materials.” Here’s a tipsheet about finding people online that Myers presented at a 2019 GIJN webinar. And a […]
Reporting Tools & Tips
The New Journalist: 13 Media Sites to Keep You in the Know
There is a growing number of media and journalism schools and research centers investigating new trends, helping to understand digital disruption and its impact. With their newsletters, websites and interactive online training, they can inform you about inspiring innovations, share academic research, spot threats, provoke critical thinking, highlight valuable journalistic endeavors and report on moves in the industry that will affect how stories reach people. Here are 13 you don’t want to miss.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Journalism Bots: A Quick History and Ideas for Use in Your Newsroom
Bots in newsrooms are becoming increasingly commonplace as a growing number of publishers experiment with various automated services to expand their coverage, help journalists do their jobs better or improve relationships with readers. Here’s a quick history of the bot in newsrooms, and ideas for employing them in yours.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How Muckrakers Use Crowdsourcing: Case Studies from ProPublica to The Guardian
The creative use of social media has given journalists new ways to solicit tips as well as tap readers’ expertise, opinions and personal experiences. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh has rounded up some of the best examples of community engagement in stories as well as a list of resources and ideas for crowdsourcing.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Reporting on Slavery: Tips from the Pros
A staggering 40 million people in the world exist in some form of slavery today. Learn how to investigate this inherently secretive industry from top journalists in the field.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Track Looted Wealth: Tips for Reporters
Show me the money! Experts from around the world shared their tips about how to track looted wealth at the 2017 Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How They Did It: The Azerbaijani Laundromat
In September, the Danish national newspaper Berlingske, in partnership with the OCCRP and other international media partners, exposed a complex money laundering scheme led by Azerbaijan’s elite. The stories revealed that, between 2012 and 2014, $2.9 billion connected to the country was siphoned through European companies and banks. Here’s how they got the story.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Beyond 800 Words: New Digital Story Formats
For the inception of a BBC’s R&D project to explore alternatives to conventional news formats, the BBC’s Tristan Ferne conducted a review of the landscape of digital news, looking for innovations in article and video formats online. Here’s the 12 categories he came up with — along with a few others that didn’t quite fit his model.
News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
Despite Losses, Puerto Rican Journalists Keep Reporting After Hurricane
In the wake of Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact on Puerto Rico, amid shortages of food, water and electricity, international and local media have set up shop in the island’s Convention Center, creating a de facto newsroom where officials give press conferences and citizens look for resources. Among those leading the way are journalists from GIJN member Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Female Journalists Fight Online Harrassment
Women journalists are far more likely than male journalists to be targets of online harassment, which quickly descends into graphic sexual and physical violence. Here’s what you — and your newsroom — can do to deal with the issue.
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The Best New Ways To Transcribe
So you’ve got the interview and are ready to transcribe. Whether you’re looking to transcribe yourself, want to try out the latest transcription app, need an automated service or a freelancer to help you out, here’s an overview of 28 tools that can help you efficiently turn audio into text.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative News Startups Talk Membership Models
What member participation activities are most useful to investigative news sites and most rewarding to members? The Membership Puzzle Project asked investigative news startups in Europe what they’ve been trying out.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Get Your Google Earth On: A Trainer’s Guide
This ready-made course by Mike Reilley from The Journalist’s Toolbox is great for beginners or for trainers. It covers Google Earth Pro, Google Earth Engine Timelapse and Google Earth for Chrome and comes complete with ways to implement Google Earth into your own multimedia and specifics on teaching it in data journalism courses — all the way down to suggested assignments.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Podcast Rising: From Novelty to Blockbuster
The podcast got a major boost with the wildly popular Serial and hasn’t slowed down since. Susan Valentine rounded up a brief history of the humble podcast, showcasing best practices, useful tools, success stories, some of the latest research findings — and why it’s a great outlet for investigative journalism.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How They Did It: Enslaved Land Investigation
More than 20 journalists worked across four countries to uncover the hidden abuses behind the production of sugar, cacao, bananas, coffee and African palm with slave-like conditions for workers, illegal business practices and sustained environmental damage. Here’s how they did it.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Lessons on Solving the Media Membership Puzzle
Membership programs are in a state of rapid evolution as more organizations see them as an imperative way to diversify revenue. The Membership Puzzle Project, a public research project into membership models, spoke to publishers around the world who have membership programs to find out what they have learned.