2025-06-23 15:00:58
As the political situation around him gradually worsened, Venezuelan investigative reporter Roberto Deniz knew that his work might, one day, bring him some trouble.
He had been labeled a traitor on state television, and there was also the problem of a social media campaign that labeled him a CIA agent, complete with an ugly, mocked-up photo of him behind bars. It was so untrue as to be laughable, he thought at first, but over time his situation became increasingly complicated.
When he was about to publish an in-depth report on corruption linked to a government food program that should have been providing healthy food parcels to the poor, he was advised it was best to leave the country. He thought he would have to lie low abroad for a few months — but several years later, he says it is still not safe for him to go back to Caracas.
Deniz works for the Venezuelan investigative outlet Armando.info, a GIJN member organization. Many members of the team — which won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2019 — now have to report from exile. While that has brought challenges, Deniz acknowledges, there are many ways in which intrepid reporters can continue to investigate from overseas, though the personal costs are huge.
GIJN spoke to Deniz on the sidelines of Truth Tellers, the Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit in London, about an Emmy-nominated documentary film based on his investigation into a Colombian businessman and close confidant of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The responses have been edited for length and style.
GIJN: Of all the investigations you’ve worked on, which has been your favorite and why?
Roberto Deniz: If I had to choose one story, I would say one that we published at the beginning of 2018, La Mala Leche de los CLAP — the Bad Milk of the CLAP [the Venezuelan government’s Local Committees for Supply and Production]. Why that story? Because we revealed that the social program that Maduro created in 2016 to serve food to poor people in Venezuela was selling very bad-quality food.
We uncovered that the product, especially powdered milk, had very low levels of calcium and protein, but was very high in carbohydrates and sodium, which is terrible for kids. For me, that story was so powerful because, as an investigative journalist, it’s not easy to try to connect corruption with the lives of the people. In this story, of course, the reveal was terrible, because people were eating this food, but I think that it was a very good example of how corruption affects the daily life of the poorest people.
GIJN: What are the biggest challenges in terms of investigative reporting on your country?
RD: Investigative journalism in Venezuela has a lot of challenges, like other countries, but we have to consider some specific things. Of course, the autocratic context is one of them, because in Venezuela, not only the government, but all the institutions, the judicial system, all the institutions see journalists as an enemy. They all feel that journalists are working with the United States of America, and we are part of the CIA, and that is the reason we do our job. Venezuela is becoming more autocratic every day.
There are no public records in Venezuela. Other Latin American countries have the derecho de petition — FOIA. In Venezuela, that doesn’t exist, and not only does it not exist, the few things that were public are not public anymore, and it’s so difficult to get information in these conditions. And then when you get information, you need to be even more careful than in other moments — you need to verify with other sources, independent sources different from the sources that gave you the documents or the data.
Of course, it’s difficult for a source to feel free to talk with you, and there is another important issue, that [in exile] you need more time to talk with the source, to try to show trust that, yes, you are going to do the job, you’re going to try to protect all the sources.
Roberto Deniz’s 2018 Armando.info investigation, La Mala Leche de los CLAP, revealed that food served to the poor under a special social program contained harmful amounts of carbohydrates and sodium. Image: Screenshot, Armando.info
GIJN: What’s been the greatest challenge that you’ve faced personally in your time as an investigative journalist?
RD: It was the moment when I had to decide whether to stay in Venezuela or get out and try to be safe and continue with my work. Definitely, that was the most difficult moment, not only for the moment when you face that decision, but I think that the most difficult part is related to your family. It’s not easy to accept that you are not sharing time with your family. You are living abroad. You cannot go back. And, you know, my parents, for example, they are still alive, but they are getting older, and I would like to be with them, and I can’t.
But I had no choice, because if I stayed in Venezuela, I definitely couldn’t have continued working as an investigative journalist. It was a key moment in my life. I didn’t have a lot of time to make the decision, but I think that I did the correct thing.
GIJN: What is your best tip for interviewing?
RD: I would say that the best tip for interviewing is to trust your sources, and you have to be fully transparent from the beginning. When you start to talk with a source for an interview you need to clear what it is you can do, and your objective to talk with that source. I would say that that is the most important thing because you create this trust, but it is also important that your sources know who you are, know how you work, and why you are doing what you are doing.
Of course, many sources want to talk with you because they have some interest, or they want to talk bad about a political rival, or, they want to talk about an entrepreneur that is fighting for the same business with the Venezuelan government. And as journalists we have to put it clearly: “Well, this is a story I am interested in because this is important for this reason, and that is my only interest in this thing. If you have another interest that is your business, not my business.”
GIJN: What is a favorite reporting tool, database, or app that you use in your investigations?
RD: I think that I am an old-school journalist. I would say that my favorite tool is my notebook.
But nowadays, for example, there are a lot of tools that are very useful, because one of the most boring things in journalism is transcribing all the conversations. There is another type of tool that is very useful because I like to create timelines, the timelines of the investigation, when the thing happened, and what was happening in the country at that moment of this investigation. It’s like all of the things that you have in your mind, of the story, and you can watch it on three levels.
GIJN: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten in your career and what words of advice would you give an aspiring investigative journalist?
RD: I don’t know if it counts as advice, but something that we repeat often in the small newsroom of Armando.info is to always keep in mind why you are doing your job and remember that what you are doing is very important for society. Even in countries like Venezuela, autocratic countries, with censorship, with persecution and differences, it’s important. And the important thing is not [just] the impact, but the meaning of that story in the life of the people.
GIJN: Who is a journalist you admire, and why?
RD: There are many Latin American journalists that I really admire — Gustavo Gorriti, an important journalist in Peru, Ricardo Calderón, a Colombian investigative journalist, and I really admire Leila Guerriero, an Argentinian journalist, who has written a lot of books, chronicles about different things in Argentina. But of course, first I have to talk about Venezuelan journalists, who right now are suffering a lot. Many journalists had to flee the country after the presidential election last July. But in general terms, I would say that some important Venezuelan journalists have shown the capacity to continue doing the job even outside of Venezuela.
In our newsroom, I think that the role of Ewald Scharfenberg, the founder and editor, is very, very important, because he is a journalist with more experience than most of the journalists working at Armando.info. And he always has this capacity to watch, from outside, what we are doing and he works with a very strategic sense of our job.
GIJN: What is the greatest mistake you’ve made and what lessons did you learn?
RD: I can remember a mistake when I was starting to work as a journalist in a Venezuelan newspaper called El Universal. I remember I wrote an article about a legal protest that was happening in a factory in Venezuela. When it was published, I received a call from somebody who asked: “Did you call the other party?” And I said, “Well, I tried to contact them, but I didn’t talk with anybody.”
And this person told me, “Well, I am X, and I am the legal representative of the company.’” This guy told me: “I don’t want to attack you. I don’t want to fight, I just want to say that it’s important to you as a journalist, but also to the readers of your newspaper, that they know our position. All the details that you miss in the story.”
When you are working in a newsroom, in a newspaper, you are in a hurry every day, and [sometimes] you miss something. That was a very good lesson for me. And the most important thing is that it happened when I was starting out as a journalist.
GIJN: How do you avoid burnout in your line of work?
RD: I always say, like a joke, “Are there any psychologists in the room?” if I am talking about this at a conference or something. But I always say that there was a moment when I cut the emotions, and I put them aside. Roberto the journalist is the one who continues working, but the emotions are totally aside. I don’t know if that is good for our mental health.
But I would say that the first thing, and it’s so difficult, but I think that we have to be careful and we have to keep in mind always that this is not personal. You are not doing this because you want to fight with this politician, because you want to fight with this businessman.
The other thing is always try to trust as much as you can in your editor. That is very important, even when you feel that you are, you know, done, or you can’t continue with the story. You have to trust in your editor, in your team, and talk with them.
And then, I try to do exercise, especially to run. When I run, I try to forget everything, and it’s good not only for my physical but mostly for my mental health. And then to try to read other things not related with your job, books, novels. I really like Latin American literature, and I try to maybe watch TV shows, movies, comedy or something.
But there are moments where I feel really burned out. For me, for example, it was in 2021, the day when the police went to my parents’ house in Caracas. I suppose that they were looking to see if I was there. And for me, those days were terrible, because I really felt, this is happening because of my job, and dealing with that emotion and that feeling is not easy to deal with.
In the end, it’s something that we have to be very conscious about, burnout, we have to do more for our mental health, and yes, if you feel that you are burnt out, you have to stop, you have to recover. You have to be safe and be okay to continue with your job.
GIJN: What about investigative journalism do you find frustrating, or do you hope will change in the future?
RD: I feel this applies to countries like Venezuela and even countries like Colombia: that there are moments where people don’t react to corruption. That people don’t understand how corruption affects their life. For me, as a journalist but also as a citizen it is difficult to understand. Of course it is a challenge for me as a journalist — to try and tell a story to catch their attention, to connect with the real situation of people.
When you see the Venezuela crisis that we have lived through these years, it’s incredible because there’s no civil war in Venezuela, there’s no natural catastrophe in Venezuela, but the numbers of the crisis are the same as in civil wars or natural disasters. It’s incredible. And one of the main things to explain it — is corruption.
I think we are living in a period when it’s difficult to be a journalist, but having said that, I also think it’s a period when it’s very important to be a journalist. My hope as a Venezuelan journalist is that things can change in my country, not for me, but for people, that the country can recover, not only in an eco-social way, but also in a democratic way. That’s going to be good not for my generation, but the next generation of journalists.
Laura Dixon is a senior editor at GIJN, based in the UK. She has reported from Colombia, the US, and Mexico, and her work has been published by The Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among others. She is a former staff reporter of The Times in London, and has received grants and fellowships from the IWMF, the Pulitzer Center, and Journalists for Transparency.
2025-06-21 04:37:22
At the 2025 Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, GIJN co-hosted 60 journalists from more than two-dozen countries and territories at the four-day event’s International Luncheon on Friday, June 20.
The luncheon, which was also co-sponsored by the American University School of Communication’s Investigative Reporting Workshop, brings together global attendees for conversation and networking at the premier US watchdog reporting convention.
After welcome remarks from IRE Executive Director Diana Fuentes, GIJN Board Chair Brant Houston and GIJN Executive Director Emilia Diaz-Struck emceed the event, emphasizing the increasingly critical role that international journalism plays in holding power to account.
Following the meal, attendees stood up one-by-one and introduced themselves, telling where they come from and for whom they work. Journalists at the lunch came from six different continents: North America (US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Nicaragua); South America (Chile, Venezuela); Europe (UK, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Latvia, Germany); Africa (Egypt); and Asia (Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, India, China, Hong Kong, Japan), and Australia.
Also attending the luncheon was Julia Bones, daughter of John Bones, who was a longtime IRE and GIJN supporter and managing director of the Norwegian Foundation for Investigative Journalism (SKUP) for most of the last decade. He passed away earlier this year and his daughter will accept a posthumous award on his behalf at IRE25’s Gala Luncheon.
A gallery of photos from the event are below.
2025-06-20 15:00:10
Whether or not you’re heavily engaged in the data journalism community, you’ve probably come across the name John Burn-Murdoch, or at the very least scrolled past one of his instantly recognizable salmon-pink Financial Times charts.
Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter and a columnist at the paper, is simple in his assertion that “charts change minds,” but says that to achieve that level of persuasion, you have to strike the right balance between data, design, and words. You just have to take a peek at his weekly FT column Data Points to understand how he synthesizes statistical analysis into neatly packed graphics, demystifying topics such as why generative AI hasn’t taken over our “task-messy” jobs yet or why some football clubs are failing to recapture past glories.
One thing is evident when scouring through his work — every chart tells a story. In a webinar in conjunction with data visualization platform Flourish, Burn-Murdoch explained that successful data journalism isn’t about a pretty visual or a canvas with a pure data presentation, it’s about appreciating how an audience consumes a chart and tailoring it to communicate a message.
Opening the webinar with the existential question — at least for those working in this field — of ‘Why do we make charts?’ Burn-Murdoch explained that charts tap into something more innate and intuitively trustworthy than a text story can alone. And research suggests that charts communicate better than other forms of media. A 2018 study, for example, tested how people respond to controversial topics such as global warming when presented to them in different formats: a simple sentence on average global temperatures, a statistics-heavy paragraph, and a chart. Among climate change-skeptical groups, the chart presenting the same data as text formats was more persuasive in swaying opinions.
“Providing data in chart form seems to be more persuasive and more effective than providing the same information in text,” noted Burn-Murdoch. “We have this amazing, powerful tool that when we make a chart we are able to cut through people’s pre-existing beliefs in a way that text struggles with.”
So, what makes a chart successful? Here are four takeaways from the webinar.
Despite a widely-held belief that charts should adhere to minimalist principles, it isn’t always true that less is more. While data visualization experts like the US academic Edward Tufte caution against tautology and overly elaborate design, Burn-Murdoch says that “humans like storytelling.” Overly minimal charts, he suggested, can fail to resonate or connect to the reader.
Image: Screenshot
Citing a study that tested public reactions to four types of charts with varying amounts and placement of text — one with only data and axes, another with just a paragraph of text, a titled and lightly annotated chart, and a fully annotated titled chart — Burn-Murdoch said that the minimalist charts had ranked lowest. In fact, participants preferred charts with large numbers of annotations that were well-placed because it was more engaging and helped them to understand the data better, for example using arrows to connect text annotations to particular parts of the line chart. The most successful version was the chart with a strong narrative title and multiple explanatory annotations.
“We like to have a sense of what we’re looking at — the bigger picture — instead of being given something where we then have to do a lot of work ourselves to figure out what’s going on,” said Burn-Murdoch. “For the average person, a consistent finding is that there is something about textual explanations which helps.”
While making something technically sound is the bedrock of a good chart, it’s only the first step, explained Burn-Murdoch. “Storytelling, the idea of explicitly focusing on the act of communication when making charts, is critically important and I would say, underrated in a lot of the resources out there that focus on the technical side.”
The takeaway: A narrative title helps. A bit of text annotation goes a long way. Minimalist charts may impress data experts, but they can alienate the wider audience.
Where do people’s eyes go when they are reading a chart? Another study quoted by Burn-Murdoch used eye-tracking technology to examine how people interact with graphics on screen. It found that people tend to follow a “Z” shape when reading a chart — first they look at the title, then they turn to the axes of the chart, before finally moving to the actual data itself.
Participants in the study were asked how much they could remember of a chart flashed up on a screen for them. Among the findings? More participants were able to recall the title and annotations on the chart, revealing how text helps readers remember.
“Text is where people’s attention goes first,” Burn-Murdoch said. “If we’re not using that, we’re really missing an opportunity.” The same study also found that visual elements like pictures, flags, and related imagery don’t distract readers, but can often help them by serving as “additional anchors” to recall the message of a chart.
The takeaway? Titles, annotations, and labels are essential and often what viewers remember.
For Burn-Murdoch, color in charts is just as important as the text choices. Drawing on Colin Ware’s book “Visual Thinking for Design” to explain how the human brain processes visual information, Burn-Murdoch explained how our eyes are wired to detect pre-attentive, or pop-out, attributes like color, shape, size, and motion, which we perceive instantly, often before we’re even aware of it. In an evolutionary sense, we’re wired to spot the difference, whether it’s a slightly larger sized shape or an odd color.
Image: Screenshot
In a chart, this means that a line of red in a sea of grey lines will immediately stand out. But if every line is a different color, nothing stands out at all. Color contrasts are a really powerful tool to direct attention.
In practical terms, this means being intentional about the color palettes being used — down to the very background color of a visualization. It’s better to avoid a rainbow of colors, instead data journalists should group less important information in a more muted tone while drawing attention to the relevant data by employing a more striking or contrasting color.
More broadly, Burn-Murdoch stresses that designing a chart is about guiding a person’s attention through a narrative. “When we’re making a chart, we are not just doing a sort of mathematical task or a design task, we’re trying to communicate something to someone.”
To do that, he works with the “Z” shape to think about where someone’s attention is going to move as they encounter a chart.
Image: Screenshot
It will move from the title, down through the axes, and across to the data itself. “I put a lot of effort and time into getting that title right,” he noted. “And I’m also thinking about anything I can do in terms of the design to naturally guide someone’s attention through that chart.”
It’s a reminder that successful visual storytelling isn’t about decoration, it should be purposely designed. His key takeaway when it comes to color? “Minimize distraction. Maximize contrast.”
Not everyone finds charts intuitive, and it’s important to adopt the perspective of the end-user as a chart designer or data visualizer. As Burn-Murdoch put it: “You’ve got weirdos like me who spend unhealthy amounts of time making charts, looking at charts… but there are millions and millions of people out there for whom that is not true.”
This is where text, annotations, and thoughtful design come in. By adding clarity, not just stripping things away, charts become more relevant to wider audiences. Burn-Murdoch is clear that this is about strategic design that tells a story. He distinguishes between the technical process of making a chart and how it’s actually experienced.
While analysts may fuss over decimal points and fine-grained accuracy, most viewers are seeking a story. “People are not generally looking in very, very fine detail through a magnifying glass, trying to work out whether that line on your chart is at 4.81 or 4.82.”
Instead, people are scanning charts for meaning. They want to know: What is this showing me? Why does it matter? That’s why, once the data structure is sound, Burn-Murdoch urges designers to “really be focusing on this storytelling task… that is actually a much neater analogy for how people consume charts.”
The key takeaway: “Great chart-making absolutely does still include maths and the arts, but to make sure we’re doing our job as communicators as well as possible, we need to be thinking about this as storytelling,” said Burn-Murdoch.
To illustrate many of these principles, Burn-Murdoch revisited a chart designed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early March 2020. At the time, public uncertainty about the trajectory of the virus was growing, driven by news of fast-rising cases in Italy and East Asia.
A colleague emailed Burn-Murdoch to ask how other countries compared to Italy — one of the hardest-hit places in Europe at that stage. His first iteration of the chart technically answered that question. Created in R using the data visualization tool ggplot2, it plotted the number of days since each country’s 100th confirmed case on the x-axis, and cumulative case counts on the y-axis.
“This chart technically does answer that question… but this is not something that I think would have really resonated with millions of people,” he said.
Further iterations of the chart transformed the same data into a design that communicated a story.
Image: Screenshot
“The title is now answering that,” he said, of the chart on the right with a more dynamic, explanatory title. “It tells us that most of these countries… are actually on the same trajectory, whereas some others have managed to slow the spread.”
Next came the legend problem. In the early version, readers had to constantly flip between a color-coded legend and the lines on the graph.
“You’re asking someone to keep checking back and forth between the legend and the lines,” he said. So, he moved the labels directly onto the lines, allowing readers to instantly see which country each line represented.
Then came strategic use of color. He grouped East Asian countries in blue, showed Italy in black, and highlighted the UK and US in other strong shades. Secondary countries faded into grey.
“We’re making the matching between the data visualization and the message… closer and closer and closer,” he explained, “so that there is less and less head-scratching required.”
Finally, he added annotations with a line showing the trajectory of a virus doubling every two days, and explanatory notes pointing to policy decisions or inflection points in key countries. Importantly, none of the underlying data or structure changed.
“The fundamental geometry of this chart… none of that has changed,” Burn-Murdoch said. “But we’ve significantly improved this chart as a piece of communication by focusing on text, color, labels, and annotations.”
The final takeaway: “Don’t just make charts for chart people. Make stories for all people.”
Hanna Duggal is a data journalist at AJ Labs, the data, visual storytelling, and experiments team of Al Jazeera and a GIJN contributor. She has reported on issues such as policing, surveillance, and protests using data, and reported for GIJN on data journalism in the Middle East, investigating algorithms onTikTok, and on using data to investigate what tribal lands in the US.
2025-06-20 08:15:47
2025-06-19 15:00:56
Azmat Khan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She works as an investigative reporter for The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine.
Known for her rigorous reporting on war, accountability, and government transparency, Khan has uncovered critical truths about civilian casualties from US military operations, challenging official narratives with open source intelligence (OSINT) investigations and reporting on the ground.
She won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for her New York Times series The Civilian Casualty Files, a project which was the result of more than five years of extensive reporting, including on-the-ground investigations at over 100 civilian casualty sites across Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. The series was published after a legal battle that uncovered more than 1,300 military records which were previously classified.
Her 2017 investigation, The Uncounted, revealed that US airstrikes in Iraq killed civilians at a rate 31 times higher than the military admitted. During her time at BuzzFeed News, one of her investigations, Ghost Schools, exposed deep corruption in the US-funded education programs in Afghanistan.
Khan’s work has not only exposed systemic failures in military and government accountability but has also set new standards for investigative journalism. I spoke to her recently at her office in New York. She discussed her investigative methods, the ethical complexities of war reporting, and the growing challenges facing journalists in an era of increasing surveillance and shrinking press freedoms.
Q: Your work has uncovered critical insights into civilian casualties from US drone strikes. What drew you into this area of investigative journalism?
Azmat Khan: Back in 2008 and 2009, there was an unprecedented surge of drone strikes in Pakistan. This brought up new questions about how wars are conducted and what the United States is doing globally. Over the next few years, we saw this kind of warfare expand to places like Yemen. Air strikes, not just drone strikes, increasingly became the US strategy to avoid deploying large numbers of ground troops.
What drew me to this topic was seeing how claims made by the US military often went unchallenged. There was one statistic in particular that became a turning point for me.
In April 2016, I read a front-page news article claiming the US had killed around 25,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria. At the same time, I had been tracking the US-led coalition’s own data, which assessed that only 24 civilians had been killed. These numbers, 25,000 fighters against 24 civilians, seemed completely at odds with what I knew to be a reality, but they were often being accepted as fact.
And I just thought to myself, can I verify these statistics? Can I visit a village or a town, investigate every airstrike site, and determine how many strikes actually resulted in civilian casualties? How precise are these claims?
Q: How did you start?
AK: I decided to start small. The first area I focused on was near Qayyarah, Iraq, halfway between Erbil and Mosul. I visited 10 strike sites, and half of them had resulted in civilian casualties. This was shocking, and I realized I needed to expand my sample. I kept returning to investigate further.
This work eventually led to the findings published in The Uncounted in 2017. Based on a sample of 103 airstrikes, my co-author and I discovered that one in five airstrikes resulted in civilian casualties, a rate 31 times higher than the US-led coalition’s claim of less than 1%. This became the foundation for my subsequent years of investigation into the true impact of US airstrikes.
Q: How did you approach investigating military claims?
AK: In a post-9/11 context, the military often makes claims about targets without being transparent about the underlying rationale or intelligence used to justify those actions. They frequently cite national security to obscure details, making it difficult for journalists to challenge their findings.
To address this lack of transparency, I employed several strategies. First, I recognized the importance of going on the ground to gather first-hand information, as the military often did not investigate incidents themselves. This allowed me to conduct my own intelligence gathering, which is essentially what journalism is, intelligence gathering for the public.
Second, I systematically analyzed military press releases, strike summaries, and casualty assessments, compiling them into a database to identify patterns or inconsistencies. I also interrogated their public claims to determine their accuracy.
Third, I pursued the military’s underlying rationale through various means, including interviews with coalition actors, embedding at a US air base in Qatar, and using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request records. This approach allowed me to challenge the military’s narrative and provide a more accurate account of events.
Q: Why was obtaining military assessments through FOIA requests so important?
AK: It was a game changer. In The Uncounted, I discovered that one in five airstrikes resulted in civilian casualties, with half linked to poor or outdated intelligence. By creatively arguing under FOIA, I secured a military assessment that revealed how intelligence had gone awry in a specific case, such as the airstrike involving Basim Razzo.
This success motivated me to pursue thousands of other assessments, leading to the Civilian Casualty Files project. After years of submitting FOIA requests and eventually suing the Pentagon, I obtained over 1,300 records. These documents allowed me to interrogate the military’s claims, examine their underlying intelligence, and fill the information gap often exploited by governments.
Q: What was the impact on your work?
AZ: The impact was profound. By combining these records with on-the-ground investigations, I was able to provide a comprehensive account of civilian casualties, holding the military accountable, and shedding light on their decision-making processes.
Q: How do you approach interviewing survivors and families affected by war?
AK: This is such a good question. One thing I recommend is time. Giving people space to tell their stories and really listening to them, not just asking the questions you’re interested in. This helps build trust and allows them to open up. Many survivors have never spoken to a journalist before or don’t know the rules.
In some cultures, there’s a deep respect for guests, so they may feel obligated to answer questions even if they’re uncomfortable. I always inform them upfront: You don’t have to answer any of my questions. If I ask something hurtful or harmful, you don’t have to respond. I’m also mindful of children’s presence and adjust accordingly.
After asking about traumatic experiences, it’s my responsibility to bring them to a lighter space. I often transition to questions about their hopes, faith, or passions.
I also recommend resources like the Dart Center at Columbia, which offers practical tips for interviewing trauma survivors. They highlight things like “hot moments,” where physical signs show someone is re-experiencing trauma, helping you adjust your approach. I have learned to adapt my methods based on context. What works in Afghanistan might not work in Iraq or Syria. It’s about balancing sensitivity with gathering meaningful stories.
Q: How do you approach interviewing survivors of trauma, especially when revisiting deeply painful experiences?
AK: I was often surprised by how much survivors wanted to share, even when I offered to stop. Many found it therapeutic or appreciated having someone listen. Sometimes, interviews would end, but the person didn’t want to stop, and I’d spend hours listening.
For example, I went with Basim to the house where he survived an airstrike but lost his wife, daughter, brother, and nephew. I knew that would be traumatic, but he told me he wanted to go. He said, ‘I’m numb,’ but at one point he did break down. He started crying when he went to the laundry room, and it was because he saw his daughter’s heel in the rubble. That moment became a core part of the story, and he was comfortable with how we told it.
Watching him break down, I felt sad and guilty, but also honored to witness his journey. If I could accurately convey his story, and he wanted it shared, it was worth it.
It is also important to get meaningful consent. My colleague Jina Moore wrote about this, emphasizing that it’s not enough to just ask for an interview. You must explain who you are, where the story will appear, and the potential risks. Survivors need to understand the impact their story could have.
Q: How did you start using OSINT, and what tools or methods have you found most effective?
AK: For every investigation I’ve done in the last decade, OSINT tools have been essential for data gathering and analysis. For example, in my BuzzFeed News Ghost Schools investigation in Afghanistan, I used the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive, and satellite imagery to track government claims and verify the schools on the ground.
Over time, I’ve improved my use of these tools. For The Uncounted, I used Google Earth, Planet Labs, and Sentinel Hub to cross-check strike sites and dates reported by witnesses. These tools helped me see before-and-after changes and verify events.
Crowdsourced maps like Wikimapia were also useful in Iraq, where locals labeled locations, enabling deeper searches. I also used time-bound searches on TweetDeck and deep web searches to find and archive videos, especially those deleted by groups like ISIS.
Q: Did you use archiving and monitoring tools?
AK: Those were critical. I often saved videos I knew would be taken down, systematically saving and analyzing them. For example, I compiled videos uploaded by the US-led coalition to YouTube and dvidshub.net (Defence Visual Information Distribution Service), building databases to study them.
This was crucial for accountability. When the coalition denied conducting a strike in a specific area, I used archived videos to prove they had. This revealed inaccuracies in their strike logs and highlighted flaws in their reporting systems.
There are countless tools available, but one I find particularly useful is Visualping. It tracks changes on websites and alerts you based on your preferences, whether daily emails or checks every five minutes.
This tool helped me discover that the coalition had removed strike videos from YouTube, coinciding with my inquiries about those videos. Monitoring changes like this is crucial for accountability and adds significant value to reporting.
Tools like reverse image search also allowed me to check when and where content first appeared, whether it matched the date in question, and if it had been altered over time. This was crucial for verification and fact-checking.
I recommend practicing with these tools regularly. Many platforms, like Planet Labs, offer free or discounted access to journalists. Combining on-the-ground reporting with OSINT tools has been key to challenging official narratives and uncovering the truth.
Q: And yet OSINT techniques have some limitations. How have you navigated them?
AK: OSINT tools can seem like a magic wand in journalism, but they have limitations. Relying exclusively on OSINT risks flattening people’s stories. If you only use satellite imagery or online reports without speaking to people, you miss the complexity and humanity of their lives.
Sometimes, stories relying solely on OSINT can feel technical and void of human emotion. Speaking to people, understanding their complex lives, and rendering their lives meaningful – that’s essential to journalism. Whether you reach them on the ground, remotely, or through their online presence, elevating their voices is crucial.
Q: What strategies have worked for you for FOIA requests?
AK: The key to FOIA success is doing your research. Understand the agency, what the records are called, and where they are kept so you can submit a precise request. It also helps to look into the agency’s track record, how responsive they are, how long they usually take, and their policies on expedited processing.
A great resource in the US is the FOIA Wiki by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It helps you navigate the process and understand how different agencies handle requests. If an agency is slow, you may want to request expedited processing. Journalists often cite public interest, but some agencies offer other grounds. When I was investigating a case where a civilian’s life was at risk because of a military error, I argued that disclosure could prevent harm, and that helped me get the records.
Q: Can you share an example?
AK: Basim Razzo feared for his life after a coalition video labeled his and his brother’s home a “car bombing factory.” I knew military records showed this was a mistake, but the video remained online, seen by thousands.
I argued under FOIA that releasing these records was crucial for public accountability and to protect Basim’s safety. This helped me obtain the records, and I used the same rationale in subsequent requests.
Persistence is key. If an agency delays or denies your request, you might need legal action. I had to sue, and the Reporters Committee represented me. They offer legal support and have a hotline for journalists.
The last thing I’d say is to stay organized. Keep track of your FOIA requests, responses, and follow-ups. It strengthens your case if you need legal help and shows the public interest in your work.
Q: What mistakes do journalists make when submitting FOIA requests?
AK: I often feel guilty talking about America and freedom of information when speaking to journalists from other countries. While many nations have these laws on the books, they often don’t work in practice. Take the UK, for example. NGOs tracking civilian casualties have been fighting for years to get just one military assessment released, with no success. Meanwhile, I’ve obtained more than 2,000 such assessments through the US system.
That said, even in countries where FOIA systems do function, I’ve seen journalists make some common mistakes that can derail their efforts. One major pitfall is being too broad. If you ask for ‘all records related to X,’ you are likely to get stuck in bureaucratic limbo. The key is being specific. You need to demonstrate that the exact records you are seeking exist, and request them precisely.
Another critical point is understanding what FOIA can and can’t do. Government agencies won’t create new documents or do analysis for you. You can only request existing records in their current form. This trips up a lot of people who expect agencies to compile information on their behalf.
You need to track all correspondence, follow up when deadlines pass, and understand the appeals process before considering litigation. In the US, for example, you have to exhaust all administrative remedies before you can file a lawsuit — miss that step and your case is dead in the water.
It’s also important not to put all your eggs in the FOIA basket. Sometimes the documents you need are already publicly available, just buried in obscure corners of government websites. Learning advanced search techniques — like searching for specific file types — can uncover gems. And of course, cultivating sources remains as important as ever.
Q: How do you see the current political climate affecting investigative journalism?
AK: We are going to see more surveillance of journalists. The digital surveillance of reporters has intensified dramatically, with governments and other actors deploying increasingly sophisticated tools to monitor journalists online.
We are going to see less access for journalists. We are already seeing that. Foreign journalists are not allowed into Gaza, with both Israel and Egypt refusing them entry. What’s most disturbing isn’t just the blockade itself, but the muted international response. Aside from a handful of US senators, there’s been no meaningful pushback from world powers.
We’ve crossed a red line where governments now feel emboldened to openly admit they are targeting journalists without facing consequences. When powerful nations fail to challenge these actions, it sends a green light to authoritarian regimes everywhere. The message is clear: you can eliminate unwanted reporting and face no repercussions.
At its core, this crackdown reveals how threatened power structures feel by investigative journalism. Real accountability reporting remains one of the last effective checks on authority, which is exactly why we’re seeing such coordinated efforts to undermine it.
The tactics being pioneered in Gaza – complete information blackouts, attacks on journalists with impunity – risk becoming the new normal unless the international community wakes up to what’s at stake. These aren’t abstract concerns anymore. We are watching the playbook for silencing investigative journalism being written in real time.
This is an extract from an article originally published by the Reuters Institute and is republished here with permission.
Maurice Oniang’o is an award-winning freelance multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has written for National Geographic, 100 Reporters, Africa.com, and Transparency International, among others. A National Geographic Explorer recipient, he has also produced documentaries for National Geographic’s Ultimate Vipers, as well as Project Green, Africa Uncensored, NTV Wild, and Tazama.
