From 27 September to 1 October, Slidstvo.Info and OCCRP held the School “Investigate like OCCRP: Follow the Money and Uncover War Crimes”, a practical intensive course for beginners in journalistic investigations of war crimes and abuses in the reconstruction process.

The selection committee received 169 applications for the Investigations School and selected 30 best candidates from all over Ukraine. Ten out of the selected participants will receive scholarships and will join several journalistic newsrooms for up to 8 months as employees.

Participants of the school “Investigate like OCCRP: Follow the money and uncover war crimes”

During the School, which was held in Kyiv, journalists learned the basics of investigations: hypothesis development, standards and ethics, legal framework and risk minimisation, interviewing subjects of stories, OSINT tools, searching and verifying information in state registers, databases, aggregators and services, analysing financial statements, and storytelling.

The School’s lecturers are investigative journalists and editors with experience: the executive director of Slidstvo.Info and regional editor of OCCRP Anna Babinets, lawyers of the Institute for Regional Press Development Liudmyla Pankratova and Oksana Maksymeniuk, head of war crimes investigations at The Kyiv Independent Yevheniia Motorevska, investigative journalists of the programme Schemes: Corruption in Detail Maksym Savchuk and Heorhiy Shabayev, OSINT investigator at Toronto Television Anatoliy Ostapenko, board member of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre Antonina Volkotrub, co-founder and editor of Nashi Hroshi Yuriy Nikolov, investigative journalist at Slidstvo.Info, Yanina Kornienko, and Inna Biletska, editor-in-chief of the Investigations Department at Suspilne.

“The goal of our School is to select capable journalists from all over Ukraine and create the best conditions for them to become investigators,” explains Anna Babinets, OCCRP regional editor and executive director of Slidstvo.Info, “And what distinguishes our School from others is, in fact, the possibility of employment (subject to successful completion of the internship — ed.) immediately after the intensive. The best students will join several investigative newsrooms for at least a few months. And then everything depends on them.”

Anna Babinets, OCCRP regional editor and executive director of Slidstvo.Info

On the last day of the School, all 30 participants pitched their topics to the investigators. Representatives of different newsrooms then chose 10 trainees. The journalists selected for the internship will receive a monthly stipend of $800 from the OCCRP and the opportunity to work in investigative newsrooms for three to eight months. 

Currently, 8 participants of the school have already been invited to intern at Slidstvo.Info, The Kyiv Independent, NGL.Media and Suspilne Investigations. 

Inna Biletska, editor-in-chief of the Investigations Department at Suspilne, says she would like to attend not only as a trainer but also to listen to the entire 5-day course, as she was impressed by the level of professionalism of her colleagues.

“For me, this School has become a very big optimistic revelation, because recently it seemed that our market was completely empty. It turned out not to be the case. Each of the investigative newsrooms that chose their interns is unique, and I had no problems competing for participants with other newsrooms. I am excited about the prospect of working with those we have selected and hope that these Schools will become a tradition,” says Inna Biletska.

Inna Biletska, editor-in-chief of the Investigations Department at Suspilne

The organisers are indeed planning to make the School an annual event and thus replenish the newsrooms with new journalists who have the potential to investigate.

Maksym Savchuk, the School’s coach and an investigative journalist with the Schemes programme, is confident that the School will have a positive impact on the development of aspiring journalists who will become professionals in the future: “It is very good that Slidstvo. Info has organised this School, now I am sure that new generations of Ukrainian investigators are growing up who will be able not only to replace us in time, but also to become better than us.”

Maksym Savchuk, investigative journalist, Schemes programme

The intensive course in Kyiv and the internships are only part of the joint school between Slidstvo.Info and OCCRP. In the coming months, 30 previously selected participants will also receive training from OCCRP founder and editor Drew Sullivan, security experts, technical specialists and OCCRP storytelling editors, and more. Training webinars will also be held by Ukrainian investigators. The School will run until June 2024.

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