The Centre for Investigative Journalism
 The Centre for Investigative Journalism
Menu

Summer Conference

4–6 July 2019

Download Timetable PDF
Thu 4 Jul
Fri 5 Jul
Sat 6 Jul
filter by Event Type:
Class Workshop Course Talk Screening Panel Discussion
filter by topic:
Law Privacy Data Financial Forensic Science OSINT Crime Investigation Narrative Collaborative Journalism Housing Crisis Freedom of Information Visualisation Interrogation Freedom of the press Journalism Sources
 
Thursday 4 July
  • 4 July 2019 09.30–10.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Libel and Privacy Laws

In this session you will learn about libel and privacy and hear how recent cases have affected the law. This class is for anyone who wants to update their legal knowledge and find out how they are affected by recent legal developments.
People
  • 4 July 2019 09.30–10.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Introduction to Data Journalism: How to Get the Most out of the #CIJSummer Data Strand

This session will provide a chance to find out what data journalism classes are on offer and which tools are best for which tasks. Our data trainers will advice you on the best data pathway and explain how you can improve your journalism with data analysis.
  • 4 July 2019 09.30–10.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Understanding Company Accounts: Getting the Most Out of Companies House

Any UK-based investigative journalist or aspiring journalist should have a working knowledge of Companies House. Companies House is the central registry for all UK registered limited or PLC companies and contains a wealth of useful information for those who know how to use the site.
People
09.30–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Computer Security Advice Clinic

Visit the security zone in the Atrium with your laptop and learn how to set up tools to browse anonymously, chat and mail with encryption and prevent data-loss from theft/confiscation of laptops and storage media.
  • 4 July 2019 09.30–10.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Open Source: The Skripal Poisoning Investigation

When two suspects were identified in the police investigation surrounding the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last March, several researchers from Bellingcat began a hunt to verify the real identities of the suspects, and their links to Russian military intelligence.
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–15.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Data Journalism – Google Sheets

Googlesheets 1 Data journalism introduction: an overview of the seven building blocks behind data stories. The basics: using Googlesheets to carry out basic calculations and percentage increases. Googlesheets 2 Finding your top line: sorting and filtering in Googlesheets/Excel.
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–11.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

SCIENCE: 101 on Science Reporting

Where to find stories and how to read research papers and university and journal press releases. An explanation of scientific methods, randomised clinical trials and their importance, including assessing aspects like sample sizes, statistics and risk assessments.
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–11.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Investigating the National Health Service

Tips, tricks and ethical insights in how to properly investigate the UK NHS by the journalist who helped expose the Mid Staffordshire scandal. How to work with whistleblowers and bereaved families while at the same time respecting the commitment and dedication to NHS staff.
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Understanding Company Accounts

This mini-course taught by a journalist-friendly forensic accountant will show you how to understand company accounts and get beyond the corporate PR spin. The emphasis will be on teaching practical skills rather than a series of lectures.
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–11.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Open Source: Fantastic Formulas to Filter Social Media

Who is the mysterious person behind a mining contract in the Central African Republic? What do you do when you have only a very common name and no photos? And what to do when a Twitter account is completely deleted?
People
  • 4 July 2019 10.45–11.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Why Code?

A talk for those who are unsure on how knowledge of code can help journalists in their investigations. Leila Haddou talks to a developer, Max Harlow; a code newbie data journalist, Niamh McIntyre; and a code old-hand data journalist and editor, Helena Bengtsson.
People
  • 4 July 2019 12.00–16.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

SQL for Journalists

What to do when Excel is not enough to crunch your data and hardcore coding is not your style? SQL is like Excel, but on steroids!
People
  • 4 July 2019 12.00–13.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Forensic Journalism: Image and Spatial Analysis in Investigative Reporting

Forensic Architecture work on human rights violation investigations with a range of different partners, from international prosecutors to media organisations. This session will provide an insight on this work from the mindset of both an architect and a journalist, with examples and workshop exercises in image analysis, geo-locating, and interpreting video.
People
  • 4 July 2019 12.00–13.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

An Introduction to Statistics through Benford’s Law for Fraud Detection

If you’re wondering if there’s something a bit fishy about a dataset, but you don’t know where to start looking, you might get some relief from a weird quirk of numbers called Benford’s Law that’s ready to help in your search.
People
  • 4 July 2019 12.00–13.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Unlimited Power: Investigating Tony Robbins

In May 2019, BuzzFeed News published a major investigation into the world’s most famous self-help guru Tony Robbins, who claims to have revolutionised millions of lives including some of the most vulnerable.
People
  • 4 July 2019 14.00–15.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Cross-Border Journalism – Everybody can learn it

If you’re impressed by large cross-border stories like CumEx Files, Panama Papers or Malta Files, don’t be daunted. It is a method everybody can learn. In this workshop Brigitte Alfter gives an introduction to the basic considerations of cross-border collaborative journalism, the levels of intensity and the process from idea to publication and beyond.
People
  • 4 July 2019 14.00–15.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

The Cornerman: A True Crime Investigation

This session reveals the rise and fall of one of Britain’s most elusive organised crime bosses whose whispered name terrified communities from London’s glitzy West End to the leafy West Country. Firmly on the police’s radar ever since his name was linked to two notorious and still unsolved gangland murders twenty years ago in London, the Cornerman used his connection with one of the capital’s most successful crime families to build a network extending along the M4 corridor to Bristol.
People
  • 4 July 2019 14.00–15.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Finding the Human Face in a Data-Driven Investigation

We use data in our investigations to find out about the the scale of a problem that is affecting people, systems that aren’t helping them, or to shine a light on particular individuals. This workshop focuses on techniques for finding the human stories that help bring that data to life, from scoping the characters and […]
People
  • 4 July 2019 15.15–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Data Escape Room

The Data Escape Room is a 60 minute data-driven challenge designed to test and develop your data skills with additional 60 minutes allowed for questions and individual help. Working in a small team you will be given a selection of real data and tasked with working out what the story is.
People
  • 4 July 2019 15.15–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Screening

No Stone Unturned

An in-depth look at the unsolved 1994 Loughinisland massacre, where six Irishmen were murdered, presumably by a Unionist paramilitary group, while watching the World Cup at the local pub in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland.
People
  • 4 July 2019 15.15–16.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Top-Shopped: Investigating Sir Philip Green

In this talk you will hear about the hard-hitting investigation the speaker co-authored for the Telegraph: uncovering the behaviour of businessman Sir Philip Green. You will hear how the investigation began and evolved, the role of whistleblowers, and about the injunction that almost shut it down.
People
  • 4 July 2019 15.15–16.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Web Scraping Without Code

How to use the import functions for scraping data into Google Sheets, building a basic scraper with websraper.io and OCR 3 ways.
People
  • 4 July 2019 16.30–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Building Your Own Searchable Document Archive

This session teaches you how to make searchable document archives. Transparency Toolkit recently built a hosted archive service to help journalists compile, explore, filter, and publish large sets of documents.
People
  • 4 July 2019 16.30–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Developing Cross-Border Ideas

Cross-border stories – wow… but how do you get started? In this workshop we discuss the quality of cross-border journalism ideas: how to systematically develop a cross-border story, how to deal with cross-border aspects of a local story, and how to find potential team members to further develop the story idea with.
People
  • 4 July 2019 16.30–17.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Panel

The Human Cost of the Housing Crisis

Council estates are being knocked down to build luxury developments and ‘affordable’ housing is out of reach of those that most need it. Meanwhile the number of homeless on the streets and people in temporary accommodation is growing.
People
Friday 5 July
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–11.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Web Scraping for Journalists

In these hands-on sessions you will be introduced to some of the basic techniques to get started on scraping data for investigations: investigation ideas: how to spot opportunities to use scraping and automation in investigations scraping basics: finding structure in HTML and URLs; what’s possible with programming simple scraping jobs: how to write a basic scraper in five minutes data journalism tools: the challenges of scraping hundreds of webpages, dozens of documents, or the invisible contents of databases.
People
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Investigating Data with R

In the first class, R-1, you’ll be shown the basics and get familiar with R and RStudio, import data and learn some functions for getting to grips with your dataset including sorting and filtering. This class assumes no prior experience with R.
People
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Excel

Excel 1: The Power of Data Analysis for Stories Data is everywhere and spreadsheets can help reporters to find story ideas in the data. This course introduces data analysis using Microsoft Excel. Participants will learn basic calculations, rates, ratios and analytic tools that generate story ideas.
People
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Story-Based Inquiry Method

Story-Based Inquiry 1: Hypothesise Your Story Investigation has a dirty name with editors, who think it’s about slowly rummaging through piles of garbage till you find (or don’t find) a jewel. Too often, they’re right.
People
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–10.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

SCIENCE: Reporting on Academic Misconduct and the Business of Science

Science is often admired for its pure and infallible nature, but scientists are humans and, like any of us are affected by biases, conflicts of interest and money. And sometimes they do bad things that need exposing.
People
  • 5 July 2019 09.00–11.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Accessing Information under FOIA

Session 1: This session will outline the basics of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and how you can apply it to your research, campaigns and investigations. We’ll go through the type of information that can be accessed from government bodies and how you can draft effective requests to get the most out of the Act.
People
09.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Computer Security Advice Clinic

Visit the security zone in the Atrium with your laptop and learn how to set up tools to browse anonymously, chat and mail with encryption and prevent data-loss from theft/confiscation of laptops and storage media.
  • 5 July 2019 10.15–11.15
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

SCIENCE: Digging out Research Discoveries and Science Scoops

Much of core science reporting these days is driven by big science PR machine: major journals, universities and businesses bombard journalists with ready-to-print press releases that set the agenda and frame science and tech stories.
People
  • 5 July 2019 11.30–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Covert Filming

This session on covert filming has evolved over the years into a state-of-the-art technical workshop looking at methods to acquire evidence for public interest investigations. It is taught by a leading undercover technician and an experienced television reporter who discuss the process and ethics of going undercover and look at the latest high-quality equipment.
People
  • 5 July 2019 11.30–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Online Toolkits and Resources for Data Journalists

First aid for your data journalism learning problems. When you’re diving into a new field of expertise, it can be overwhelming. Our trainer is here to help: tell her what you’d like to learn and why it hasn’t worked out so far, and she’ll try to point you to the online toolkit or resource you didn’t know you needed.
People
  • 5 July 2019 11.30–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Open Source: The GRU Globetrotters, Tracking Clandestine International Operations

Tracking agents of the Russian secret service and their European operations requires employing the full range of open-source intelligence techniques. This class will show you many tips and tricks, while explaining how they were used in a range of investigations looking into GRU activities in Switzerland, Bulgaria and elsewhere.
People
  • 5 July 2019 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Creating Data Visualisations and Interactives with Flourish

In this session you’re going to learn how to make data visualisations and interactives using Flourish. Flourish is a tool that allows journalists and non-coders to create high-end data visualisations and interactives, it’s free for newsrooms.
People
  • 5 July 2019 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Don’t Be Numbed by Numbers

What do you do when faced with a really big dataset for the first time? Using examples, Jonathan Stoneman will discuss approaches that help reduce a daunting mountain of data to a manageable mass. Other #CIJSummer 2019 Talks are available to watch on replay on our YouTube Channel.
People
  • 5 July 2019 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Discussion

Cross-Border Journalism Case Studies

Cross-border collaborative journalism has proven to be a powerful method: Panama Papers, Football Leaks or Implant Files have set the political agenda and lead to significant societal change. Our panel have worked extensively on cross-border stories and will share their experiences with you using examples of stories they’ve recently worked on.
People
  • 5 July 2019 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Discussion

Data Journalism in the Newsroom

This panel of experienced data journalists will explain how data can give greater depth to your stories and discuss best-practice for integrating data analysis into newsroom workflows. If you’re new to data journalism and want to find out what the techniques can do for you, or if you work with data journalists and want a greater understanding of their role to inform your expectations then this talk is for you.
People
  • 5 July 2019 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Open Source: Tracking Down a Most-Wanted Criminal via Instagram

What is “chronolocation” and why do we need it? How do we research deceiving Instagrams? What is wrong with Google reverse image search? What is the hidden connection between Instagram and Facebook?
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Graph Databases

In data journalism, we tend to use relational databases – data in table form – such as Excel or SQL to do our analysis and find stories. Graph databases are different, but are incredibly useful to find connections or patterns within our data that would be difficult, if not impossible, to spot using a relational database.
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–15.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Best European Examples of Data Journalism

For her Data Journalism Newsletter, Winny collects the best of the Data Journalism Web. In this presentation, she shares her favourites from all over Europe, carefully explaining why she loves these publications so much.
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Build a Better News Mousetrap: A Crash-Course in Design Thinking

Design thinking is a methodology for building better news products. It is used by some of the largest, most innovative news sites in the world to rapidly develop and test new products and features. In these hands-on workshops, we will learn the basics of design thinking, and how this approach has revolutionised the process.
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–15.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Follow the Money: Financial Investigations

The session will teach you ways to investigate an individual or company’s finances. It will take you on a virtual trip around the world to show how to access public records in offshore jurisdictions and the stories they can yield.
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–15.45
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Heineken in Africa

From hiring sex workers to sell their products to buttressing murderous regimes, what are Western multinationals really up to in Africa and how might we go about researching it?
People
  • 5 July 2019 14.45–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Screening

The Panama Papers: Screening + Q&A with Bastian Obermayer and Simon Bowers

The biggest global corruption scandal in history, and the hundreds of journalists who risked their lives to break the story. This documentary from Alex Winter charts the story of this huge cross-border collaboration, from first contact with the source to the coordinated international publication.
People
  • 5 July 2019 16.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Investigative Interview Techniques

This talk will provide an overview of investigative interviewing tools and techniques used within a forensic context. The focus here is to elicit detailed and reliable information from witnesses and suspects as this can play a central role in legal decision-making and, ultimately, the delivery of justice. For a number of psychological reasons, even cooperative witnesses do not spontaneously report all the information they know.
People
  • 5 July 2019 16.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Forensic Journalism: How Open-Source Investigations and Field Reporting are Uncovering the Tragedy of Yemen

More than 10,000 civilians have died since the Saudi-led war against Yemen’s Houthis began in 2015. While traditional field investigations are still critical to covering the crisis, open source monitoring and investigations are increasingly playing a role in holding power to account.
People
  • 5 July 2019 16.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Investigating Offshore Finances and Money-Laundering

How do you investigate ‘dark money? Knowing how ‘dark money’ enters the financial system is crucial to covering money laundering, corruption, bribery and tax evasion. In this session you will be provided with the tips, tools and resources for shining a light on a murky world.
People
Saturday 6 July
09.30–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Workshop

Computer Security Advice Clinic

Visit the security zone in the Atrium with your laptop and learn how to set up tools to browse anonymously, chat and mail with encryption and prevent data-loss from theft/confiscation of laptops and storage media.
  • 6 July 2019 09.50–10.50
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Maria Ressa: Gavin MacFadyen Memorial Lecture

A Filipino-American journalist and author and co-founder of the innovative news site Rappler.com, Maria Ressa delivers our annual Gavin MacFadyen Memorial Lecture. Maria has been fearlessly reporting on the extrajudicial killings and human rights violations occurring in the Philippines under the Duterte regime.
People
  • 6 July 2019 11.10–12.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Clare Rewcastle Brown: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé

Award winning investigative journalist and author of The Sarawak Report, Clare Rewcastle Brown talks to Martin Tomkinson about her three-year long investigation, which exposed the theft of $8billion from a Malaysian development fund by corrupt officials accused of working for the country’s then prime minister Najib Razak.
People
  • 6 July 2019 13.10–14.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Fiona Hamilton: A Life in Crime

How has crime reporting changed, and what are the new challenges of the beat? In a rare and wide-ranging conversation Fiona Hamilton, Crime and Security Editor of The Times, talks to Duncan Campbell, veteran crime reporter at the Guardian, and author of the new book Underworld: The Inside Story of Britain’s Professional and Organised Crime.
People
  • 6 July 2019 14.30–15.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Robert Hunter: Cross-examination, Interrogation, Political Interviewing – What’s Going on Beneath the Surface?

Robert Hunter is a solicitor advocate, who made interviewing techniques his lifelong interest. Having done many a cross-examination himself, he also analysed political interviewing and even attended the US police interrogation course.
People
  • 6 July 2019 14.30–15.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Yemen: The Price of Disclosure

In April 2019, using open-source intelligence and secret government documents, a team of journalists at the new French investigative outlet Disclose published a scoop on French arms sales to Yemen – as a result of which they faced harassment by French military intelligence and now a possible jail sentence.
People
  • 6 July 2019 15.50–16.50
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Shiv Malik in conversation with Jane Bradley: Let’s Talk About Sources

Sources play a vital role in alerting journalists to wrong-doing, but how should investigative journalists go about cultivating them? And how should you work with them once you’ve got your story? How can journalists protect their sources?
People