Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/category/english/page/36/)
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.
The war in Syria has dragged on for a decade, which has led to more than six million people being displaced within the country’s borders, and a similar number have fled the country as refugees. But what has happened to the money raised to help rebuild the country? Journalist Mohammed Bassiki dug deep into the documents and followed the money trail to find out.
Covering drug trafficking is inherently difficult and can be dangerous. Information is also scant. In most cases, it is best to begin by getting the best data possible. However, in all cases, proceed with caution: data on drug trafficking, especially drug seizures, gives you only a small part of the picture and can even distort reality in some cases.
In interviews over the past year, dozens of leading journalists have told me about the scores of tools and techniques that proved helpful in their investigations. But, again and again, these top muckrakers point to about a dozen tactics that they rely on all the time. We share those favorite techniques in this roundup.
There are scores of muckraking techniques that can help journalists gain access to elusive sources and data. Here we share the dozen online tools that leading reporters commonly praised in interviews with GIJN in the past year — and especially those that require few or no special digital skills.
Whether investigating human rights abuses, money laundering, or even public officials’ conflicts of interests, reporters are increasingly developing their own databases for investigative projects. Here are a series of tips drawn from the experiences of a number of international journalists and from the author’s personal experience gathering and creating data sets for investigative stories.
Talya Cooper spent several years working alongside journalists in a newsroom, where she witnessed some “unholy messes” of files on both physical and virtual desktops. But as she writes here, while taking good care of data requires some time and money the loss of irreplaceable reporting work can come at a higher cost.
In a panel at IRE21 — the annual conference hosted by Investigative Reporters & Editors — veteran reporters shared a dozen tools and tips that can help time-pressed beat reporters keep investigations running ‘on the side.’
Without a primary visual medium, radio reporting has trailed other media formats in data journalism. But creative data solutions for radio are emerging — and experts shared a dozen tips to help radio reporters broaden their storytelling repertoires, populate digital versions of their stories with data, and empower listeners to visualize without visuals.
Data journalism can show trends, maps, and patterns, highlighting whether violence has gone up or down in a region, where conflict is located, and how this relates to conditions on the ground that impacts civilians, such as migration or refugees. Here’s more on how you can use it in your next investigation.