Al Jazeera Journalism Review

Outside image
(Laurence Dutton/Getty Images)

Investigative journalism in the digital age

One definition of investigative journalism – as given in UNESCO’s investigative journalism manual – says that it is about exposing the truth about public interest issues, issues whose details are kept under wraps (deliberately or otherwise) by the people involved. 

Using this definition, data and the stories extracted from it can constitute a central pillar of investigative journalism. Data constitutes the ‘raw material’ that a journalist uses to cast light into darkness, clear up ambiguities and solve apparent contradictions in their story. Investigative journalism and data-driven journalism have a big overlap. 

They both engage in in-depth research and sift through information to exclude any impurities (fake news or misleading data). Data thus plays an important role in the various stages of an investigation, including how it is presented within the story. 

You should state the importance of the data clearly within your report. You should also be careful to distinguish data from facts: data does not necessarily mean fact. There may be biases in the way data is collected, and you should always be careful to test your data and establish how it is linked to the incident you are investigating. 

When you first start working on an investigation, you should look up the data already available - whether official or unofficial - in order to answer as many of your questions as possible before moving on to posing questions whose answers are unknown and coming up with hypotheses and possibilities. 

A story begins with looking up data. You will need to have a way of collecting and presenting data, which is exactly what data-driven journalism provides. Data will help make your story measurable. It will allow you to render your "hows" as measurable "how muchs", allowing the reader to more clearly see the scope of the problem alongside the added value of any new information that you obtain from private sources of data or from data not initially included.

Let’s take a look at the different stages involved in data-driven journalism: 

Stage 1: Looking for sources 

First of all, review the available open source data relevant to the investigation, making sure – before doing anything else – that you are familiar with the frequency with which it is made available. You should also review any private, verifiable sources of data that you or your employer might gain access to. 

Open source data includes reports from the World Bank, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), annual government statistical reports, and social media websites.

Investigate 1
BEIJING: A reporter uses her laptop outside a press conference of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, known as the CPPCC at the Great Hall of the People on March 2, 2011 in Beijing, China. [Feng Li/Getty Images]

Stage 2: Handling the data 

There are several database programmes that may be of use in handling data: 

• Microsoft Excel (spreadsheets) 

• OpenRefine (data refining) 

• Fusion Tables (verification) 

• MySQL (databases) 

• SOLR and Access (databases) 

There are several new techniques from data-driven journalism that may be of assistance in investigations: 

• Analysing data taken from the social media profiles of perpetrators or influential people. This can help you tease out lines of investigation or access information from non-traditional sources (Donald Trump’s tweets about a particular incident, for example, predating his presidency by many years). 

• Analysing audience reactions to prominent public issues. 

• Accessing historical data relevant to your investigation. For example, working out the dates on which something happened can provide you with new ways of understanding present problems (the date of a famine in a particular country with chronic water supply problems...) 

• Working out where something happened (a military operation in a particular country, for example) or a photo or video clip was taken. You can use data that has been deleted using archiving tools like Internet Archive or the Wayback Machine.

When refining large quantities of data, you can analyse and compare using a particular chronological or geographical filter. This can give your story new dimensions that may not have been immediately clear. If you go deep into the data, you may even find new stories.

In 2011, the Guardian was able to establish who was responsible for looting during rioting that had taken place across the UK in August 2011. The Reading the Riots project, conducted in cooperation with LSE, was heavily data-driven. 

iNVESTIGATE 2
LONDON: A local resident records a video with his mobile phone of burning barricades constructed by rioters in Goulton Road, Hackney on August 8, 2011 in London, England. Through its investigative reporting, the Guardian newspaper was able to identify many of those responsible for looting across the UK. [Dan Istitene/Getty Images]

The Panama Papers project drew on more than 11.5 million documents making up 2.6 terabytes of data dating from 1977 to 2015 and concerning about 214,000 corporate entities. 

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) incorporated the data into a database that makes sifting through it and searching it much easier. 

The Paradise Papers project, which likewise incorporates about 13.4 million documents obtained by the Suddeutsche Zeitung and showing how the world’s super-rich invest their money (ICIJ) 

Stage 3: Analysis 

After collating and refining the data, there are several methods you can use to analyse the data: 

• Descriptive analysis: answers the questions “what?”, “who? “, “how”, “where” and “when?” 

• Diagnostic analysis: answers the question “why?” 

• Advanced analysis making predictions about future scenarios. A successful example is provided by Noun Post’s report Golden Generals

investigate 3
PANAMA CITY: Part of the Panama City skyline is seen as revelations about the law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co continue to play out around the world on April 7, 2016. Millions of documents about the offshore activities of multiple corporate entities were leaked to, among others, investigative journalists. [Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Stage 4: Preparing a data-driven investigation 

When putting together your story, there are various tools you can use to present data in way that is easier to understand: 

• Charts and graphs 

• Infographics 

• Interactive maps 

Tools that may be of interest include Tableau Public and Many Eyes, which will allow you to present data visually in a range of different ways, and Geocommons and Google Fusion Tables, which will allow you to produce maps using coordinates. The AJMI has produced a guidebook to data-driven journalism that provides detailed instructions on how to go about doing this.

Saving data and documents

There are various programmes you can use to store data: 

Google Drive: Google Drive is associated with your personal email. It can be used as a digital memory folder allowing you to save data. You can also work on it directly, whether through the Google Docs interface or through a Google Sheet (Excel). 

Xperia Companion: Download this programme to produce backup copies of your data. It allows you to transfer files easily from one device to another and store it safely. 

Dropbox: Dropbox allows you to keep your files safe in a cloud folder. You can then access them wherever you are in the world.

Verifying open source material

Traditional methods may seem like a better bet when trying to expose difficult facts, but the development of advanced techniques for gathering news from open source and user-generated content is playing an ever-bigger role in investigative journalism. 

In 2018, the BBC conducted an investigation in Cameroon which proved that contrary to what many had believed, government forces had been committing war crimes against civilians. The investigation took months of research and drew on a video clip taken with a mobile phone camera and published on social media showing armed men assaulting and then executing two women and two children. The video clip was verified and analysed scientifically. 

investigate 4
PEEL, ISLE OF MAN: A newspaper bill references the Paradise Papers outside a shop on November 7, 2017 in Peel, Isle of Man. The Isle of Man is a low-tax British Crown Dependency with a population of just 85 thousand, located in the Irish Sea off the west coast England. Recent revelations in the Paradise Papers, which were leaked to investigative journalists as well as others, linked the island to tax loopholes being used by Apple and Nike, as well as celebrities such as Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton. [Matt Cardy/Getty Images]

The armed men, the place where the incident took place and the type and source of the weapons used were all identified. By comparing Google Maps with the crime scene, the team were able to prove that not Boko Haram but government forces had carried out the executions, and that they had taken place not in Mali but in Cameroon. We will look at some of the details of the incident, and the digital tools used to analyse it, in more detail later on. In Sudan, BBC journalists were able to collect and review more than 300 videos shot by activists on the ground, allowing them to reconstruct a scene showing that the Rapid Response Forces had fired live ammunition on protesters in July 2019. 

In both of these cases, journalists were able to dispense with traditional methods and with teams on the ground while conducting their investigations. Thousands of videos shared on social media websites, carefully verified, were the deciding factor in the investigation. Fact-checking began with the investigation of fabricated photos or decontextualised video clips. 

But these techniques have got better and their use more sophisticated, creating a space for a new type of open source journalism. These modern techniques can be combined with traditional techniques to produce high-quality investigations. 

 

An earlier version of this article first appeared in the AJMI publication, Investigative Journalism Handbook

 

 

More Articles

Suffering in silence - the Kashmiri journalists facing a mental health crisis

THE LONG READ: Al Jazeera Journalism Review has interviewed more than 20 journalists in India-controlled Kashmir who are facing exhausting, insurmountable obstacles to doing their jobs safely every single day

Adil Akhoon
Adil Amin Akhoon, Khalid Bashir Gura Published on: 29 May, 2023
How to analyse satellite imagery

When you have a story, but still need to tie up loose ends to answer where or when a particular event occurred, satellite imagery can point you in the right direction

Sara
Sara Creta Published on: 25 May, 2023
OSINT: Tracking ships, planes and weapons

Tracking ships and planes is an increasingly valuable technique in open-source investigations carried out by journalists. In part 4 of our special series, we examine how it works

Sara
Sara Creta Published on: 18 May, 2023
How social media bans have crippled journalism in India’s Punjab

The Indian government has ordered social media platforms to block hundreds of accounts of journalists and activists

Meer Faisal
Meer Faisal Published on: 16 May, 2023
Tear gas and internet blackouts - reporting on protests in Pakistan

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, violence has erupted across Pakistan. For journalists, it is like reporting from the centre of a storm

Anam Hussain
Anam Hussain Published on: 14 May, 2023
Remembering Shireen; my colleague and a 'role model for professionalism'

On the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera's Senior Correspondent in Palestine, her colleague commemorates the compassion, integrity and professionalism which made her the extraordinary journalist and human being that she was

Walid
Walid Omary Published on: 10 May, 2023
Planning and carrying out an open-source investigation

Part three of our special series of articles on using OSINT in journalism. This time, follow our four steps to completing an open-source investigation

Sara
Sara Creta Published on: 9 May, 2023
What is an open-source investigation?

In the second part of our special series on using open-source intelligence in journalism, we look at what constitutes and open-source investigation

Sara
Sara Creta Published on: 4 May, 2023
How misinformation in the media wreaked havoc on an Indian village

When journalists - and social media ‘influencers’ claiming to be journalists - aimed for sensationalism and did not check their facts about the outbreak of the HIV virus in an Indian village, the results were devastating

Saurabh Sharma
Saurabh Sharma Published on: 1 May, 2023
Using open-source intelligence in journalism

Where once journalists relied on sources for information - also known as ‘human intelligence’ (HUMINT) - they now increasingly rely on ‘open-source’ intelligence (OSINT) gathered from the internet, satellite imagery, corporate databases and much, much more

Phil
Phil Rees Published on: 12 Apr, 2023
Why is life so dangerous for Pakistani journalists?

Pakistani journalists face huge danger in the course of carrying out their work. Why is so little being done to address this?

Anam Hussain
Anam Hussain Published on: 6 Apr, 2023
Investigating the assassination of my own father

As a journalist, reporting on the murder of my father meant answering questions about my own position as an objective observer

Diana Lopez
Diana Lopez Zuleta Published on: 3 Apr, 2023
‘I have disturbing dreams’ - the reporters suffering mental trauma on the job

Remaining objective while bearing witness to atrocities and suffering abuse from authorities is taking its toll on the mental health of journalists in India

Saurabh Sharma
Saurabh Sharma Published on: 20 Mar, 2023
Understanding data journalism

Data journalism is about much more than just sorting through facts and figures. In the first part of our series, we look at what constitutes data-based storytelling

Mohammed Haddad
Mohammed Haddad Published on: 16 Mar, 2023
Why are journalists being prevented from reporting on the earthquakes? 

Media workers have played a vital role in ensuring help arrives for earthquake victims in Turkey, but many claim they are being prevented from doing their jobs

Aidan
Aidan White Published on: 5 Mar, 2023
Field notes from an earthquake - reporting on human misery

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Where do you draw the line when covering human suffering? When does reporting on a devastating earthquake cross over from objective journalism to tasteless voyeurism?

Ilya
Ilya U Topper Published on: 20 Feb, 2023
‘I reported the truth - and was taken to jail’ - the journalists in prison in India

Indian journalist Siddique Kappan has been released after more than two years in prison just for doing his job. We talked to him and others who have been arrested or imprisoned

Saurabh Sharma
Saurabh Sharma Published on: 15 Feb, 2023
‘Leading the voiceless’ - how low-caste Indian journalists are crowdfunding their own newsrooms

Dalit representation in Indian media organisations is very low. Some journalists from the lowest Hindu caste are finding innovative ways to start up their own news platforms

Saurabh Sharma
Saurabh Sharma Published on: 13 Feb, 2023
Investigative journalism: Handling data and gathering evidence

Data is only one part of the investigative story. In Part 5 of our series on investigative journalism, we look at different methods of gathering evidence

Malak Khalil Published on: 9 Feb, 2023
Investigative journalism: Going undercover 

Covert operations for a journalistic investigation should be undertaken as a last resort only. In Part 4 of our series on investigative journalism, we explore the best ways to go undercover

Malak Khalil Published on: 2 Feb, 2023
‘They called us agents of imperialism’ - remembering the bombing of Zimbabwe’s Daily News

Twenty-two years after the bombing of a newspaper printing plant in January 2001, the perpetrators are still at large - and a state-sanctioned assault on a free press continues

Derick M
Derick Matsengarwodzi Published on: 30 Jan, 2023
Investigative journalism: How to develop and manage your sources

Your sources are the backbone of any investigation. In Part 3 of our series on investigative journalism, we look at how to find, foster and manage them

Malak Khalil Published on: 26 Jan, 2023
Investigative journalism: Hypothesis-based investigations

What is a hypothesis-based investigation, how do you come up with one and how do you investigate and prove it? Part 2 of our series on investigative journalism

Malak Khalil Published on: 19 Jan, 2023
Investigative journalism: What should you investigate?

In the first of our series on investigative journalism, we look at how journalists decide what to investigate

Malak Khalil Published on: 12 Jan, 2023