IRE hosted a Google Hangout on Tuesday with members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who discussed their ongoing investigation into offshore banking secrets. The reporting began with a leaked cache of 2.5 million records, and has since involved -- at last count -- 86 journalist in 47 countries.

Viewers from all over the world tuned in to learn more about ICIJ's project. Cities with live viewers included Chicago, London, Madrid, Narpes in Finland, New York and San Diego.

In a discussion moderated by Wendell Cochran, former IRE board member and Senior Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop, the ...

Two men were killed by gunmen in Chihuahua, Mexico, Saturday morning who are both sons of different well-known Mexican journalists, Reuters reported. A spokesman told Reuters that the deaths of the two men were unrelated to their parents' professions. The incident prefaced another later that weekend in which authorities found seven people dead in a car in a suburb near Mexico City Sunday morning, according to the Reuters article.

"Mexican journalists are often targeted and killed by drug cartels for reporting on their activities." Reuters reported. A recent story in the Texas Observer reported on the unsolved murder of El ...

How far back do the roots of data journalism go?

Simon Rogers of the The Guardian's Data Blog can traces them pretty far. In a video this week on the blog, he explains that "journalists have been working with - and visualising - data since the Guardian first published in 1821." 

The video is the second in a three-part documentary on data journalism. Watch the videos here.

The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Miami Herald, recently collaborated on an investigation that found Canadians are travelling to Cuba in surprising numbers to sexually exploit young people trapped in the socialist country’s underground sex tourism industry.

Havana’s conspicuous scenes of street-level prostitution are the public face of a hidden, sordid trade in children as young as four. Many prostituted children in Cuba are second- or third-generation, following in the footsteps of sex-worker mothers to earn money for families complicit in their exploitation. Cuban authorities deny the problem. And Canada’s ...

By John Bones, Verdens Gang

It started like an ordinary news story last October. One of our reporters, Frank Haugsbo, made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the five biggest cities in Norway to get access to the kindergarten inspection reports. While reading them, he saw a pattern of violation of law.

This gave VG the idea to investigate the whole country. The inspections are done by the different municipalities, so Frank Haugsbo ...

After taking an introductory data journalism course, a small group in Argentina set out to transform the way data journalism was done in their country, a country where data was barely updated, let alone public. They fought for open data and analyze it in the public interest. The result of their efforts is La Nacion Data, and you can see their data-driven journalism here. At O'Reilly's Strata Conference this year, they presented the inspiring video below on their efforts.

Need a vacation but can’t imagine the outer darkness that is you without your work? Why not take it with you to exotic northern Europe.

In “Data Journalism Around the Globe” panelists trotted out some of the best  data projects coming from our cousins on the continent in the German, Danish and Scandinavian press.

Many of the notables included crowdsourced projects like a Finnish mapping of places where people felt unsafe. Sebastian Mondial demoed Frag den Staat, a Teutonic forebear to FOIA Machine, which helps journalists and citizens query government agencies and track results of information requests. Another project ...

In December, Tim Steller, a reporter and now columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, reported on the increasing number of shootings occurring between Border Patrol and illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border.  The victims in some cases appear to have been unarmed.  This fact and the lack of transparency in the investigations has cast doubt on the nature of the shootings, especially for victims’ families.  Steller’s investigation shows that in some incidents, the families’ concerns might be justified.

How did you get the idea to report on shootings by Border Patrol agents?
On Oct. 10, there was ...

By Megan Luther

African journalists face different reporting barriers than their colleagues in the U.S., yet they share the desire to learn investigative techniques.

IRE traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa at the end of October to train reporters at the annual Power Reporting: The African Investigative Journalism Conference.

More than 200 journalists attended the three-day conference, which included typical sessions such as hands-on Excel training, but also addressed the risks that some journalists face. 

The Dangers
Freedom of the press takes on a different meaning in Africa. Journalists have been murdered, exiled and imprisoned for publishing the truth. 

Somalia ...

A normal day on the local government beat became two months of investigating for Lansing State Journal reporter Lindsay VanHulle.  After a portion of the residential St. Anne Lofts building collapsed in East Lansing, Mich., VanHulle discovered problems in the city’s building code and development programs.  Prior to the building’s collapse, these problems allowed unpermitted construction to continue for months.  

VanHulle’s findings were released in an interactive timeline for the Lansing State Journal in September.  Shortly before the article was published, East Lansing’s code enforcement and planning departments were restructured in an effort to improve communication ...