Date: Sunday 15 December 2024
Time: 11:00 - 16:00 including catered lunch
Participation: free, spots are limited
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)

This workshop will begin with a presentation by Naima Cornelia on the methods behind the story, what questions to ask, where to find those answers, and how. and then a hands-on session where we will discuss different ways to tackle a research question. We start by seeing what information we can find online, try some google-search techniques, see what we can dig up and go from there.

Case Studies: Rotterdam, infamous for being constantly reminded and knocked back in its place by human rights organisation and the Dutch council of state. These violations of human rights go unnoticed, unless someone, or a group of people call it out; deputants, social organisers, activists, and investigative journalist. And a lot of the proof that the latter uses to support their stories is open source. It's pdf's you find online, it's twitter messages, instagram posts, stories people tell, or documents they want to share. It's calling people out through finding decrepancies between the promises done by policy makers and the realities they produce. But it's skills that can be used by anyone, almost anywhere. It's about asking the right questions, trying out different methods to answer them and finding evidence to support the answers you find. The methods and skills used for investigative journalism can be benificial to anybody. It can help you support your cause and challenge those in power.

Naima Cornelia has a background in Genderstudies, wrote for Vers Beton and recently started as an investigative journalist for Platform Investico. In the past she conducted research on the continuation of coloniality on Curaçao, the financialisation of art, and the protocols of the municipality.

To sign up send an email to info@varia.zone with [Investigative Journalism] in the subject, along with a couple of sentences that share why you would like to join and what topics you'd like to investigate, in the workshop or in the future.

This series falls under Varia's Access Seed and is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.