Power Reporting 2009 brought together the best of African investigative journalists with top investigative reporters from Europe and the USA.
Speakers included:
Andrew Jennings on corruption in FIFA
Danny Schechter, author of Plunder, on the economic crash
Raphael Rowe on investigating wrongful convictions
Sorious Samura, Sierra Leonean film-maker
Talks, courses and workshops included:
Hands-on computer classes to develop your research and analytical skills.
How to make a request under Access to Information legislation.
Reading Company Accounts
The programme:
Day One Sport, FIFA and the 2010 World Cup
We looked into corruption in Fifa, and ask what sports journalists should be writing about is sports reporting just about which team won and who scored the top goal?
Day Two Finance, world recession and the impact on Africa.
We asked why financial journalists didn’t see it coming. Too close to business?
Day Three The criminal justice system comes under the spotlight
Every delayed trial, every wrongful conviction, is a denial of human rights. Journalists can make a difference, using their investigative skills to shine a light into the dark corners of society.
Each day we had specialist speakers and focused workshops on these topics.
Courses running throughout the three days offered the opportunity to improve skills with the help of experienced journalists:
Computer-assisted reporting
Experienced CAR practitioners Brant Houston and Elena Egawhary ran a series of hands-on computer lab classes, improving your research skills, training you to find data, download it and analyse it, to provide the facts you need to support stories, and stories out of the facts.
Business and finance
All investigative journalists need to know where to find company information, and once they got it how to read it, and use it in stories. Caroline Southey, Stuart Theobald and Rob Rose will show you how it done and once you know all that, Bruce Whitfield will show you how to use it when interviewing those hard-nosed CEOs.
The right to know
Can find the facts? This workshop taught you how to use South Africa Promotion of Access to Information Act.
Skills for investigative journalists
How to organise your investigation, work across borders, work undercover or embedded in your story.
The future of investigative journalism
With the pressure on budgets in print and broadcasting, who is going to pay for in-depth investigations? We look at alternative models of funding. And how computers are shaping our investigative world.
This year for the first time, Wits Journalism and the Forum of African Investigative Reporters (FAIR) joined the worldwide community of investigative journalists, known as the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
Programme for Power Reporting 2009.
