The Centre for Investigative Journalism
The Centre for Investigative Journalism
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Summer Conference

29–30 June 2022

Wed 29 Jun
Thu 30 Jun
Wednesday 29 June
  • 29 June 2022 09.00–09.20 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Welcome

#CIJSummer 2022 – Welcome

A warm welcome from our Director James Harkin and Becky Gardiner, Senior Lecturer and co-convenor of the MA in Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London.
  • 29 June 2022 09.30–15.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Story-Based Inquiry Method

The course sets out the Story-Based Inquiry (SBI) method, which has been successfully used by thousands of journalists, academics and NGO researchers since its publication by UNESCO in 2009. The method can be used for feature writing or documentary filmmaking as well as reportage.
  • 29 June 2022 09.30–14.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Data Journalism – Google Sheets – Hands-On

This three-part hands-on express data journalism course will introduce you to the basics of data analysis in Google Sheets. Suitable for beginners.
  • 29 June 2022 10.10–15.40 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Course Training

Data Journalism: Investigating Data with R. Hands-On. I

So you’ve got the fundamentals of data journalism down. You’re interrogating spreadsheets like a pro and able to use pivot tables like the data Swiss-army-knives they are. But sooner or later you know you’ll come up against a dataset so big it’s going to crash Excel if you even try to open it.
10.30–18.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Clinic

InfoSec Clinic

Sort all your information security problems with our InfoSec walk-in clinic. Located in the atrium next to the #CIJSummer registration table, it will help you with your security questions and set up.
  • 29 June 2022 10.50–11.50
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Ukrainian Investigative Journalism In Times of War

Before the start of the war, Ukraine had a thriving investigative journalism scene, both on the national and local level. How did the war change it? What do Ukrainian journalists investigate now, especially when many were forced out of the country by the war?
  • 29 June 2022 10.50–11.50
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

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.
  • 29 June 2022 13.00–14.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

The London Laundromat: The Influence of Oligarchy and the Role of the UK

Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland, Butler to the World and Coda Story's Oligarchy Newsletter, will speak to The New York Times' Jane Bradley about Russian oligarch money and its relationship to the war in Ukraine, the role of London and other international financial centres in enabling oligarchs, money-launderers and criminals from all over the world to hide their money - and what can be done about it.
  • 29 June 2022 13.00–14.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Following the Covid Money

Private Eye investigative reporter Solomon Hughes recently exposed a loophole that allowed subcontracted "mini-umbrella companies" to avoid paying national insurance for staff of Covid-19 testing centres.
  • 29 June 2022 14.10–15.10 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Demo Tools

Data Journalism and the Rise of Green Crime

Data journalists from Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism will highlight several of the unit’s pioneering geo-journalism tools (#WildEye, #MineAlert, Rhino Court Cases and ClimaTracker) to demonstrate how journalists can incorporate environmental data into their work.
  • 29 June 2022 14.10–15.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Demo Workshop

RuAssets: Searching for Russian and Belarusian politically exposed persons

RuAssets is a platform which uses open source information to uncover affiliations of companies and people from different parts of the world with Russian and Belarusian politically exposed persons (PEPs).
  • 29 June 2022 14.10–15.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Talking Sources: How to Find Them and Get Them to Talk

Jane Bradley, an award-winning investigative journalist at The New York Times, has tracked down some of the world's most wanted terrorists, Russian dissidents and spies, human traffickers, shadowy business figures and whistleblowers and convinced them to talk.
  • 29 June 2022 15.30–16.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

An Introduction to Information Security from the Source Protection Programme

This session provides a general introduction to the broad field of information security. We will be giving some basic definitions, describing a range of the possible risks of using digital technologies, and introducing some of the available strategies and tools to improve your digital security.
  • 29 June 2022 15.30–16.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Class Talk

How to Hold Local Power to Account

Local councils do far more than collect our bins and look after streetlights. They spend billions of pounds of public money each year but often with very little oversight. Journalist Tom Bristow will take you through how to find out where this money is going and how to spot potential corruption and scandals.
  • 29 June 2022 15.30–16.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Keynote Talk

Investigating the British Army: The Murder of Agnes Wanjiru

In 2012 a Kenyan called Agnes Wanjiru was murdered by a serving British soldier and her body hidden in a septic tank, a crime which was subsequently covered up. Winner of the 2022 Paul Foot award with her Sunday Times colleague David Collins, Hannah Al-Othman talks about how they worked with sources to bring the story to light, and their dealings with the police and the Ministry of Defence as they worked to investigative and publish it.
  • 29 June 2022 16.50–17.50
Summer Conference Event
 — Discussion Keynote

Chris Mullin: Protect Sources!

Chris Mullin, journalist and former MP has won his fight against being forced to hand over material that would identify confidential sources relating to his investigations into the Birmingham Six. He will be joined by the veteran crime journalist Duncan Campbell and Gill Phillips, Director of Editorial Legal Services at the Guardian to discuss the case and the importance of source protection.
Thursday 30 June
  • 30 June 2022 09.00–15.40 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Course

Finding Stories with Data – Hands-On

You may already know something about data journalism, but are unsure how to start an actual story. In these sessions we will delve into some real data, looking for a real story, starting with an idea, downloading the data, cleaning it, exploring it, and finding the leads to stories in it –using the methods you would need in a data-led enquiry, and in the order you would use them.
  • 30 June 2022 09.00–10.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

Environmental Investigations: Going Undercover

Sometimes, the only way to get the story out is to go in undercover. These investigations can be the trickiest that a researcher will ever take on and come with a range of risks and potential pitfalls, but with the climate in crisis and on the brink of full collapse, and many vested interests keeping their deals well hidden, occasionally the means are justified.
  • 30 June 2022 09.00–10.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Class Demo

Lifting the Veil on Financial Secrecy and Tax Havens

This session delves into the Tax Justice Network's work and tools that set out to tackle financial secrecy, tax abuse and illicit financial flows. It focuses on how to use the Financial Secrecy Index, with the most recent edition released in May 2022.
09.30–18.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Clinic

InfoSec Clinic

Sort all your information security problems with our InfoSec walk-in clinic. Located in the atrium next to the #CIJSummer registration table, it will help you with your security questions and set up.
  • 30 June 2022 10.10–11.10 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

Wood for the Trees: Data-Driven Environmental Journalism

This session, led by an expert in leveraging the techniques of data journalism to produce deforestation and climate change investigations, takes attendees through the practice and pitfalls of covering the environment.
  • 30 June 2022 10.20–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

Financial Journalism: Follow-the-Money Case Studies

These sessions will guide you through a real life investigation into dodgy dealings, offshore scams and shell companies. Each case study will provide you with copies of actual documents that the investigators used to identify points of interest and unearth the next piece of information or set of documents.
  • 30 June 2022 11.30–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Class

Geojournalism: How to Use Satellite Imagery to Verify Information and Uncover New Stories

This presentation takes journalists and analysts through the basics of satellite imagery, geographical data, and using imagery in storytelling to verify information and make new findings.
  • 30 June 2022 11.30–12.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Investigating MI5

Earlier this year the journalist Daniel De Simone published a long-form investigation into the activities of a rogue, abusive MI5 agent, the end result of a months-long tussle between the BBC and the British government which ended with his employer being taken to court.
  • 30 June 2022 13.30–14.30
Summer Conference Event
 — Gavin MacFadyen Memorial Lecture

Gavin MacFadyen Memorial Lecture: Meera Jatav

Meera Jatav, a journalist based in Uttar Pradesh in India comes to London and the CIJ to deliver the annual Gavin MacFadyen memorial lecture. The co-founder of the award-winning, grassroots feminist media organisation Khabar Lahariya, Jatav has won a reputation for her courageous investigations into gender-based violence and caste in India.
  • 30 June 2022 14.40–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Screening

Screening: NAVALNY

In August 2020, a plane travelling from Siberia to Moscow made an emergency landing. One of its passengers, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was deathly ill. Taken to a local Siberian hospital and eventually evacuated to Berlin, doctors there confirmed that he had been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent implicated in attacks on other opponents of the Russian government.
  • 30 June 2022 14.40–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Course Training

Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

This two-part practical course will guide you through the basics of freedom of information legislation and equip you with the skills necessary to make successful information requests and appeals.
  • 30 June 2022 14.40–15.40 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Demo Tools

Trase: Investigating Deforestation in Supply Chains

Global trade in soy, beef, palm oil and other agricultural commodities is driving tropical deforestation. Governments, businesses and financial institutions have pledged to halt deforestation, but only with transparency in supply chains can these commitments be meaningfully assessed.
  • 30 June 2022 16.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Copy, Lie, Smear: Uncovering High-Level Plagiarism and Dealing with the Consequences

Romanian investigative journalist Emilia Șercan has won a niche reputation for uncovering plagiarism in the putative PhD theses of her country’s leading politicians. At the CIJ she talks about how she found the truth, and how to deal with the backlash; in her case, an organised, state-level campaign of intimidation and harassment.
  • 30 June 2022 16.00–17.00
Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Keeping it local: Inspiring Regional Reporters to Use Data Journalism Tools for Their Stories

Helena Bengtsson is Data Editor at Gota Media, Swedish publisher of 13 local titles. In this session she explains how to educate, train and work directly with local reporters to produce both title-specific data stories and projects which can be shared across the other titles.
  • 30 June 2022 17.10–18.10
Summer Conference Event
 — Keynote

Investigating Media Celebrity: Tim Westwood

How do journalists go about investigating misconduct among media celebrities with many fans, and who might work for the same employers? Earlier this year, a joint investigation by reporters at the BBC and The Guardian uncovered allegations of sexual misconduct by the DJ Tim Westwood.
  • 30 June 2022 18.10–20.00 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Summer Conference Event
 — Networking

#CIJSummer Drinks Reception

This year’s #CIJSummer drinks reception is co-hosted with Rest of World, an international non-profit journalism organisation, which documents what happens when technology, culture and the human experience collide, in places that are typically overlooked and underestimated.