What's the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week's Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for March 13-March 19), including items from The Guardian, Databootcamp, the University of Zurich, and New York Public Radio, among others.

What's the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week's Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for March 20-March 27), including items from Al Jazzera, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) Data, The Guardian, and Quartz, among others.

What's the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week's Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for April 23-30), including items from the Tow Center and The Upshot, among others.

Busy months for European muckrakers and data geeks. Journalismfund.eu just organized another successful DataHarvest+ conference, with more than 200 people discussing investigative tools, data, security, funding, and more. Below, a recap of some of the best tips and tricks shared in Brussels.

GIJN’s member in Germany, the good people at Netzwerk Recherche, puts on lively, engaged conferences every year. And they have great graphics to go with their programs (see above). Check out this year’s big event -- You'll Never Walk Alone, nr-jahreskonferenz 2014 -- July 4-5 in Hamburg. The program includes journalists from a dozen countries, including legendary American muckraker Seymour Hersh, the folks from WikiLeaks, and Germany's undercover master reporter Günter Wallraff.

Lots of other big investigative journalism events coming up, including summer schools and conferences of Investigative Reporters and Editors (San Francisco), ABRAJI (Sao Paulo),  and the International Conference on Investigative Journalism (Winnipeg). Details on these and other tribal gatherings are available on GIJN's calendar.

GIJN members worldwide have voted overwhelmingly to make the Global Investigative Journalism Network a registered nonprofit in the United States, and to restructure its board to ensure geographic representation from six regions. Until now, GIJN has not been registered in any country. 

In an online vote held last week, representatives of GIJN’s 98 members in 44 countries voted by margins above 90% to create a nonprofit organization out of the informal network of investigative groups that began 11 years ago.

"This a great validation of how far we have come since 2003," said Brant Houston, who co-founded GIJN with Nils Mulvad at the 2nd Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Copenhagen. "Once again, we have moved to another stage in GIJN with close to unanimous agreement."

On the question of registering in the U.S., there were 63 yes votes, 3 no votes, and 3 abstentions. On the question of creating a new board, there were 67 yes votes, 2 no votes, and 0 abstentions.

"We had great support on this effort," said GIJN Executive Director David Kaplan. "I'd like to particularly thank the GIJN Election Committee -- Nils Mulvad and Margo Smit -- and everyone else who helped and took time to vote."

Board Election This Month

As a result of the above votes, GIJN is holding a second online election -- this time to select a new board of directors from around the world.

Interested in running? Board candidates must belong to a GIJN member organization and have its support to run. We already have an impressive group of candidates. Board candidates have until this June 8 to declare their candidacy, and an election will be held the following week. For more information contact hello@gijn.org.

"This is a very important step forward for GIJN," says co-founder Mulvad. "Read the bios and statements from the candidates for the board, and you get the best feeling of the strength of this network. This is so great that people from all over the world are working together to lift investigative journalism to the next level."

The new board will be responsible for overseeing GIJN's growing initiatives to support investigative journalism, including the secretariat, conferences and workshops, and efforts to support, train, and link together investigative reporters worldwide.

The newly approved board structure will have 15 members. Six board positions are allocated to representatives from geographic areas – one each to Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East/North Africa, North America, Latin America/ Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Eight board positions are “at-large,” meaning they can come from anywhere. A final position goes to a representative from the host organization of the next Global Investigative Journalism Conference, which in this case is SKUP of Norway.

Who can vote? Each GIJN member organization has a designated representative who can cast votes for up to 14 candidates. More on the GIJN election soon!

It’s been three months since ex-president Viktor Yanukovych fled in the dead of night, after a last, desperate attempt to cover his tracks by destroying documents.

It’s not going to be that easy, Mr. President.

For the past three years, Ukraine’s “Journalists Day” has been commemorated with an anti-censorship rally in front of his former Mezhyhirya residence. This year, the sprawling compound itself has been hacked.

From June 6-8, the Mezhyhirya Festival on investigative journalism, digital activism, and leaks will celebrate a new era of freedom of expression with those who were on site to help usher it in.

The sold-out festival will feature presentations by journalists who were on site during the February document dig, such as Anna Babinets, Natalie Sedletska, Dmytro Gnap, and Vlad Lavrov—all partners of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which helped create the YanukovychLeaks website.

They will be joined by activists, hackers, journalists, and media theorists from around the world to explore how technology and journalism can intersect and empower.

Ukrainian journalists made history in late February by fishing out tens of thousands of documents dumped into the lake on his opulent Mezhyhirya estate.

Since then they have produced dozens of stories, with more on the way, from the nearly 200 folders of sodden papers recovered by volunteer divers. A team of more than 50 collaborated to sort and separate the documents, making use of the residence’s sauna to dry the incriminating evidence.

The findings were scanned and uploaded within days onto YanukovychLeaks, which now hosts 23,400 documents that have been translated into English, Russian, and Ukrainian. Whistleblowers and citizens continue to come forward daily with more information about exactly what was going on during Yanukovych’s tenure.

From this trove of information journalists have been able to reconstruct some of the massive wealth accumulation and corruption in the Yanukovych regime.

YanukovychLeaks blew the lid on closely guarded information ranging from the ousted president’s AutoMaidan Black List to the offshore accounts of billionaire Serhiy Kurchenko, who is suspected of being a front man for the former First Family.

The documents also offered an insider’s view into how the former regime worked.

“Notes of a Personal Bodyguard" exposed Yanukovych’s elite hunting club and the security details of his lavish presidential estate, which was given the code name “Object 109.” The story also reported on some of the suspicious information Yanukovych’s bodyguard was gathering, such as the hourly movements of a firebrand journalist who was severely beaten.

And the flood of revelations continues. New information about the muck and mire behind the regime is being unearthed daily.

In March, journalists found more than 40 bags stuffed with shredded papers in Mezhyhirya and outside of Kurchenko’s former offices.

Equipped with training from FBI specialists and software that can re-assemble shredded documents, more than 300 people are now working on the “Paper Division” project, collecting, restoring, analyzing, and uploading the scavenged papers.

The public airing of the once fiercely guarded information signals the end of an era of Yanukovych media repression.

The upcoming commemorative festival will also include the launch of Ukraine’s first investigative journalism award— a fitting commemoration and celebration of a watershed event in Ukrainian history.

Ana Baric is a daily news reporter for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a GIJN member that manages a network of non-profit investigative centers and for-profit independent media stretching from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. She is based in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This compelling 15-minute documentary tells the inside story of Yanukovychleaks, the extraordinary team investigation that recovered thousands of documents left behind by Ukraine's fleeing ex-president. Here's how a group of young Ukrainian journalists from competing outlets banded together for one the great scoops of the decade. The video, sponsored by GIJN members OCCRP and Scoop, was released at last weekend's Mezhyhirya Festival, in which more than 300 journalists, data experts, and activists gathered at Yanukovych's former estate.

Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir took six bullets in an April attack. Credit: The News (Pakistan)

They wanted to kill him but he survived with six bullets in the body. He was not a case of mistaken identity. They knew who they were aiming at. Hamid Mir is arguably the most prominent TV anchor of Geo TV, the biggest network of Pakistan. He was not a stranger to threats. A bomb found planted beneath his car in November 2012 was diffused, to his good luck.

So when he was asked to host a special broadcast at Geo headquarters in Karachi over prospects of peace with the Pakistani Taliban, Mir began to feel restless. Already, he had curtailed movement within his home base, Islamabad, due to death threats. Traveling outside the city would be far more dangerous. While he reluctantly agreed to host the broadcast, Mir thought to trick his enemies so they couldn’t keep track of him. Therefore, instead of booking flight for Karachi, he purchased a ticket for Quetta, only to change it at the eleventh hour.

Nevertheless, the shooters knew when he flew to Karachi from Islamabad on April 19. They were also aware of the route he would use for reaching the studio there. They didn’t care about a security guard and a driver accompanying Mir from the Karachi airport to the Geo TV office. They opened fire at him when the car slowed down for a turn. As the driver geared up to escape the shooters, Mir was struggling to dodge the bullets being fired at him. He received six–in the ribs, thigh, stomach, and across his hand.

Mir in critical condition after the attack. Credit: The News (Pakistan)

News of the near-assassination of Mir spread like wildfire. The staff of the TV network was emotionally charged. I work for the same media house, Jang Group, that owns Geo TV. Mir would frequent our office, situated in the same building where he worked. We would chat for a long time discussing issues ranging from current affairs to the threats against journalists.

He last visited us four days before this attack. Mir then shared concerns regarding threats to his life and the possible culprits. He had recorded a message for his family to release in case of any untoward situation. Geo TV’s top management was also briefed on the threatening messages sent to him time and again.

So when Hamid Mir was struggling for life, unconscious on a hospital bed, his brother Amir Mir, an investigative journalist, went on Geo TV to name the prime suspect in the attack–the chief of the ISI, Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency. His statement was in line with the instructions of his injured brother. This turned out to be counterproductive.

@UmarCheema1 @gijn //Cheema traitors r usually given award & compensated /May u choose the right path/Allah Aapko hadayat De ,,,

— SALIM (@talwarkhan) June 19, 2014

No officials stepped forward to determine the veracity of Mir’s allegations and to look into the reasons for his suspicions towards the top spy chief. Instead, an organized campaign started against the victim journalist, his vocal colleagues, and Geo TV. The agency was not facing accusation for the first time. It has been accused in the past of harassing, torturing, and even killing a journalist. Saleem Shahzad, a journalist who was kidnapped in broad day light in May 2011, was later found dead; he had also expressed suspicions through an email.

Mir was Pakistan's top new anchor. Credit: The News (Pakistan)

While Mir sufffered from multiple injuries, Geo TV was next in the firing line. Running the accusatory statement of an injured employee turned out to be its crime. A complaint by the ISI led the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to shut down the TV network, which was accused of having a history of “anti-state activities,” among other things.

Before the regulatory body would decide, the network was virtually shut down by the cable operators who succumbed to invisible pressure. A senior officer of PEMRA, which oversees the industry, held the operators to account for their illegal closure of Geo TV. He was picked up one night and tortured. The next day, he requested transfer to another position. The regulatory authority finally gave up. Forty-five days later after this near-closure, PEMRA slapped a 15-day suspension on Geo TV for running the allegations against the ISI spy chief. No right of hearing or even response was granted to the network.

The attack on Mir also brought to the surface cracks within the Pakistani media. A general perception about the nation’s lively news media is that they stand united against threats to press freedom. Such solidarity has turned out to be an illusion. Attacks from rival TV networks started accusing Geo TV of maligning the ISI. (As the accusatory statement pointing fingers at the ISI chief was run on TV, his picture was also flashed.) Even the demand for Geo TV's closure initially came from the rival channels.

Holding Geo TV to task for broadcasting Mir’s allegations might seem odd when the Pakistani media has no qualms about routinely running serious allegations against the Prime Minister and President (the supreme commander of armed forces). The difference here was the allegations on Geo TV were against the spy chief of the most powerful agency in Pakistan.

Instead of discussing the possible attackers of Mir, the debate centered on the accusation and its coverage. Those who tried to highlight the case of a victim-journalist demanding a probe were targeted through talk show hosts close to the military establishment and harassed by different means.

My two colleagues and I received emails from someone identified as “Khaki power,” threatening us of dire consequences if we continued speaking out. Thugs were sent to the hometown of my colleague to resuscitate a police case against him that was quashed 10 years ago. Our female staffers were harassed into quitting the network. Male staffers were assaulted by “anonymous” attackers. The vans carrying newspapers were put on fire and the drivers tortured.

I was also under scrutiny for demanding legislation for the spy agencies. Unlike in many other countries, there is at present no law governing the functions of Pakistan intelligence agencies. They were founded through an executive order but no law was made to formalize their functions. I wrote several articles arguing for the legislation. It turned out to be my crime. I, too, came under fire.

Surveillance on me was intensified. Some anonymous officials went to the village where I was born and raised. They inquired about my reputation and took pictures of my house there. Then they visited the organizations I had collaborated with in different projects. The purpose was to spot some irregularities that could be used to defame me.

The Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan, which I founded in 2012, also came under scrutiny.  I was dubbed a rent-a-journalist who works hand-in-glove with foreign interests. At my newspaper, our top management is being pressured to fire six journalists, my name included.

A hate campaign on social media was started to scare my colleagues and I into silence. Being an advocate of free speech, I hardly block anybody on Twitter, hoping they will learn to improve the quality of argument, but the abusive commentary and naked threats have become a permanent feature.

It is more than two months now since Mir was attacked. A lot has changed. Geo is struggling to stage a come-back. It has officially been restored but is still absent from TV screens in many parts of the country, as the cable operators are still keeping it off the air. While Geo tendered a public apology for “excessive and emotional coverage” of the attack on Mir, it also sent a defamation notice to the ISI demanding an apology or evidence to back up allegations that Geo engaged in anti-state activities. Neither has been done.

Censorship started creeping into the newsroom soon after this crisis started. It is now rapidly advancing. Geo TV, being the biggest channel, is the front line of defense against these attacks on media freedom. It is still fighting, but other networks have surrendered, angling instead for a share of the 60% of Pakistani viewers that Geo has controlled. Those who failed to compete in the marketplace are now conspiring against the network. They are gaining business but losing freedom. Meanwhile, journalism in Pakistan is suffering.

Umar Cheema is an investigative reporter with The News (Pakistan) and the founder of the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan. In June 2014 he was elected to the board of directors of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, where he serves as its Asia representative. Cheema writes on corruption, politics, and intelligence agencies, work that has resulted in his being abducted and abused. His refusal to stay silent about the attack has drawn wide attention to anti-press violence in Pakistan. Among his honors are the Knight International Journalism Award, the International Press Freedom Award, and the Missouri Medal Honor for Distinguished Services in Journalism. In 2008 he became the first Daniel Pearl Fellow to work at The New York Times. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics. 

What's the data driven journalism (#ddj) crowd tweeting about? Here are the week's Top Data Journalism Links on Twitter (for July 3-7), including items from CORRECT!V, Datenjournalism.net, and Netzwerk Recherche Conference, among others.

Editor's Note: When is training journalists considered a crime? When you're in Egypt today. It's been just over a year since an Egyptian court convicted 43 people from 5 NGOs for acting as unregistered foreign agents to foster unrest -- a charge they strongly deny. Among the groups are Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Freedom House, and a GIJN member, the International Center for Journalists, which was running workshops in Egypt to train reporters. In testimony before the U.S. Congress last week, ICFJ Vice President Patrick Butler, one of those sentenced to prison, talked about the case, with special attention to the damage it has inflicted on Egyptian journalists Yehia Ghanem and Islam Shafiq.

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives. Patrick Butler's statement starts at 1:51:36.

Patrick Butler

Vice President-Programs, International Center for Journalists

U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa

Date of Hearing: July 24, 2014

Title of Hearing: The Struggle for Civil Society in Egypt

Chairman Ros-Lehtinen and distinguished members of the Committee: Thank you for allowing me and my colleagues the opportunity to testify before you today. As you know, more than a year ago, I and 42 other NGO workers were convicted in an Egyptian court for working on programs designed to build democracy, monitor elections and train political parties and journalists. We were given sentences ranging from one to five years in prison. After an initial stir and expressions of outrage from the State Department and members of Congress, the case has largely faded away. Most people who knew about the case probably think it was resolved long ago.

But more than a year later, nothing has changed except the lives of the convicts – mostly for the worse. Most Egyptians convicted in the case are in exile, often separated from their families, their immigration status in limbo, unable to earn a living. For Americans and other non-Egyptians, the convictions have prevented international travel or thrown up obstacles in everything from applying for jobs or loans to getting a security clearance.

The case was an early indication of changes to come in Egypt – we were the canaries in the coal mine. In the past year, Egypt has seen a brutal crackdown on opposition groups, civil society workers and journalists, including the conviction last month of three Al Jazeera journalists who dared to interview members of the banned opposition. Everything the Egyptian leadership is now doing to intimidate the country into acquiescence could have been foretold by the verdicts last year against the NGO workers.

I was one of five people working for the International Center for Journalists who were convicted in the case. The others were Americans Michelle Betz and Natasha Tynes and our Egyptian colleagues Yehia Ghanem and Islam Shafiq. Michelle, Natasha and I were not in Egypt when the charges were filed, but we were immediately labeled fugitives from justice. Yehia and Islam were in Egypt and attended every hearing in the stifling hot “cage,” sometimes sharing the cramped space with murderers and rapists. Like the other NGOs, we brought the Egyptians out of Egypt before the verdict was announced, and they have not returned home since.

For me, the conviction has been an inconvenience. I probably will never go back to Egypt, and I may not be able to travel elsewhere in the region either, for fear of being extradited to Egypt. I know I will still have a job even if I can’t travel to the Middle East, but Michelle and Natasha are free-lance media development contractors, and when they can’t travel to the region, they lose work. The convictions have seriously affected their livelihoods.

For our Egyptian colleagues and friends, though, the convictions are nothing short of catastrophic. Yehia Ghanem, an esteemed Egyptian foreign correspondent and editor with nearly 30 years of experience, is in perhaps the worst situation of any of the convicts. Because of his seniority, his two-year sentence was not suspended, as it was for many of the other Egyptians. That means that he will go to jail if he returns to Egypt.

Yehia has not seen his wife and three children or his ailing mother in more than a year. His distinguished career in Egypt is over, his pension lost. ICFJ helped him get a fellowship as a Journalist in Residence at the City University of New York for the 2013-14 academic year, but the fellowship was not enough to permit him to support his family in New York. While he has been here, his family members have continued to suffer harassment in Cairo, including three raids on their home by security officials seeking Yehia, even though they know he is in the U.S. The most recent raid happened last Sunday night. Those raids and one against family members of Nancy Okail, another Egyptian defendant, prove that while the U.S. government seems to have forgotten the case, the Egyptian government certainly has not.

Yehia is now looking for a job and hoping to bring his family to the United States. His greatest hope is to receive a green card so that he has the security to work either in the United States or in a Middle Eastern country that will not extradite him to Egypt. So far, we have not been able to get him a green card.

Islam Shafiq has brought his wife to the United States, and they now have a young son. They are applying for asylum, with Islam’s family continuing to receive threats against him on a regular basis. Islam’s father died while he was in exile, and he was not able to return for the funeral.

Every one of the convicted NGO workers – Americans, Egyptians and citizens of other countries – has a story like this to tell. This case has ruined many people’s lives, and for what? In our case, for trying to help Egyptian journalists do a better job of reporting on issues that matter to their audiences. The verdict, as we all know, was a sham, based entirely on political calculations and not at all on the evidence presented in the case.

But the greatest tragedy of this case is not its effect on individuals like Yehia Ghanem or any of the four of us before you today. The greatest tragedy is what this case has meant to the people of Egypt. The country’s authoritarian government learned the consequences of its prosecution of Americans and Egyptians working together to improve their society: Nothing. There were no consequences.

Now, with political opponents, human rights workers and journalists regularly jailed and most of Egyptian society scared into silence, we are seeing how Egypt is putting into practice what it learned from our case.

In closing, I urge you to do all you can for our Egyptian colleagues who are suffering the most from this case. When the charges were filed, U.S. government officials and members of Congress visited them and promised to do all they could for them. Many feel those promises have been forgotten. Help us get them green cards so that they can have a stable life and support their families in the U.S. They paid a price working on U.S.-government-funded programs, and they deserve our thanks.

Again, thank you to this committee for keeping our case alive.

Mark your calendars! Uncovering Asia: The 1st Asian Investigative Journalism Conference is now happening. Join us in Manila on November 22-24 for this breakthrough event, bringing together top investigative reporters, data journalists, and media law and security experts from across Asia and around the world.

Meet award-winning journalists and experts on data analysis and visualization, business investigations, corruption, crime, and cross-border collaboration. Among the workshops:

• Advanced online search techniques by Internet sleuth Paul Myers of the BBC.
• Tracking business across borders with Investigative Dashboard by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
• Uncovering hidden assets with the Offshore Leaks Database of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Among the speakers:

• Mar Cabra, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
• Ying Chan, University of Hong Kong Media Studies Centre
• Umar Cheema, The News/Center for Investigative Reporting Pakistan
• Reg Chua, Thomson Reuters
• Sheila Coronel, Columbia University School of Journalism
• Kunda Dixit, Nepal Center for Investigative Journalism
• Govindraj Ethiraj, IndiaSpend
• David Kaplan, Global Investigative Journalism Network
• Malou Mangahas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
• Nils Mulvad, Investigative Reporting Denmark
• Paul Myers, BBC
• Syed Nazakat, The Week, India
• Peter Noorlander, Media Legal Defence Initiative
• Paul Radu, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
• Giannina Segnini, Columbia University
• Drew Sullivan, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
• Yoichiro Tateiwa, NHK, Japan

Uncovering Asia is hosted by the Global Investigative Journalism Network, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, with additional support from the Open Society Foundations.

The big event will mark two other important occasions: a special reception honoring the 25th anniversary of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, one of the world's pioneering nonprofit media centers; and the UN-designated International Day to End Impunity on November 23.

Sponsorships: Help us bring journalists from across Asia to the conference and you can be a co-sponsor of Asia's first investigative reporting conference. Media organizations sending 5 people or contributing US$5,000 will become a co-sponsor. Contact us at hello@gijn.org.

More to come soon on our venue, program, partners, registration, and special events...

Norway’s Association for Investigative Journalism -- SKUP -- is holding its first big data conference on October 18, with top data journalists from across Scandinavia and overseas. The intensive day includes 16 sessions of 90 minutes each, ranging from basic to advanced levels. The full day is followed by what our Norwegian friends call the "Data-SKUPs Afterparty." Sounds good to GIJN.

SKUP will also host the next Global Investigative Journalism Conference -- in October 2015.

Behind the scenes, proponents of freedom of expression are working to ensure that independent media is for the first time a priority in the global development goals set by the UN and its member states. As part of that push, last week more than 300 representatives from media NGOs, journalist unions and associations, civil society groups, governments, and international agencies gathered for The Bali Media Forum organized by UNESCO.

The three-day meeting, on August 26-28 in Bali, Indonesia, ended with a clarion call to make access to information and free media a development priority.

Titled the Bali Road Map: The Roles of the Media in Realizing the Future We Want for All, the document emphasizes the “importance of including a goal on freedom of expression and independent media in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals and of including this recognition in development practice more broadly.”

Agreed to in 2000, the UN Millennium Goals comprise an ambitious agenda to improve quality of life around the world, focusing on such issues as poverty, gender equality, and education. The goals -- many of them unfulfilled -- expire at the end of 2015, and debate is growing about how to focus the next set of development initiatives.

The Bali Road Map details actions for governments, media outlets, media professionals, users, and the international community. Among the actions called for are for governments to:

• respect freedom of expression, including press freedom and the right to seek and
  receive information, as fundamental rights as well as enablers of the post-2015
  development agenda;
• review legal restrictions, including criminal defamation laws on media and other restrictions on media content;
• reconsider cases of imprisoned journalists in the light of international standards and
  human rights;
• avoid the use of state economic levers to undermine media freedom, independence
  and diversity;
• systematically collect and make accessible to the public information related to development, while protecting privacy;
• make concerted efforts to ensure that those involved in production of journalism can work without fear or risk of attack.

The full Bali Road Map statement, calling for independent media to be a priority in new global development goals.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova noted that the free flow of information is needed for development. “Freedom of expression is essential to dignity, democracy, sustainable development, dialogue peace and tolerance," she told the forum. "Information and knowledge hold the key to crafting the future we want for all.”

Freedom of expression advocates say the joint statement is an important step forward. Among them is Caroline Giraud, coordinator of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD), an association of 139 NGOs working to develop independent media in some 80 countries (of which GIJN is now a member). GIJN asked Giraud the implications of the statement and what comes next:

"The road map is a new reassurance that a UN body sets high the role of media for the post 2015 development agenda. It advocates per se for what 250 civil society groups have been voicing out with the GFMD and Article 19: that free media and access to information matter for development, and that a free media and access-to-information targets are measurable, and in fact, already measured by multilateral bodies.

"This is a strong message that we will relay -- and ask the media to relay -- as part of our advocacy campaign within the UN. It also helps raise awareness in the public space and with decision-makers. There is still a year to go of negotiations on SDGs (sustainable development goals) and the post-2015 agenda, and there is still much space for change. Such a commitment by UNESCO makes it more difficult for those who refuse to listen to civil society to exclude any reference to media and access to information, as if they were not grounded in this discussion.

"Spread the word!"

Come join us in Manila! Registration is now open for Uncovering Asia, the groundbreaking, first-ever investigative journalism conference to be held in Asia, coming this November 22-24. Check out our new conference site, put together by GIJN and its partners, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. We have speakers from more than 15 countries and state-of-the-art panels on digging out hidden facts online, tracking money across borders, cutting-edge data analysis, funding your investigation, and much more.

The ninth Global Investigative Journalism Conference at Lillehammer, Norway, is now less than a year away. Your local hosts at SKUP -- Norway's investigative journalists association -- went there last week and are pleased to report that plans for GIJC15 look most promising.

For those who missed the fifth GIJC in 2008 -- also hosted in Lillehammer -- here are some quick facts about place and the conference venue.

Lillehammer is a small city in the countryside north of Oslo. It is known as the host city of the Winter Olympics in 1994, and in recent years for the TV series “Lilyhammer,” about a New York gangster (Steven van Zandt) who hides in the town.

From the Oslo airport, Gardermoen, it's one hour and 45 minutes by direct train to Lillehammer. From the city's train station it’s walking distance to the conference venue.

But don’t worry, there will be shuttle buses to take you there.

The hotel, Radisson Blu Lillehammer, is the same one we used for the fifth GIJC in 2008. But since then the conference facilities have been significantly upgraded.

The grand Radisson Blu Lillehammer Hotel passes inspection by noted investigative journalists John Bones and Jens Egil Heftoy of SKUP. Credit: Jan Gunnar Furuly.

The conference facilities include more than a dozen different rooms and halls. All are located in the same building and on the same level.

Credit: John Bones.

The Radisson Blu Lillehammer hotel was built in 1911 and upgraded in several steps since then. The latest remodeling, which includes the main conference hall, was finished just weeks after our earlier conference in 2008. Despite all the rebuilding, the hotel has kept its traditional, cozy style. You will find wall-to-wall carpets, deep armchairs, and wooden walls with old romantic Norwegian paintings. And the former hotel director’s Harley Davidson is still standing in the bar.

The investigative team of Bones, Furuly, and Heftoy, inspecting the quality of beer in the historic hotel bar.

Last week SKUP Board Chairman Jan Gunnar Furuly, Board member John Bones, and Director Jens Egil Heftoy traveled to Lillehammer to inspect the venue in detail and negotiate the final deals. All went well.

All Inclusive

In total we have more than 900 rooms available in the small city of Lillehammer. That gives us more than 1600 hotel beds. And we can get more if needed.

The prices for single rooms will be about US$235 or €185 per night. For a four-night stay, Wednesday to Sunday, that's about $940 or €740. If you share a room, you can save about US$120 or €100 each.

Pricey you say?

Well, the price does include three daily meals, coffee, cakes, and fruit during the day, and the gala dinner on Saturday evening. So the only extra cost you might have during your stay is what you spend in the bar. Actually, the hotel price is almost to the dime the same as it was in 2008, six years ago.

The Band Is Back

If you did visit the GIJC in 2008, you might remember the first appearance of what has become GIJN's own houseband, “The Muckrackers.” The group was founded at a jam session at the 2008 conference (in the hotel basement bar) and they have played at every global conference since then. Next year we bring them back to where it all started, right here in Baglern Pub. And there are strong rumors that the entire original cast will be there.

Mark it in your calendars: October 8-11, 2015.

See you in Lillehammer!

This journalist needs company. Won't you and a thousand other muckrakers join him in Lillehammer? Credit: John Bones.

Native Papuans last week in Indonesia's half of New Guinea, protesting media restrictions that include a virtual ban on foreign correspondents. Credit: Wensislaus Fatubun.

Getting hassled by authorities is nothing new for investigative journalists. But two recent incidents serve notice that some countries are cracking down with a tried-and-true technique to stop pesky foreign reporters: prosecuting them for visa technicalities.

In Indonesia and Russia this week, authorities are trying to stop coverage and even training by investigative journalists.

In Indonesia, two French journalists in the province of Papua (half the island of New Guinea) are on trial this week on charges of “abusive use of entry visas,” after being detained while producing a documentary for Franco-German Arte TV.

Protests against the prosecution of two French journalists by native Papuans last week. Credit: Wensislaus Fatubun

The arrest and prosecution of Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat "reflect the Indonesian government’s long-standing policy of obstructing independent media coverage in Papua, where a low-level conflict has persisted for decades," according to Human Rights Watch. Foreign journalists need special permission to visit the island – which is rarely granted -- and controls reporters' movements and access."The Indonesian government’s choke-hold on Papua media coverage has effectively turned foreign journalism in the province into a criminal activity,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

A New Cold War

Meanwhile, a pair of U.S. investigative journalists conducting a workshop in St. Petersburg were detained by Russian immigration officials on October 15. Authorities forced the workshop to be cancelled and ordered the trainers out of the country.

The two journalists -- Joe Bergantino, executive director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, and his teaching partner Randy Covington, of the University of South Carolina -- were detained, questioned, and forced to appear before a judge who told them they were guilty of violating Russian immigration laws.

Joe Bergantino training in St. Petersburg before the workshop was broken up by Russian agents. Credit: Randy Covington

The judge ordered them to cease their training, which was supported by the U.S. State Department through a grant to the University of South Carolina, and they left the country later in the week.

In response, Bergantino has written an open letter to President Vladimir Putin criticizing his bullying of a free press.

Bergantino published his letter after returning to the United States, and it detailed the ordeal. He characterized it as a return to the days of the Cold War and called on Putin to stop his administration from carrying out such heavy handed tactics:

Galina Sidorova, chair of the nonprofit Foundation for Investigative Reporting in Moscow (a GIJN member), sees the the pair's detainment as the latest in a trend of increasing pressure on journalists in Russia:

The Foundation for Investigative Reporting has translated Bergantino’s letter into Russian and posted it on its Web site at www.foundation19-29.com.

GIJN member Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) will host its seventh annual forum for Arab investigative journalists in Amman, Jordan, this December. The theme of the three-day conference, which begins on December 5, will be "Arab Media: The Battle for Independence," and will feature more than 30 panels and trainings on topics such as reporters' safety in conflict zones, corruption in sports, and human rights abuses by militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

“Unfortunately, independent media in our region is minimal and lacks financial and professional resources,” says ARIJ Chairman Daoud Kuttab. “The push for democratic, transparent and pluralistic societies in our region will not succeed without nurturing the role of independent media to confront established media institutions owned or supported by governments, royal families and a coterie of businessmen.”

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, as well as the torture and abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. soldiers, will be one of three keynote speakers.

Speakers at the other two plenary sessions are: Jordan’s Marwan Muasher, a leading columnist, diplomat, politician, and author of the new book, The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism; and Britain’s award-winning correspondent Tim Sebastian, who moderated BBC World’s interview program “HARDtalk” for seven years before launching televised debate shows across the Arab region and in South Asia.

More than 250 attendees at the conference will network and exchange tips with some of the world’s award-winning journalists, including Yosri Fouda of Egypt; Craig Silverman, editor of a new handbook on verification of user-generated content; Eliot Higgins, the founder of bell¿ngcat, a citizen investigative journalist site; Abigail Fielding-Smith, senior reporter with the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism; as well as Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake, the Sunday Times (UK) team who exposed Qatar’s secret plot to win the right to host the 2022 world football cup.

Based in Amman and established in 2005, ARIJ is the region’s leading nonprofit media organization promoting in-depth reporting and helping journalists working in print, radio, TV, and online media in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Bahrain, Palestine, Yemen, and Tunisia. ARIJ is funded by the Copenhagen-based International Media Support, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and the Open Society Foundations (OSF).

To find out more, click here.