About NIRIJ

NIRIJ

Overview

NIRIJ, the Network of Iraqi Reporters for Investigative Journalism, is a Baghdad-based network that supports Iraqi journalists to produce detailed investigative reporting. It was the first network for investigative journalism in Iraq, and its work centres on documented facts: investigations into corruption, mismanagement of funds and abuse of power, and violations committed against different segments of Iraqi society. Rather than operating as a conventional newsroom publishing daily news, NIRIJ funds, editorially supervises and advises individual investigative journalists, helps them develop their hypotheses and sources, trains them, and publishes and promotes the finished investigations.

The network was founded on 9 May 2011 by several professional Iraqi investigative journalists, with the support of International Media Support (IMS), the Copenhagen-based media development organisation. Since then it has worked to spread a culture of investigative journalism within Iraqi media, to improve the skills of Iraqi investigative journalists, and to act, in its own description, as a watchdog that diagnoses faults, follows financial and administrative corruption cases, and indicates deviations and mistakes in official and civil behaviour. Its website is nirij.org.

Founding as Iraq's First Investigative Network

Investigative journalism was a new, and still growing, genre in Iraq when NIRIJ was created. The network was founded in May 2011, in Sulaymaniyah according to one academic account, by a group of professional investigative journalists with IMS support, at a time when few Iraqi outlets had the resources, legal protection or editorial culture to sustain long-form investigations. IMS's Iraq programme leadership described the network's establishment as a step towards consolidating investigative work and strengthening a culture of democracy in a society emerging from crises and wars and in transition towards democracy.

From the beginning, NIRIJ's model was support rather than ownership of stories. It provides financial, editorial and advisory support to Iraqi journalists so they can carry out detailed investigative reports based on searching for documented facts, supported by a variety of sources closely related to the topic under investigation. Granting support depends on the strength of the idea: at its workshops, the network discusses giving cash support to journalists intending to carry out investigations built on crucial ideas and documented facts, shedding light on a negative phenomenon whose exposure might lead to positive change in Iraqi society.

Mission and How It Supports Journalists

NIRIJ states its main mission in two parts. The first is producing detailed investigative reports. The second is improving the skills of Iraqi investigative journalists and spreading the culture of investigation in Iraqi journalism, so that investigation becomes a regulatory device in public life: diagnosing faults, following financial and administrative corruption, and exposing violations against the different segments of society in Iraq. In practice that means accompanying a journalist through the whole life of a story.

The working method is visible in the network's first training workshop for investigative journalism skills. Participants presented the hypotheses they were working on to NIRIJ, which funds and editorially supervises the resulting reports in cooperation with IMS. Each report plan was discussed in detail, beginning with analysing the parts of the hypothesis, identifying the required sources and the most important questions to put to those sources. Humanitarian stories from winning reports were examined in detail to explain the structure of a successful investigative report, how to arrange priorities in making one, and how to grade the use of stories and information. That hypothesis-first, source-led discipline remains the network's signature.

Website and Languages

NIRIJ took its work online in June 2012, when its website was launched in mid-June in Arabic, English and Kurdish, described at the time as the first of its kind in Iraq. The site contains investigations by both aspiring and experienced Iraqi investigative journalists, and lets readers follow stories on corruption, mismanagement of funds and power across Iraq. All investigations are translated, so that Arabic-speaking Iraqis and readers in the Kurdistan Region can stay informed, while English translations give international readers an insight into Iraqi investigative reporting and let journalists elsewhere follow exposés in the country.

The network said at the launch that it hoped the site would open a window for more Iraqi journalists interested in investigative reporting to learn about international experience in the field, while letting international visitors better understand the issues in Iraqi society. Alongside the site, NIRIJ published its first full publication detailing its most recent investigations, and later produced an investigative journalism magazine with IMS support, in which investigations such as the Ishaqi inquiry were published locally in Iraqi media and internationally. The network mainly works in Iraq, but it also supports investigations in Syria where security, social, economic and environmental files overlap between the two countries.

Training, Workshops and University Work

Training is the second pillar of NIRIJ's work. Its training guide, Gateway to Journalistic Investigation, written by Saman Noah, who served as the network's executive director, became an accredited training manual in several Iraqi universities, institutes and press establishments. Hundreds of Iraqi journalists relied on it during training between 2014 and 2018, and it was translated into Kurdish for use as a guidebook in the universities of the Kurdistan Region. The guide has been used to train students in investigative reporting at universities including Baghdad University, Al-Mustansiriya University, the Iraqi University, Tikrit University, Thi Qar University, Al-Anbar University, Erbil University, Al-Sulaymaniyah University, the Islamic University in Najaf, Dijla College, the Polytechnic University of Dohuk and Mosul University.

That academic footprint deepened in 2016, when two universities in Baghdad opened investigative journalism units, described as Iraq's first academic units of the kind, with universities in Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk also helped by IMS. NIRIJ trainers provided training to both teachers and students, and NIRIJ journalists provided much of the teaching in the new units. The curriculum, its executive director explained, was designed to address the Iraqi context and realities, while drawing on international experience and training NIRIJ had gained over the years; students praised the material as a practical, step-by-step guide rather than a dry theoretical book. NIRIJ also convened professional gatherings: its Second Gathering of Professional Journalism, held in Sulaymaniyah, drew more than 100 journalists, academics and students, with six public debate sessions, more than 30 speakers, two training workshops for 40 participants, and a competition that received 59 journalistic entries. Journalists and academics there declared the formation of a press lobby to defend genuine freedom of press work within Iraq's constitution.

Investigations and Themes

The subjects NIRIJ journalists have investigated reflect the network's watchdog brief: waste of public funds, lack of justice, failures of public officials and the principle of accountability. One prominent early investigation, by Mayadah Daoud Hasan, re-examined the Ishaqi incident, the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly by United States forces in the town of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad, in March 2006. Begun in 2011 after WikiLeaks published a classified diplomatic cable about the incident, the investigation drew on interviews with more than a dozen relatives of the victims, policemen, judicial investigators and local officials, and on forensic reports from Tikrit General Hospital; it led to the establishment of a civil society organisation campaigning to defend the victims' rights and reopen the investigation.

Other investigations have ranged widely. A NIRIJ investigation into the use of expired medications attracted press coverage and official attention. An investigation entitled ISIS's Real Estate Empire examined the mysterious disappearance of thousands of property deeds in Mosul. More recent NIRIJ-supported work has included investigations by Nawzat Shamdin, Dlovan Barwari, Ahmed Al-Rabiei, Laith Nateq and a Nineveh investigative team. In 2020 the network highlighted, among others, Mizar Kemal's investigation The Endless War, on Iraq's heavy legacy of depleted uranium, and investigations into issues where, as IMS staff put it, only the eyes of investigative journalists gaze.

Impact and Official Responses

NIRIJ measures success partly by what happens after publication. IMS coordinators in Iraq noted that work by NIRIJ attracted press coverage and attention from government agencies, and that the investigation into expired medications led to court proceedings and compensation for victims. The network itself reports that several of its investigations achieved widespread reactions that pushed government agencies to follow up on the details of the files raised and take action on them. The Ishaqi investigation, similarly, did not end at publication: it contributed to the creation of a civil society organisation defending the victims' rights.

That impact has been achieved against a difficult background. Accessing information is the greatest challenge, NIRIJ's executive director has said, together with lack of time, censorship, and threats from corrupt politicians and terrorist organisations. Journalists describe a lack of appropriate laws on the right to access information and very few resources; sources are often reluctant to be quoted on sensitive topics such as corruption or terrorism, and official doors are repeatedly closed, from ministries to foreign embassies. NIRIJ's answer is persistence and method: when one door closes, its journalists look for other possibilities.

Awards and Recognition

Investigations supported by NIRIJ have won sustained regional recognition. In December 2012, Mayadah Daoud Hasan won the UNICEF Media Award on Child Rights for an investigation carried out with NIRIJ's assistance. At the sixth Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) conference in Amman in December 2013, three NIRIJ journalists shared the first prize for the best investigative reports in the Arab world: Mayadah Dawood, for Half a Billion Dollars in Annual Privileges Implicate Iraq's Parliament in the Biggest Corruption Phenomenon in the Middle East, and Dlovan Barwari and Salam Jihad, honoured for their investigation into how the children of the victims of al-Qaeda fighters might become a new generation of extremists.

The recognition continued. Mizar Kemal's depleted uranium investigation reached the shortlist of the ARIJ Investigative Journalism Award 2019, and the Global Investigative Journalism Network selected it among the best Arab investigative investigations of 2019. In the 2020 Samir Kassir Freedom of the Press competition, organised with European Union support and described as one of the most prestigious press freedom awards in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf, two NIRIJ-supported journalists won: Mostafa Abu Shams took the investigative article category for Children of the Unknown, on the fate of 12,000 children born to Syrian women and foreign fighters who had joined the Islamic State, and Kamal Ayyash won the student category for Fifteen Years After the Bombing of Phosphorous, on deformed births in Fallujah. NIRIJ also runs its own recognition, declaring competition winners at its professional gatherings.

Working Conditions for Investigative Journalists in Iraq

Research on Iraqi investigative journalism helps explain why a support network matters. A European Journalism Observatory study found that only about a fifth of investigative journalists interviewed said they had the equipment required for their work, only 12 per cent confirmed that a culture of investigative journalism existed in their workplace, and more than half, 60 per cent, said they felt undervalued by their own media organisation. Low wages, and the temptation of corruption they create, were identified as a serious challenge, and few training courses in the genre were offered, with only 12 per cent of those interviewed having taken courses run by international organisations.

Gender adds a further layer. Mayadah Daoud Hasan, who has a degree in economics and worked as a journalist for more than eight years while based in Baghdad, has described overcoming cultural and gender obstacles in a conservative, male-dominated society, while noting that being a woman also made some investigations possible, including on children's rights and on women accused of terrorism. Her stated position captures the ethos NIRIJ promotes: it is the journalist's job to uncover the truth, despair is not an option, and fear or weakness cannot be shown. Kawa Germyani, a journalist murdered at his home in Sulaymaniyah in December 2013 after investigating corruption at government level, is a reminder of the risks that frame this work.

Legacy and Role in Iraqi Media

NIRIJ's legacy is institutional as much as editorial. It created Iraq's first investigative journalism network, normalised the idea that individual journalists could be funded and supervised to pursue documented investigations over months, carried that practice into university classrooms through an accredited training guide and dedicated academic units, and demonstrated, through awards and official responses, that Iraqi investigative reporting could change outcomes. Its trilingual website made Iraqi investigations readable across the country's language communities and internationally from 2012 onwards.

For readers, NIRIJ at nirij.org remains a specialist destination rather than a general news site: a place to follow investigations into corruption, mismanagement and abuse of power across Iraq, produced by Iraqi journalists with financial, editorial and advisory backing, in a country where, as its trainers and reporters repeatedly note, such journalism is both unusually difficult and unusually necessary.