Tag: BIRN Summer School

BIRN Summer School Day 2: Social Media, Fact-Checking for Investigative Journalists

BIRN’s Summer School continued on Tuesday with sessions exploring data journalism and fact-checking methods. s.

Head trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, Blake Morrison, showed BIRN Summer School Master Class of Investigative Journalism how to use a creative approach to fact-checking in Dubrovnik.

An interactive exercise explored the difference between supposition and proof and how to separate fact from suspicion, while determining standards for fact-checking.

Monday’s workshop on data journalism continued into its second day. Christiaan Triebert, a conflict researcher with Bellingcat, led the group. Bellingcat has achieved notoriety for its utilisation of open source information to investigate armed conflicts and corruption, and has won multiple awards.

During the workshop, participants learned about analytical tools required for data journalism, while Triebert explained the process of digital open source investigation, and how it can improve investigative reporting skills.

The middle of the session examined the capacity of geolocation tools to pinpoint exact places and how to use satellite imagery as a fact-checking tool. Triebert explained how advanced internet applications such as Google Maps can bolster research underpinning complex investigative stories.

“But you will still need traditional reporting and journalists on the ground,“ Triebert said.

Henk van Ess, who works with various European media outlets, as well as Bellingcat, also provided data journalism training, answering questions from BIRN Summer School participants about using social media as an investigative tool.

Journalists learned Facebook data mining methods, how to find elusive people through checking secret IDs, and how to discover closed groups or find people working for security agencies. In short, “how to search over two trillion Facebook postings in a clever way,“ he said.

The eighth BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia,  the Czech Republic, Greece, Kosovo, Luxemburg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine and the United States.

The Summer School is organized in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer- Stiftung, Open Society Foundations and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation with the support of USAID Macedonia.

Eighth BIRN Summer School Opens in Croatia

BIRN’s latest Summer School opened on Monday in Dubrovnik with interactive sessions on advanced digital research and use of open data sources.

Some 35 reporters from the Balkans and across the world gathered on Monday in the historic resort city of Dubrovnik in Croatia for the eighth BIRN Summer School Master Class on Investigative Journalism.

After greeting this year’s participants, Blake Morrison, the school’s lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, held an interactive exercise and discussion about the challenges of investigative reporting. Morrison shared sources and interview techniques and tips on researching complex investigations.

The first day continued with an introductory workshop on data journalism led by Christiaan Triebert, a conflict researcher with Bellingcat, a multi-award winning collective that uses online open source information to investigate armed conflicts and corruption.

During the workshop, participants learnt about the analytical tools needed for data journalism while Triebert explained the process of a digital open source investigation, research and verification, and how to use digital tools to uncover corruption and crime. “There is so much information available online,“ he said.

Henk van Ess, who works with various European media and Bellingcat, meanwhile showed how to go “fast and furious with stuff that seems impossible to validate”.

Van Ess shared plenty of practical tips to validate information from social media and other open sources.

Blake Morrison, the school’s lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters

In the afternoon, the participants were divided up into smaller groups for in-depth sessions with Reuter’s editor Morrison.

The eighth BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia,  the Czech Republic, Greece, Kosovo, Luxemburg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine and the United States.

The Summer School is organized in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad Adenauer- Stiftung, Open Society Foundations and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of Austrian Development Cooperation with support of USAID Macedonia.

BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting

BIRN Hub

The BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting works to enhance the reporting skills and journalistic standards of journalists from the Balkans and beyond, training 20 journalists from the Balkan region and 10 international journalists each year.

Summary

Every year BIRN gathers renowned international investigative journalists and experts to train the Summer School participants, including Sheila Coronel, professor at Columbia University; Nick Davies, the journalist for The Guardian who revealed the Rupert Murdoch affair; Mark Schoofs, a ProPublica Senior editor and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner; and Paul Bradshaw, one of the UK’s most well-known bloggers.

BIRN also provides financial support for the top story ideas generated during the School. Summer School participants are divided into groups, where they develop their story ideas, and they then conduct investigations and produce a story that BIRN publishes on its flagship news portal- Balkan Insight. The Summer School also provides networking opportunities for the journalists who attend.

The training, which is held over five days each year, uses a curriculum based on the Investigative Journalism Handbook ‘Digging Deeper: A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans’, which was published by BIRN and has been translated into Albanian, Macedonian, and Serbian.

BIRN’s Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Media Program- South East Europe, and funded by the Open Society Foundation, the OSCE Missions to Serbia and Skopje, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, the US Embassy in Skopje, BIRN Kosovo and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Zagreb.

Information Sheet

Main Objective:
Bringing high quality and high standards to investigative reporting in the Balkans, with the opportunity for wide dissemination of summer school journalists’ work in the Balkan region, and internationally.
Specific Objectives:
  • Enhancing investigative reporting skills and journalistic standards of 20 journalists from the Balkan region and 10 international journalists each year;
  • Providing networking opportunities for the journalists attending the school;
  •  Promoting investigative journalism in the Balkans by publishing investigations produced by journalists trained at the Summer School.

Main Activities:

  • Training – BIRN provides five days of training based on the curriculum ‘Digging Deeper’.
  • Financing investigative stories – BIRN provides financial support for the best story ideas put forward during the School. An average of three stories are produced each year.
  • Publishing – BIRN publishes investigative pieces from Summer School participants on BalkanInsight.com

Target Groups:

Journalists, media experts, investigative reporters from the Balkans; International journalists and media experts; Local, regional, and international media outlets.
Highlights:
Digging Deeper handbook for investigative journalism, translated into Albanian, Macedonian, and Serbian languages.

BIRN Summer School 2017 in Dubrovnik

This year’s BIRN Summer School will be held in the stunning Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik from August 20-26.

The summer school will bring together some of the world’s best journalists and trainers for a six-day programme.

Reporters will have the opportunities to learn cutting-edge investigative skills and enjoy the delights of the Adriatic Sea.

Reuters editor Blake Morrison, three times a finalist for the Pulitzer investigative award, has been appointed lead trainer.

He will be joined by multiple-award-winning reporter/editor Miranda Patrucic from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Henk van Ess, an expert in Open Source Investigative Journalism, plus others.

During the sessions, journalists will learn how to dig for data, convince difficult sources to talk, transform their research into sparking prose and harness the power of video.

All participants will have the opportunity to apply for the Investigative Story Fund andthe three best story ideas will be awarded with funding ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 euros.

The location isMlini, a pretty fishing village located 10 kilometres south of Dubrovnik, the so-called ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’.

It offers a quiet setting with stunning beaches and excellent seafood, while Dubrovnik itself is internationally renowned for its fascinating history and breathtaking architecture.

Participants will have the chance to enjoy the idyllic surroundings while honing their investigative journalism skills.

BIRN Summer School Day 4: Scaling Up Investigations

On the fourth day of BIRN’s Summer School, trainers advised the journalists on how to pitch stories, structure investigative projects and use technology to assist their work.

 

The fourth day of BIRN’s Summer School Master Class of Investigative Journalism in the historic town of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday started with a session on pitching story ideas, run by Blake Morrison, lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters.

Blake explained how stories can be pitched to editors without overpromising while bearing in mind all the possible outcomes.

“As reporters, you’ll have real highs and real lows, and we have a job to even them up… Sometimes as investigative reporters we dig a dry well and that’s normal. But nevertheless, we aim to have less of them,” he told the participants.

“Sometimes you work on a story that just doesn’t resonate. And that’s why we have to give them ‘legs’, which will make them have an effect,” he added.

Blake explained that journalist should not promise too much from a story and must be realistic, but nevertheless should believe in the most positive outcome, while not pretending it’s possible to predict every possible outcome of their research.

Blake concluded that journalists should know that they are not alone in their work, and if they do not have editors to support them, they should find support among colleagues or elsewhere.

Lawrence Marzouk, a journalist and editor with Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, shed light on a case study about the arms trade from the Balkans and Central Europe to the Middle East, a report that caused serious reactions in the countries mentioned.

“You should first ‘pick the lowest hanging fruit’,” he said, while explaining how the reporting team tracked 1.2 billion euros of weapons sold to Middle Eastern countries.

Marzouk explained how reporters, while researching a “controversial industry” like the arms trade, “have to harvest all the possible open source databases” because the industry is highly regulated, meaning that there is a lot of documentation.

“To find the weakest link in the system, you have to know the system,” he.

Participants then had the opportunity to discuss techniques and databases with Marzouk using the arms trade story as an example.

Miranda Patrucic, an investigative reporter and regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, presented her work connected to the Panama Papers, giving an insight into how the research was done.

Patrucic explained how the offshore industry functions, through proxies, different types of companies, trusts and bearer shareholders. She also explained the interest countries with tax heavens have in allowing offshore companies to operate.

“These island states are very small with small costs. And all the documents for opening offshore companies, such as a certificate of good standing, cost something and the states make a significant profit on it,” she explained.

By showing concrete examples from the Panama Papers, Patrucic explained to the participants how to ‘follow the money’ and the businesses of offshore companies.

The former editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Martin Kaiser, ended the day with his masterclass session on investigative journalism.

“First of all, a journalist’s first obligation is to the truth,” Kaiser said.

“[Journalism’s] essence is discipline and verification… it must serve as an independent monitor of power,” he added. “It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise, meaning you have to listen… We make mistakes and when we do, we correct them.”

He also said that stories must be interesting and relevant.

“You got a significant story, how do you make it interesting? How do you make it relevant? How do you write in such a manner that it captures people’s attention?” Kaiser asked.

He explained that contemporary journalism has to use all the newest technologies and tools for writing stories, but underlined that journalists should remain “great storytellers” who “shed light where there was darkness”.

After presenting an outline of his work on a story about the high incidence of drunken drivers in the US state of Wisconsin, Kaiser gave the participants the opportunity to discuss what works and what does not in investigative journalism.

The Summer School is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and with the support of the Open Society Foundations and USAID Macedonia.

BIRN Summer School Day 3: Interviewing Techniques and Sourcing

On the third day of BIRN’s Summer School, journalists heard how to harness the power of social media, carry out interviews and develop sources for stories.

The third day of BIRN’s Summer School Master Class of Investigative Journalism started with Paul Myers, an expert in using social media for investigations, offering tips on searching Twitter and Facebook for investigative stories

“If you have to approach the person on social media, try to do it over the publication’s [media] account and not your private account, and then people will attack your company and not you,” Myers told participants at the school, held this year in the historic town of Konjic, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“In short, everybody we’re investigating is either on Facebook or has family on Facebook. The information you can get from different social networks, websites, directories are offering a mosaic of information that you can wander around […] proving things that need to be proved, finding new information you didn’t have before that will help to develop your stories,” he added.

Blake Morrison, lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, held a session on the art of interviewing.

Morrison said: “My philosophy on interviewing is pretty simple… Think of it as an important meeting. With a stranger,” explaining that the interviewee needs to “be understood”.

“It’s important to be authentic, because people can tell when someone is unauthentic and misrepresent themselves,” he added.

“If we do a job well, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. That’s the confidence I am talking about,” Morrison said.

“It’s very important to be curious. If you don’t understand something, don’t presume, ask,” he concluded.

He explained that there are three types of interview: information interviews, which involve collecting information on something; accountability interview, asking the person to explain his or her acts; and emotional ones, in which person sheds light on his or her emotional perspective.

Morrison emphasised the need for preparation and gave an insight into why people agree to give an interview: vanity, need to be understood, self-interest, desperation, guilt and curiosity.

Jim Mintz, an adjunct professor of the Stabile Centre for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School, spoke about how to develop sources.

“I am here to spur your ambition to go deeper in developing sources,” he emphasised, “and not expose only people that are responsible for wrongdoings, but systems of wrongdoing”.

“All investigative stories start from outside and one wants to get inside. Since things are in the heads of people, one must have skills for developing source,” he added, explaining that journalist must enter a “deep inside a secret world”.

Mintz explained that entering this “secret world” will lead journalists into complicated “mazes” of complex relations and events.

“In this maze, you’ll find people that genuinely can help you, that can guide you,” he said.

Mintz explained that journalists should try to develop genuine relationships with sources.

He concluded that it is very important that journalists work hard in order to gain the trust and respect from sources.

After the joint sessions, participants split into smaller groups for sessions with Mintz, investigative reporter and regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Miranda Patrucic and former editor at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Martin Kaiser.

The Summer School is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and with the support of the Open Society Foundations and USAID Macedonia.

BIRN Summer School Day 2: Social Media for Investigators

On the second day of BIRN’s Summer School, journalists learned how to creatively structure stories and use various databases and other investigative tools.

Lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, Blake Morrison, showed the participants of the BIRN Summer School Master Class of Investigative Journalism in Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday how to use a creative approach to structuring stories.

Morrison emphasised the need to persuade people who are sceptical about the narrative.

“Your job is to persuade people who fundamentally disagree with what you say,” Morrison said, underlining the importance of being imaginative when structuring a story.

“I want you to imagine the best story possible. To ask yourselves: ‘What would be the best source [for the story] imaginable that’s out there,’” he said.

“You need to believe that you’re able to make any story possible… but you need to manage your stories possible,” Morrison told the participants.

He explained how all investigative stories should be explained within six words and can be described using three questions: what is the issue, what is the harm and who is to blame.

Morrison concluded that journalists have to ask themselves the “so what?” question – why is something important – and “why now?” question, which explains the importance of the story at that moment in time.

Also on Tuesday, Crina Boros, a watchdog reporter from Centre for Investigative Journalism, continued her training on data journalism, answering questions from the participants through stories she has covered over the years.

She showed the participants how to use public registers and databases while writing stories.

Miranda Patrucic, an investigative reporter and regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, also held an interactive lecture on how to ‘follow the money’ and find sources for stories abroad.

She presented The Khadija Project – named after Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who was imprisoned in Azerbaijan after reporting on the financial schemes of President Ilham Aliyev’s family. 

“One day she [Ismayilova] took part in a training, like the one you will get today, and learned how to follow the money abroad,” Patrucic told the participants.

She did an exercise about tracking money and companies through various databases, both open-source and paid-for.

Paul Myers, an expert in using social media for investigations, did a presentation on technical sites, tools and techniques. He showed how keywords are searched on Google and through social media, cutting the number of search results.

“Logic dictates search on Google, so you have to think what you search and discover logic behind it and look for that in Google,” he explained, while showing practical examples.

The Summer School is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and with the support of the Open Society Foundations and USAID Macedonia.

The seventh BIRN Summer School has brought together young journalists from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

 

 

 

Seventh BIRN Summer School Begins in Bosnia

BIRN’s latest Summer School kicked off on Monday with interactive sessions on data journalism and fact-checking.

Journalists from across Europe and the USA have gathered in historic town of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the BIRN Summer School Mater Class of Investigative Journalism.

After greeting this year’s participants, Blake Morrison, the school’s lead trainer and investigative projects editor at Reuters, held an interactive exercise on establishing facts in stories. Morrison showed journalists how to hone in on important details in complex investigations.

The first day continued with an introductory workshop on data journalism with Crina Boros, a watchdog reporter from Centre for Investigative Journalism, during which participants learnt the analytical tools needed for data journalism.

In the afternoon, the participants divided up into smaller group for in-depth sessions with Morrison and Martin Kaiser, a retired editor who led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to three Pulitzer prizes.

The Summer School is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and with support of the Open Society Foundations and USAID Macedonia.

The seventh BIRN Summer School brings together young journalists from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Pulitzer Winner Hosts Sessions at BIRN Summer School

BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting will be held from 21 to 27 August in Konjic Bosnia and Herzegovina. In its seventh edition, the School will be organised in the form of Master Class.

The course will include sessions in mastering the latest techniques for searching the web and social media, interviewing techniques, working with sources and how to scale up your investigations generally.

Trainers at this year’s Summer School, as in the previous six years, experienced internationally recognized journalists and editors from Reuters, Columbia University, OCCRP and others.

Lead trainer is Blake Morrison, investigative editor for Reuters, New York.

Social media expert Paul Myers, three time Pulitzer Prize winner Martin Kaiser, Knight Award winner Miranda Patrucic, from OCCRP and Columbia University lecturer Jim Mintz are some of the trainers at the School.

In the afternoon hours trainer will held small group or one-on-one sessions with participnats.

For 20 Balkan journalists BIRN is providing scholarships, while 10 international journalists will need to cover tuition fee.

BIRN is also providing funds for the best story idea. Three best story pitches will be able to get from 1,500 to 3,000 euros.

Participants will also have a bit of time to enjoy rafting down Neretva river and visit Tito’s nuclear bunker.

Applications for scholarships must be received by 20th July 2016.

Sixth BIRN Summer School opens in Albania

BIRN’s summer school for investigative reporting opened in Durres, Albania, with a plea to journalists to channel their curiosity.

Blake Morrison, investigative projects editor at Reuters in New York and the school’s lead trainer, kicked off a packed programme urging journalists to “use our skills of observation, be curious”. 

Morrison detailed how journalist can pinpoint sources and find key information during their investigations.

“People(Sources) will believe you if you really try to understand what the problem is,” he added.

Morrison also explained the importance of careful planning in complex stories.

BIRN journalist and investigations’ editor Lawrence Marzouk presented the school’s investigative fund, which provides grants to promising story ideas.

He said that participants will be split into groups and develop investigative proposals to present to a panel of judges on the final day. Two or three stories will receive funding from a pot of around 6,000 euro so that participants can carry out their investigation.

“I will help you to develop the story,” Lawrence added.

Mar Cabra, who heads ICIJ’s Data & Research Unit, outlined how journalists can find data and the importance of data journalism. She revealed how she had used official statistics to expose the worrying use of psychotropic drugs among children in the US.

“I decided to check how many drugs children in foster care in the state of Texas are prescribed and their use of psychotropic drugs,” Cabra said.

She presented a selection of groundbreaking data stories and emphasized that we need to think about data in every story, because “data is everywhere”.

“Try to do data as much as possible, and not only for clicks, use it for investigation,” she said.

In the afternoon, Philipp Grüll’s documentary “Tito’s Murder Squads – The Killing of Yugoslav Exiles in Germany” was screened.

The first day’s working sessions concluded with a discussion about the use of confidential files with Philipp Grüll, Anuska Delic, investigative and data journalist from Slovenian daily newspaper Delo, Besar Likmeta, BIRN Albanian editor, and Marija Ristic, Balkan Transitional Justice assistant editor.

The sixth BIRN Summer School brings together young journalists from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Kosovo, Palestine, Germany and Georgia to learn from leading media experts how to use social media to uncover crimes, skills for cracking open offshore companies and how to make reluctant sources talk.

The Summer School of Investigative Reporting 2015 is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in cooperation with the Media Program South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung  and with support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), Open Society Foundations and USAID Macedonia.