Guide Resource
Investigating Russia and the War in Ukraine
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, GIJN has published a series of stories and tipsheets for investigative journalists covering the war.
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Reporting Tools & Tips
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News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
From #MeToo to Going Undercover: Tips from Women Investigators
Speaking during GIJN’s Tips and Tools from Women Investigators webinar, reporters from Germany, Kenya, and Turkey recounted their experiences dealing with court injunctions, going undercover, and investigating under-reported stories.
Resource
Resources for Female-Identifying Journalists – A GIJN Guide
Female-identifying journalists often encounter obstacles, whether when they’re out reporting or even back in their newsrooms. GIJN has gathered resources for female-identifying journalists that want to connect, handle harassment, and address discrimination issues. We also provide advice and tips from great women investigative journalists that will serve as inspiration.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Journalists’ Guide to Using AI and Satellite Imagery for Storytelling
Satellite imagery provides information that can enhance the ability to write compelling narratives about the state of our planet, cutting across multiple beats. But such a tool tends to be complex and out of the reach for many journalists, so this guide offers a process that reporters interested in covering the climate crisis can use for story projects.
News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
Reporter Katie McQue’s Tips for Covering Migrant Workers in Arab Gulf States
Katie McQue, a British freelance journalist that spent five years reporting from Dubai covering human rights and migration alongside her “business” beats of energy, healthcare, and finance, speaks to GIJN about her work and the best practices reporters can adopt when covering forced labor and human trafficking in the region.
Chapter Guide Resource
Guide to Investigating Methane — A Key to Fighting Climate Change (Short Version)
Reducing methane emissions is the single fastest way to fight climate change, according to climate scientists. In this guide, identify specific sources of methane and hold companies and countries accountable.
Guide Resource
Climate Change Accountability: Guide to Investigating Methane
This guide was written by Toby McIntosh, senior advisor to GIJN’s Resource Center. Editing was by Reed Richardson and Laura Dixon. Illustrations were created by Marcelle Louw.
Chapter Guide Resource
Essential Steps for Journalists in Emergency Situations
Journalists receiving threats often have to flee their homes in a matter of a few hours. Conflicts, though, are often foreseeable and that’s why those in fragile regions should have an exit plan in place and crucial documents ready to go. We’ve listed what documents journalists should gather as well as which organizations support journalists with relocation.
Case Studies News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
Q & A: Investigating Police Responses to Homelessness
Data reporter Melissa Lewis is interviewed about a recent podcast for Reveal, which investigated what happens when local residents call police on unhoused people in their neighborhood, analyzing arrest data across six major US West Coast cities with large homeless populations.
News & Analysis Press Freedom Reporting Tools & Tips
Stopping the Scourge of SLAPPs and Legal Harassment of Journalists
Among the most frequently used forms of legal coercion against investigative journalists are SLAPPs (“strategic litigation against public participation”), which aim to intimidate reporters into abandoning their investigations. The practice of abusing legal systems by those in power to silence critics has reached global proportions. Its damage is far-reaching and curbing it is an imperative for democracy and maintaining peace.
Reporting Tools & Tips
GIJN Toolbox: Hunting for Secret Money and Financial Conflicts of Interest
In this edition of GIJN Toolbox, we profile three brand new — or newly expanded — tools to dig into financial secrecy and hidden gains from corruption or crime. Our list includes a user-friendly database to search for sanctions and conflict-of-interest red flags, a site that uses an algorithm to detect hidden bank accounts, and a newly expanded database on the true owners of offshore companies.
News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
Using Snapchat as an Investigative Tool: Q & A with Paul Bradshaw
Can Snapchat, an outlet famous for avatars and disappearing videos, be used by investigative journalists as a reporting tool or as a publishing outlet? How can they use it? And what are the best ways to approach it?
Guide Resource
Reporting on Migration in the Gulf: A Revised and Expanded GIJN Guide
This updated and expanded guide was written in cooperation with Migrant-Rights.org. Illustrations are by Marcelle Louw. The project manager was Majdoleen Hasan. Editing by Reed Richardson.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Key Tools and Datasets for Unearthing Hard-to-Find Information
In a lightning round session at #GIJC21, a panel of leading reporters and editors needed just five minutes each to outline new tools and databases that any reporter can use to gather hard-to-find facts.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Investigating When Governments Shield Crime and Corruption
In a session on high-level corruption at #GIJC21, a panel of reporters from Liberia, Ukraine, Sudan, Russia, and Lebanon suggested a series of strategies that can pry facts from obstinate government agencies, find whistleblowers, and deliver alternate forms of accountability for officials seemingly above the law.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigative Stories that Can Be Replicated Around the World
At GIJC21, hard-hitting investigations journalists shared some great story ideas that could be replicated by reporters across the globe to bring about changes in their society.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Lessons from the Pandemic: COVID-19 and Health-Pharma Investigations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists worldwide were suddenly thrown into the public health beat, trying to make sense of competing claims, and a science that seemed to change by the day. A session at the GIJC21 walked reporters through the COVID-19 pandemic, offering tips on covering the drug development and approval processes, evaluating scientific studies, unearthing conflicts of interest, and exposing fraud and malpractice.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Turning Dead-Ends Into Breakthroughs Using Visual Investigation Techniques
In an expert panel on visual investigations at #GIJC21, three members of the New York Times’ pioneering team showed that it is now possible to report exactly who did what, and when, at various incidents.
Reporting Tools & Tips
7 Best Practices for More Impactful Investigative Reporting
In a GIJC21 session that focused on stories across the Asia/Pacific region, investigative journalists discussed best reporting best practices and how telling great investigative stories requires a range of skills and determination to uncover the truth.
Reporting Tools & Tips
6 Tips When Investigations Lead to China
Despite China’s growing secrecy and media crackdown, the country’s global footprint opens new ways to report on Chinese affairs, according to panelists at a Nov. 4 session at the 12th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (#GIJC21).
Reporting Tools & Tips
Asian Journalism Collaborations Break New Ground
Cross-border collaborations allow newsrooms to pool resources and overcome financial hurdles. On the fourth day of GIJC21, journalists based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia offered tips for conducting successful collaborative reporting projects.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Immersion and Imagery: Keys to Investigating Systemic Inequality
Spending time with vulnerable communities and focusing on systems of exploitation were the central takeaways from a #GICJ21 panel on covering inequality, in which journalists based in three of the world’s most unequal societies — Brazil, South Africa, and the United States — shared tips on how to tackle this global crisis.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Icarus Flights: The Powerful New Flight Tracking Tool
At GIJC21, Washington DC-based nonprofit C4ADS introduced Icarus Flights, a comprehensive new system that helps journalists track and investigate nearly any aircraft around the world.
Guide Resource
How to Set Up a Video Unit: A GIJN Guide for Small Organizations
How to hire staff and plan out your shoots to tips for better photography and helpful case studies.
Resource
Investigative Audio: 8 Tips from Podcasting Innovators
In a GIJC21 session on investigative podcasts, journalists and producers who have created award-winning podcasts shared ideas on how to leverage this audio storytelling technique to better connect with the audience and tell impactful stories.
Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Expose Lies from the Skies Using Satellites and Drones
In a GIJC21 session on using maps and satellite imagery for investigations, three experts explained their approaches to analyzing satellite and drone images, and using open source tools. One of the innovative techniques described led to a Pulitzer Prize this year — for exposing China’s network of Muslim detention centers — while another exposed government deception about fires in the Amazon, and a third literally put a vulnerable community in Africa on the map.
Guide Resource
A Guide to Fact-Checking Investigative Stories
Bulletproofing your story demands much more than getting the facts right. It requires a meticulous approach from the start in order to pass quality control.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Understanding the Methods of Today’s Organized Crime Is Key to Exposing It
Three experts who contributed to GIJN’s new organized crime reporting guide have shared insights into the modus operandi of criminal syndicates and how journalists can deploy cross-border collaborations to expose their illicit activities.