News

The annual conference of Netzwerk Recherche, the German association for investigative journalism, will be held in Hamburg on Friday and Saturday June 15-16.

The first day’s program focuses on Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe with guests from Belarussia, Russia, Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Rumania, Ukraine, Bosnia, Croatia and the Czech Republic. The next day’s agenda provides a broad program of discussing experiences and reporting methods, latest news about research tools, etc.

More information is available at Netzwerk Recherche's web site.

The 4th Global Investigative Journalism Conference will be held in Toronto, May 24 to 27, 2007.Hundreds of investigative reporters from all over the world will gather to discuss the stories behind their stories.

Journalists from Canada and more than 30 countries will gather to work with award winning investigative documentary makers like Lowell Bergman, Neil Docherty, Julian Sher, Martin Smith, and Peter Klein as well as investigative writers such as Carol Off, Stephen Grey, Kim Bolen and Terry Gould, who have investigated topics as diverse as the true human costs of the War on Terror, the current state of the Taliban, child labour in the chocolate industry, the CIA involvement in US renditions, the Air India bombing and why journalists risk their lives to do this kind of work.  

Brazilian Journalists Choose Themes for National Congress in May

The Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (Abraji) will hold its Second International Congress from May 17-19, 2007, in São Paulo. The event will cover a broad range of topics, including principles of investigative reporting, access to public information, reporter safety, and workshops in Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR).

More information is available at Abraji's web site.

BUENOS AIRES — More than 300 journalists attended the First National Congress on Journalistic Ethics, conducted by the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) in Buenos Aires, Nov. 24-25, 2006. At the congress, which was supported by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and other organizations, FOPEA presented its first Code of Ethics for journalistic practice.

The 2006 Summer School and Regional Conference for Investigative Journalism successfully concluded on the 23rd July at the Cass Business School in Central London, July 21-23, 2006.
Hosted by the Centre for Investigative Journalism, the conference attracted about 130 participants from 25 countries. Participants listened and engaged with 27 speakers and panelists who discussed major issues of investigative journalism:
Those issues included the security services and how journalists should relate to them; Reporting social hysteria - Investigating Crimes that Don't Exist; Evaluating Experts in Torture cases, in Medicine; Monitoring charities; Historical investigations: Methods & Problems; Pharmaceutical company frauds; How the Extraordinary Rendition story was broken, Corruption in Civil Engineering; Illegal organ transplants, doing business investigations, archive work and FOIA across Europe. Instructors from IRE and NICAR in the U.S. and from DICAR in Denmark led many well-attended how-to sessions in computer-assisted reporting.
Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reminded European journalists of the difficulties of our vocation and the failure of the US press in failing to confront the lies and distortions that lead to the Iraq war; Anna Politkovskaia described the harrowing and dangerous conditions in investigating Russian and Chechnyan atrocities.
Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre, said the center was really pleased that the response to the Conference was overwhelmingly positive.

More than 800 journalists from 15 countries attended IRE's 30th Annual Conference with more than 100 panels and workshops to choose from over four days. Among the conference highlights was a keynote address at the IRE Awards Luncheon by Bill Marimow, vice president of news for National Public Radio and a longtime IRE member, and a showcase panel on legal assaults on the investigative press that featured top lawyers and journalists.

Korean journalists win IRE Award

Kim Myung Seop, Han Seung Bok, Lee Seung Ik and Yoon Hee Jin of the Korean Broadcasting System won an IRE Certificate of Excellence for their special report: "17 Years of Ocean Dumping." The KBS went undercover and underwater to prove that ships were routinely dumping highly toxic sewage sludge and industrial waste into the sea around their peninsula nation. The IRE Awards judges say "This remarkable story traced how South Korea is only one of two countries that still allow deep-sea dumping of hazardous chemicals, waste and heavy metals in vital fishing areas. The KBS video of tainted crabs covered in animal hair is stomach-turning." See a clip from the story.

2006 IRE Conference plans under way

Highlights of the IRE Conference, scheduled for June 15-18 in Fort Worth, Texas, include computer-assisted reporting training, panels on a wide-range of timely topics, the IRE Awards luncheon, mentoring opportunities, a luncheon and special panel for international attendees, Show & Tell sessions for broadcasters, receptions at the Sixth Floor Museum and at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the annual IRE membership meeting and board elections. Register by May 19 to take advantage of the early bird discount on conference registration, and be sure to make hotel reservations by May 15.

Conference handouts, transcripts available

Handouts from the 2005 Global Investigative Journalism Conference are available on the DICAR Web site. Presentations, transcripts and the complete report on the state of investigative journalism in Europe are available on the VVOJ Web site. More than 450 participants from 30 countries participated in the third edition of this conference in Amsterdam, Sept. 29-Oct. 2, 2005. The next Global Investigative Journalism Conference will be in Toronto, Canada, in spring 2007.

Brazilian conference

More than 300 journalists, students, and teachers gathered Oct. 27-29, 2005, in Rio de Janeiro where the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI) conducted the First International Conference on Investigative Journalism. IRE provided training and support for the event, which was supported by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

September 2005
Investigative journalists from around the world are joining forces to uncover more evidence about the murder of Paul Klebnikov, a former Forbes Russia editor in chief. The group includes reporters and editors from media outlets that include Forbes, Bloomberg and Vanity Fair. The group has been pursuing some of the stories Klebnikov was working on at the time of his death.

July 22, 2005
A commentary by Leonarda Reyes, a member of the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, looks at the status of the media in Mexico and the changes that have been made by Mexican TV networks to get away from its self-censorship past. In print, they found the transition to a more modernized media has been slow because it has caught many reporters and editors with insufficient technical skills.

June 2005
More than 850 journalists attended the 2005 IRE Conference. Watch Dan Rather's speech and read more about it. See board election results.

May 15, 2005
IRE has launched a companion Web site in Spanish to provide relevant resources and training to Latin American journalists and journalists reporting on Latino communities in the United States.

Jan. 31, 2005
The Center for Public Integrity has posted essays by distinguished
journalists on the state of investigative journalism in four countries;
Russia, Peru, Zimbabwe and the United States.

Dec. 16, 2004
Barbara Crossette, a Knight International Press Fellow, describes the creation of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, known by its Portuguese initials as Abraji.

Dec. 16, 2004
More than 80 journalists gathered in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, at a November conference sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors and other organizations. Read about it in Spanish.

Nov. 19, 2004
More than 150 journalists attended DICAR's conference in Aarhus, Denmark on computer-assisted reporting on Nov. 18.

Oct. 6, 2004
Journalist, author and academic Paul William Roberts is the winner of a new award honoring courage in journalism. Roberts is the author of six books and dozens of articles. He has written for many magazines and newspapers, including The Toronto Star, Harper's, Toronto Life, The Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. His books include A War against Truth and The Demonic Comedy, which deal with his time covering both wars in Iraq and the perils that he faced in documenting events on the ground there.

2003
The Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (Abraji) has won the prestigious Esso Journalism Prize for 2003 in the category of Best Contribution to the Press. Abraji´s managing director, Fernando Rodrigues, also won an award in the same category for his report, published in the Folha de S. Paulo, revealing that newspapers in the state of Paraná received public funds to publish favorable articles about the governor of the state.

Aug. 15, 2003
The Danish Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting won a three-year grant of more than 5.8 million kroner (nearly $900,000) from the European Social Fund.

May 5, 2003
Global Investigative Journalism Conference inspires growing network
Nearly 300 of the top journalists in the world attended the second Global Investigative Journalism Conference despite a weak economy, the war in Iraq and the SARS virus.