GIJC17

Research: “Data-driven journalism: Visualizing the lie versus revealing the truth”

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This is a research paper that was presented at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2017 Academic Track, which IJEC organized and covered.

University professor and database journalism specialist Milagros Salazar researches the role of data in journalism, its potentials and limits.

“Journalism is full of data, but not everything is data journalism. There is a difference between using data and establishing a methodology in journalistic research that has, as a fundamental aspect, the organization, analysis and verification of data to find a real story.

But data alone are not enough. It is important to verify them and put a human face on them in order to find a real story to tell your audience. If data are not tested against the situation “on the ground”, there is a danger that they will show us lies, instead of helping us tell the truth in order to help people take better decisions for their lives.”

GIJC17

Research: “Investigative journalism in the post-truth era: Views from Mauritius”

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This is a research paper that was presented at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2017 Academic Track, which IJEC organized and covered.

University of Mauritius’ Azhagan Chenganna considers the challenges of investigative reporting in Mauritius, where there is no freedom of information and where journalists often dependent on leaks that are hard to verify in the noisy age of digital news.

“Journalism, investigative journalism in particular, is undergoing major change. This paper focuses on the investigative journalism culture in Mauritius and more broadly on the challenges of investigative journalism in the post-truth era in Mauritius. With the emergence of social media and the phenomenon of an amplification of news sources, investigative journalists are often solicited and obtain information from many sources including hackers and leakers. In Mauritius, leaked documents including electronic and secretly recorded materials have recently constituted the backbone of investigative stories.”

GIJC17

Research: “Challenges Confronting Investigative Journalism in Saudi Arabia”

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This is a research paper that was presented at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2017 Academic Track, which IJEC organized and covered.

Ali Almania, a lecturer at Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University and journalist at Riyadh Newspaper, researched the state of Saudi Arabian investigative journalism in the context of how journalism changed after the Arab Spring. Legal, political and professional restrictions on journalism make it hard to do investigative projects. The rise of social media, however, seems to have given journalists more freedom.

“The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges confronting investigative journalists in Saudi Arabia. As a result of the prevailing political system, the gatekeepers of the Saudi news media have imposed legal restrictions on investigative journalism. This study considers whether the political changes that are taking place in some Arab countries after the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010 have led to more or less investigative reporting. Semi-structured interviews were held with three Saudi newspapers’ editors in chief, who were asked about their criteria for accepting or rejecting investigative stories.”

GIJC17

Research: “Raking Muck and Raising Funds – Capacity Development Strategies for the Future of Investigative Journalism in the Global South”

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This is a research paper that was presented at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2017 Academic Track, which IJEC organized and covered.

In “Raking Muck and Raising Funds,” Nadine Jurrat and her colleagues from Deutsche Welle look at the state of investigative journalism in the Global South and take away lessons on how to run an investigative newsroom and promote investigative journalism.

“In a rapidly evolving technological environment, investigative outlets today face a double challenge: They need to maintain their independence, while also securing their finances. Apart from investigative media outlets and journalists themselves, those who act in support of investigative journalism also need to find answers here: journalism schools need to reconsider how to best prepare young journalists; donors and civil society organizations that fund investigative work need to review their strategies. And the same holds true for international media development organizations which run programs to support media viability, especially in developing countries.”

News Story

Dissernet: Exposing Fraud and Plagiarism in Russia’s Academia

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In 2013, three Russian academics and one journalist launched Dissernet, a project aimed at exposing plagiarism in academia. Last week Wednesday (Jan. 17, 2018) they released a report summarizing their findings and exposing the systematic nature of academic fraud in Russia. Dissernet report: The Structure of the Dissertation Industry in Russia

“On our server we have 7,500 fake degrees, 500 universities issuing fake degrees, 4,500 fake scholarly papers and 522 journals that published fake papers,” said Dr. Andrej Zayakin, one of Dissernet’s founders. “There are 22,000 persons involved, namely thesis authors, supervisors and referees.”