Visualising Investigations

Between October and December 2024, five training sessions, three hours each, took place in five different cities across Europe.

• Ferrara, Italy on 06 October (during the annual festival organised by Internazionale magazine),
• Berlin, Germany on 8 November,
• Paris, France on 12 November,
• Madrid, Spain on 28 November,
• Barcelona, Spain on 30 November.

Mónica Rivero Cabrera and Bruna Cases conducted the first training session in Ferrara; Bruna Cases and Cush Munger conducting the four subsequent sessions in Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona.

Participants

Each training session reached the maximum allotted number of ten participants — five investigative journalists and five photojournalists — for a total of 50 participants during the project’s duration. Training sessions were not open to non-participatory attendees or observers.

Impact

The main impact of this project developed along two lines. First, the project’s central goal of stimulating dialogue and information exchange between investigative journalists, who work primarily with the written word, and photojournalists who work with images. The different activities each training session encompassed provoked an expansive array of engaging exchanges, inviting both investigative journalists and photojournalists to share relevant insights, lessons learned and “tricks of the trade” when reporting on environmental topics.

The second line of impact was establishing relationships and generating dialogue among journalists from a diverse array of geographical and cultural backgrounds. In addition to journalists from each country where sessions were held, participants included journalists and photojournalists from Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Poland and the Philippines.

Other than technical hints, participants were able to share details about the state of journalism in their home countries, including the principal problems and obstacles faced when carrying out investigations focused on environmental topics.

Following the conclusion of the five sessions, the organisers created a mailing list to put all 50 participants in contact with one another. They also held an online “meet and greet” digital networking event on 09 December which about two thirds of all the participants joined. This impact line extends beyond the valuable exchange in each session and allows participants to continue networking, engaging and collaborating other in pursuit of carrying out new environmental reporting.

Participant feedback

“I liked very much the original idea of this series of workshops: getting to know and discuss with photojournalists how to do investigations together”

José Miguel Calatayud

“It was great to get out of my bubble and discuss some broad, cross-cutting issues in investigative journalism.

Jelena Prtoric

Thank you very much for this great opportunity!

Edward Donnelly

It was a great pleasure to participate in the workshop. Looking forward to future contribution.

Mursal Sayas

 

¡Qué ganas de este taller taller tan necessario! Muchas gracias por la maravillosa oportunidad.

Claudia Paparelli

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Open call which were also part of this programme was available here (deadline to apply was October 20).