Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/public-databases/)
The government of the United States engages with virtually every country in the world on some level. From presidential actions to criminal investigations, and from aid programs to military assistance, many of these areas are traceable at some level through public-facing databases. Here’s GIJN’s tipsheet to show you where to start digging into the data.
Open source tools like the Yemeni Archive have allowed investigative journalists to track the impact of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in the Yemen civil war as well as identify Western allies’ role in possible war crimes or abuses.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with Lionel Faull of the London-based investigative newsroom and training outlet Finance Uncovered. He told GIJN’s Olivier Holmey all about the tools he uses to encrypt his communications, convert PDFs to readable text, find data on company ownership, sync his written and audio notes, and more.
Journalism is by definition investigative. However, the depth and scope of possibilities to unearth and bring to light wrongdoings of public interest has increased manifold, thanks to the way the Internet has been evolving in the last decade. To be a true investigative reporter today, it is indispensable to fine-tune the old philosophy with three new practices: be Open, Systematic and Safe.