Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/italy/)
Three veteran journalists on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis discuss investigative angles into the response in the first of GIJN’s webinar series, Investigating the Pandemic. Gloria Riva of l’Espresso in Italy, OCCRP Editor Drew Sullivan and GIJN Chinese Editor Joey Qi discuss the importance of source-driven investigations and dealing with disinformation and data deficits.
Our NodeXL mapping from July 12 to 18, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, found a series of articles resulting from the collaborative project that analyzed an unprecedented leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers selected for surveillance. In this edition, we also feature an insight into Facebook’s data wars by The New York Times, an interactive piece by Al Jazeera on how the holy city of Mecca has expanded, and a colorful project by the Washington Post on the rise of K-pop.
Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from June 7 to 13, which tracks the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter each week, focused in on this major investigation by ProPublica, which offers an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of US billionaires. In this edition, we also feature a detailed look at India’s faltering vaccination campaign, a data project exploring Argentina’s news deserts, and an investigation of The Gambia’s water paradox.
For inmates in Canada, risk assessments can determine which type of prison they are sent to and their chances of successfully reentering society. But an investigation by The Globe and Mail revealed that these assessments are biased against Indigenous and Black inmates. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 24 to 30 also found an interactive project by The New York Times recreating the Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma destroyed in 1921, and data-driven reporting on the influence of big money in soccer, the cost of Italy’s vaccination campaign, and police violence during the recent protests in Colombia.
Governments around the world, some which have sent workers home, are announcing interruptions in responding to freedom of information requests. Journalists are being told to expect delays in more than a dozen countries. But press freedom advocates warn that countries are taking big steps backward just when the free flow of information is most needed. GIJN’s Toby McIntosh rounds up some of the nations which have been affected.
Investigative journalism has had to adapt to the realities imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Around the world, newsrooms are having to respond to challenges such as social distancing while reporting on the pressure health systems are under. GIJN and the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), invited four journalists from some of the countries that have been the most affected by the pandemic to share what they’ve learned during this process.
Reporters Sans Frontieres published, for the first time, a list of press freedom’s 20 worst digital predators in 2020. Whether state offshoots, private-sector companies, or informal entities, they reflect a reality of power at the end of the 21st century’s second decade, in which investigative reporters and other journalists who cause displeasure risk being the targets of predatory activity by often hidden actors.
Italy’s first center for investigative reporting was created in 2012 with very little resources. Since then it has become a well-established player in the Italian media landscape. The group has grappled with financial challenges, threats, and intimidation, but have big plans for the future. Michele Barbero profiled Investigative Reporting Project Italy for GIJN.
While precarious employment, low pay and trumped up defamation lawsuits means Italian journalists are under increasing financial pressure, it’s the constant threat from mafia and organized crime that is putting reporters at risk and making in-depth reporting that much more difficult.
Confiscati Bene, released in mid-December in Europe, is a pioneering data journalism collaboration that digs into the $4 billion of goods in the EU confiscated from criminals by European authorities. An international team of journalists and their allies sought to create a European database of seized assets and answer troubling questions about the accountability of the process. Confiscati Bene (literally, Well Confiscated) received support from GIJN member JournalismFund.eu; the main project can be seen at http://eu.confiscatibene.it.