As the gap between journalists and the public continues to grow, how can investigative newsrooms convince people that they still matter? “Impact journalism” may be one solution. For six months, Disclose and Rembobine, two independent news organisations from France, have been collecting best practices from newsrooms around the world to monitor, assess and evaluate the echoes of their investigations. Their brand new guide to impact journalism, based on 30 interviews with researchers, editors and impact producers, will be published at Dataharvest. Impact provides not only room for hope, but also a promising approach to increasing reader loyalty and foundation support.
This is probably one the most common nightmares for any journalist: you’ve been working for months on an ambitious investigation and, once published, it results in… nothing. To mitigate this, it’s time to develop effective impact strategies, tailored to your newsroom and your resources. During this participatory workshop, inspired by popular education techniques, we will collectively build a realistic impact plan for your next investigation. Whether it involves partnering with stakeholders, getting support from activists or building new editorial formats, we’ll look at several techniques for maximising the reach of your revelations and ensuring they produce impact in the real world.
Private finance data aggregators are a powerful - if often expensive - tool for understanding the investment and ownership structures of the funds or companies that are the subject of your investigation. With the right approach, they can also help generate stories by identifying suspicious or controversial flows of money. This sessions shows you how. We will share a case study from a recent series that revealed supposedly ethical public pension funds held investments in controversial businesses - including tankers for Russian fossil fuels and crypto, all via opaque private equity intermediaries.
With traditional revenue streams under strain, independent media outlets are turning to innovative models that combine grants, memberships, subscriptions, events, and more. But how does this approach work in practice? What challenges come with balancing diverse income sources? This session explores the ethics, sustainability, and practicalities of mixed funding. How can outlets develop a long-term strategy while navigating financial and ethical dilemmas? Join us to discuss the opportunities and pitfalls of funding independent journalism in today’s landscape.
In the last decade or so, podcasts have gone from niche to widespread media format and are now a well-established, mature medium. Podcasts bring their own opportunities and challenges and are particularly suited to long reportage and investigations.
In this session, we'll hear from two journalists with experience in producing independent investigative podcasts in two European countries: Portugal and Poland.
How do journalists and newsrooms come up with topics for an investigative podcast? What are the key issues to consider? What are the key pros and cons for independent newsrooms wanting to produce investigative podcasts? How do you conduct interviews about complicated issues and get people to be candid on the record? How do you narrate investigations that rely on documents and can include complex, abstract issues? What lessons have we learned from stories that didn't work out particularly well?
