South East Europe |

The Panama Papers

‘Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?’ The recipient, Bastian Obermayer, head of investigations at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, said he was. This simple message was a beginning of an avalanche that, a year later, would become known as the Panama Papers. ‘John Doe’ gave Bastian about 2.6 terabytes of data – more […]

State-Of-Play of Investigative Journalism in South East Europe

Investigative journalism is one of the best tools to fight back against organised crime, corruption, and abuse of power. This is especially true in regions like South East Europe where corruption has eroded all aspects of society for decades and other democratic institutions besides an active press remain weak. In recent years, however, established media […]

‘Skopje 2014 Uncovered’: How to create a useful database

When the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) Macedonia initially started documenting ‘Skopje 2014’, it was searching for an answer to a question that was repeatedly asked by the public without a response: ‘how much the entire project costs’. Buildings and dozens of monuments rose but the silence of the institutions only led to rumours and […]

Why do we investigate and how do we develop a story? Two examples from the Center for Investigative Journalism Serbia (CINS)

Serbian governments come to power with two campaign messages: anti-corruption and anti-crime. The Corruption Perception Index, however, has been stagnant in Serbia for years. But how do we prove whether the state tackles corruption or not? The brains started working: we, the team of the Center for Investigative Journalism Serbia (CINS), knew what we wanted […]