During this session, Henk van Ess introduced new tips, resources, and investigative methods journalists can use to identify AI-generated images in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Chua encourages reporters to “get their hands dirty” by experimenting directly with new technologies and explore how AI tools work and how they can support accountability reporting.
From fishing quotas in Norway to legislative accountability in California, investigative journalists share practical, replicable ways to use AI in advancing their reporting.
AI is becoming part of everyday newsroom workflows and journalists are seeking ways to use it effectively, responsibly, and without undermining core investigative standards.
She highlights why journalists should question the dominant narratives promoted by tech companies around AI and other platforms, as well as overlooked angles for investigations.
In high-velocity information wars, investigative value lies less in disproving every falsehood than in documenting patterns, tactics, and systemic vulnerabilities.
GIJN sends its deepest sympathies to IRE’s board, staff, and its 5,000 members.
Our round-up also highlights India’s highly polluted Yamuna River, a flash flood in Argentina’s Bahía Blanca, and how good (or bad) humans are at identifying AI-generated music.
Carlos Dada delivered the 2026 Reuters Memorial Lecture. As the leader of El Faro, he has edited and published dozens of investigations exposing corruption of governments of all colors.
The commissioning editor of BBC’s Storyville speaks about the making of the documentary, which delves into the pro-Ukraine-war propaganda leaching into Russian schools.
In the AI economy, hundreds of thousands of digital workers — or “gig workers” — from around the world are tasked with refining the answers of models like ChatGPT.
There is a central tension facing investigative journalists: the “AI and tech paradox.” Explore our report on the most urgent technology-related challenges facing investigative journalism today.
Experts offer practical tips and tools for covering attacks on civilians on the battlefield and interviewing non-combatant survivors of armed conflict.
Featuring advice on fact checking, digital security tips, interview techniques, and guidelines for editors.
Empower the World’s Watchdog Journalists
Hungary’s government has accused investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi of espionage in coordination with a foreign country. Panyi, who denies the allegations, said on social media that "accusing investigative journalists of espionage is virtually unprecedented in the 21st century for a member state of the European Union." Panyi covers national security and has published several articles about Russian influence operations in Hungary and the relationship between Moscow and Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó. A publication Panyi writes for accused the governments of “resorting to authoritarian tactics” to discredit his reporting.
Source: Institute of Mass Information
GIJN member Donetsk Institute of Information was hit with a recent cyberattack by suspected Russian hackers, which resulted in the blocking of its website. According to DII Editor-in-Chief Yulia Didenko, the hacker group "Cyber Serp" claimed responsibility for the attack, reportedly as retaliation for the news site's journalism, which the hackers labeled as "anti-Russian" and an "instrument of psychological warfare." Since the attack, DII's website has been partially restored, but all of its news archives prior to February 2025 have not been able to be recovered so far.
ProPublica is inviting up to 10 news editors from media companies across the US to participate in its year-long investigating editor training program, led by its newsroom staff. The program’s goal is to address the journalism industry’s critical need to “broaden the ranks of investigative editors.” The training starts with a weeklong boot camp in New York, including courses and panel discussions for producing investigative projects. Editors will also receive training in managing reporters who work with data, documents, and sensitive sources, including whistleblowers and people who have suffered trauma. Submissions close March 30, 9 am EST.
US-based Investigative Reporters & Editors announced the news that Executive Director Diana R. Fuentes passed away unexpectedly on March 20 in Washington, DC. Fuentes was a veteran reporter and editor with more than 35 years in journalism, had been an active academic presence at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Texas State University, and had led IRE for nearly five years, since April 2021. "As we remember Diana, let’s commit to upholding her values of diversity, inclusion, and excellence in journalism. She believed in our mission wholeheartedly and would want us to keep moving forward together," IRE said in a statement.
The Sweden-based Varieties of Democracies Institute, or V-Dem, has released the 2026 edition of its annual Democracy Report, which finds that 44 countries are “autocratizing” while only 12 have become more democratic. Researchers say that freedom of expression in the US “is now at its lowest level since the end of WWII,” and that the suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices are driving the derailment of US democracy. The US is now an electoral democracy after losing its liberal democracy status thanks to changes during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Submissions are open for the 2026 DIG Awards — which honor excellence in journalism by reporters who use video and audio to investigate current social, economic, technological, environmental, and political issues. They are organized by Associazione DIG Documentari Inchieste Giornalismi - ETS, a nonprofit association based in Modena, Italy. The 2026 Awards will be presented during the DIG Festival in Modena from Sept. 23-Sept. 27, 2026. There are 5 video categories, 1 audio and podcast category, and the DIG Pitch, which is open to documentary projects currently in development, pre-production or production phase. The deadline for submissions is June 6, 2026.
Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and partner organizations are calling for a Court of Appeal ruling against North Macedonia’s Investigative Reporting Lab (IRL) to be overturned on further appeal, citing threats to press freedom. IRL, an independent investigative media platform and local OCCRP partner, was appealing a previous defamation verdict in a civil defamation lawsuit by Kočo Angjušev, a powerful businessman and former deputy prime minister, following a 2021 IRL/OCCRP documentary that aired on the country’s public broadcaster and revealed his connections to a company that supplied dangerous, polluted oil to heat North Macedonian hospitals.
A Greek court has convicted four executives of Intellexa, which owns the Predator spyware used to illegally surveil investigative journalist Thanasis Koukakis as part of a wider wiretapping scandal in 2022. Acording to the International Press Institute (IPI), this is thought to be the first case anywhere in the world of individuals in the commercial spyware sector being convicted of marketing, distributing and using spyware used to illegally surveil the press. Founders, executives or shareholders in the companies involved were each sentenced to 126 years in prison, of which eight years must be served.
The Council of Europe’s Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists — which since April 2015 has monitored press freedom and issued ‘alerts’ on serious threats to journalists — has concluded in its annual report that press freedom in Europe was under sustained pressure in 2025, driven by legal threats, attempts at media capture and transnational repression; 53 journalists or media professionals were killed. Conflict and repression were the primary sources of threats to journalists, and Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, Russia, Türkiye and Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories recorded the highest numbers of alerts on the platform.
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) has issued a public call for the release of Nashville-based reporter, Estefany Rodriquez, who was taken into custody by US immigration enforcement officials while working in a marked press vehicle. Rodriguez, a Colombian who reports for Nashville Noticias and Univision, has frequently covered immigration enforcement and sought asylum in the US in 2021 after receiving death threats in her native country. Her spouse is a US citizen. "The arrests and detention of journalists are blatant attacks on press freedom and meant to have a chilling effect on the willingness of journalists to cover events," an IRE statement said.
Anna Behrend is a self-taught data journalist who has found in data-driven reporting and visualization a way to combine her academic background in science with her creative interests.
Based in the Mexican border region of Chihuahua, a state where organized crime exerts a strong presence, means working “under constant threat,” but Gallegos refuses to be silenced.
One of India’s most renowned investigative reporters, Sarin has reported and edited stories digging into security, corruption, and money laundering.
The award-winning reporter and deputy CEO of Taiwan’s The Reporter says public support is the “vital force” that ensures investigative journalism continues to exist.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has a detailed facilities database — and environmental journalists who want to fortify their investigative skills will do well to learn how to use it.
GIJN announces the 31 finalists for the 2026 Sigma Awards for excellence in data journalism, which attracted a record-breaking 543 entries from 84 different countries.
The Sigma Awards celebrate the best data journalism from around the world. Submissions are now open for data projects published in 2025.
Understanding, organizing, and validating data directly affects the accuracy of stories. New tools make cleaning accessible to journalists without coding.
Since 2020, the exiled outlet’s investigations have led to approximately 90 sanction actions, proving how journalism can make a real impact on authoritarian regimes.
This small yet notorious investigative outlet was formed almost by accident — but has gone on to investigate electoral issues, conflict, and the death of an Indian journalist.
Being a journalist in Haiti means not only witnessing daily violence but also being a potential target, one news outlet remains a home for those who refuse to stop reporting.
GIJN sat down with newsroom leaders from the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI) to discuss the group’s history, its current business model, and where it plans to go next.
The 14th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC25) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, assembled more than 1,500 journalists from over 135 countries and territories to hold workshops, share best practices, and build a community increasingly confronting funding crises, disinformation campaigns, digital surveillance, and authoritarian threats. This project is a compendium of GIJN’s coverage of the conference.
This regional spotlight series examines the world’s largest and most populous continent, which is also the host of the 2025 Global Investigative Journalism Conference. Asia serves as a unique laboratory in the global media landscape, but journalists here face multifaceted challenges, from censorship to physical threats, digital surveillance to financial pressures. Despite this, watchdog reporters […]
Our third regional spotlight series examines the challenges facing our members and other outlets in the Middle East and North Africa, such as war, backsliding democracies, self-censorship, exile, surveillance and imprisonment of journalists, and the hostile legal environment — and why this reality on the ground makes investigative journalism there all the more essential.
Our second regional spotlight series examines the successes and challenges facing our members in Africa and others reporting from the continent. These articles tell the stories of growing journalistic collaboration, courage, and innovation in the face of repression, legal intimidation, lack of access to information, and even physical threats.
Online scams have become borderless threats that evolve rapidly in scale, sophistication, and impact. From fraudsters using the Internet to steal to phishing networks that engage in social engineering and trick individuals, scams are often backed by organized criminal groups that exploit weak law enforcement, jurisdictional loopholes, and digital anonymity.
In this online workshop GIJN convenes four experienced African journalists to discuss how to dig out information from repressive regimes, track the tools that these regimes use to subjugate their people, fact check and debunk misinformation and propaganda, and investigate strategic and geopolitical allies that help to keep autocrats in power despite opposition from citizens.
What innovative tools and techniques are shaping the future of data journalism? A special Lightning Round webinar with the 10 winners of the 2025 Sigma Awards, celebrating some of the world’s best data-driven investigations.
A webinar exploring how investigative journalists can document human rights abuses in war zones, with a focus on methods to ensure the information gathered can later be used by legal investigators or international courts.
