Covering the extractive industries

ON TODAY’S JOURNALIST’S TOOBLOX, we are reprinting this article from the Global Investigative Journalism Network website

THE EXTRACTIVE industries –the development and exploitation of oil, gas, and mining resources — is a critical topic for investigative journalists, particularly in developing countries. Revenues from natural resource extraction contribute substantially to GDP and in many cases make up the bulk of government revenue.

The companies in the extractive sector are large and influential. How the revenues they generate are spent affects economic growth, the environment, domestic security, and social well-being. In many countries, however, revenues are wasted or lost due to corruption and financial mismanagement.

ABANDONED MINE | This is the mill site of the Maricalum Mining Corporation, once one of Asia’s largest copper mines. It is located in the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines | Photo by Julius D. Mariveles

This guide to covering extractive industries is reprinted from the academic paper “Covering the Extractives Industry: Big Data, New Tools, and Journalism,” by Anya Schiffrin and Erika Rodrigues.

Their paper was presented during the professors track at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in October 2013 in Rio De Janeiro. There is a great deal of scope for journalists to do investigative reporting on the extractive sector.

The last few years have seen a general trend towards transparency in the sector, so there is now far more data available than ever before. Indeed, the challenge will be for journalists to find the data and figure out how to make sense of it so it can be used for reporting in depth stories.

Below, you can find a road map to improve your coverage, including new tools that enable journalists and bloggers to obtain and verify information, and where to get ideas for future stories.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON THE GIJN WEBSITE