Blog Post

How a Cross-Border Reporting Team Exposed Venezuela’s $28 Billion, Oil-for-Allies Scheme

As Venezuela’s citizens suffer from rampant food shortages, the government is spending billions to bolster political allies in Latin America, a team of pioneering reporters recently revealed in an unprecedented expose.

CONNECTAS, a cross-border investigative journalism organization in Latin America, directed the project, called Petrofraude. Adding heft to CONNECTAS, ICFJ Knight Fellow Fabiola Torres López coached the reporters on their data efforts, helping them clean up and analyze thousands of government records.

Building a Bot to Monitor Politicians' Twitter Accounts

Given the relevance Twitter has gained in politics, it’s important we know what elected officials are publishing on the site, and that we keep a detailed, searchable record of their posts. This is why Aos Fatos, the Brazilian fact-checking organization, in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), developed a bot to monitor Bolsonaro’s Twitter account.

A Short Guide to the History of ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation: A New ICFJ Learning Module

A new resource published by ICFJ plots the evolution of the current crisis on an international timeline. We encourage anyone who uses the learning module to augment this timeline with examples from their own country’s history, adding new entries as the crisis evolve.

16 Free Digital Tools Created by ICFJ Knight Fellows That Any Newsroom Can Use

The ICFJ Knight Fellows are global media innovators who foster news innovation and experimentation to deepen coverage, expand news delivery and better engage citizens. As part of their work, they’ve created tools that they are eager to share with journalists worldwide.

Two ICFJ Knight Fellows, Jorge Luis Sierra and Shaheryar Popalzai, are speaking at the 2017 NICAR conference in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 2-5.

ICFJ Knight Fellows Showcase 10 Free Open Source Investigative Tools for Journalists

The ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellows create a culture of news innovation and experimentation worldwide to deepen coverage, expand news delivery and engage citizens in the editorial process.

Journalist Rescue Fund Could Protect Threatened Reporters, Promote Free Press

Over the past 22 years, 1,059 journalists have been killed. Worldwide, some 430 journalists are in exile from their home countries. Hundreds more are injured, persecuted, muzzled, and threatened, mostly by governments and sometimes by influential non-governmental forces, all interested in stifling a free, fearless press. Much of this happens in countries where autocratic regimes are the norm and press freedom is ignored.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of lip service paid, often after the fact, to such threats. In December, for instance, the U.N.

How Reporters Can Ask the Right Questions of Databases

Investigative journalists often look to numbers to back up or fuel their reports, but the data they need can't always be found in a tidy spreadsheet or gathered straight from a source.

"As a journalist obviously your main tool is talking to people; it’s being able to ask the right questions of the right people," said ICFJ Knight Fellow Friedrich Lindenberg in a recent webinar on digital tools for investigative reporting.

Revamped Version of Reporting Tool Citizen Desk Focuses on Real-Time Verification

Last year, Mozambique’s Verdade newspaper put out a call for citizen reports to supplement its in-house reporting on the country's general election.

Through a new, open source toolkit called Citizen Desk, Verdade received on-the-ground reports, astute observations and...a lot of junk (especially misplaced orders for more mobile minutes).

InfoAmazonia Project is Creating Tools to Test and Report on Water Quality

In Brazil, rapid urbanization appears to be contaminating the water supply. It's an important story, but often there isn't much hard evidence available for journalists to report.

That's why they're starting to collect their own evidence, says data journalist Gustavo Faleiros.

Tabeir Iraq aims to help journalists and bloggers stay safe

When I visited Iraq for the first time in October 2003, the country was one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work. Unfortunately, that reality has not changed. Since 2003, 102 journalists have been murdered in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and many more have been harmed or threatened.

As a reporter for the Mexican newspaper El Independiente, I spent two weeks in Iraq, covering the period when an international military coalition occupied the country.