IJB launches new podcast, ‘Heliograph: The Investigative Journalism Playbook’

Out now, the monthly podcast celebrates the best in investigative journalism and features conversations with investigative reporters from around the world

Toronto – The Investigative Journalism Bureau is pleased to announce the debut of its monthly podcast, Heliograph: The Investigative Journalism Playbook, examining powerful investigative journalism from around the world. The podcast pulls back the curtain on the strategies, lessons learned, and stories behind the stories that change the world.

Hosted by IJB journalists, listeners can expect candid conversations with accomplished reporters sharing the inspirations, challenges, risks and rewards behind some of the world’s most impactful investigative reporting.

“The best investigative reporting always prompts a question –– how did they do that?” says IJB Director Robert Cribb. “Heliograph explores the sparks of ideas where stories begin, the harvesting of facts, the legal and ethical repercussions and the resulting stories that make a difference. It’s a real-life strategy session on truth telling that matters.”

Heliographs were devices for capturing images of the sun. As a podcast, Heliograph examines the brilliant, elusive and inspiring work of some of the world’s best investigative reporters in an attempt to understand their methods, techniques, motivations and reverberations. 

Each installment of Heliograph focuses on reporting that creates meaningful change and reflects the IJB’s core values: collaborative and innovative storytelling in the public interest. The podcast also embodies the IJB’s educational mission to offer top-notch training in  investigative research and reporting. 

The inaugural episode launching October 12, 2023 examines “Unguarded,” a three-month investigation by Miami-based WLRN Public Radio and Television reporters Joshua Ceballos and Daniel Rivero, showing how a government-funded program in Florida sold dozens of family homes for cheap to businesses and individuals that have ties to Miami’s city attorney.    

New episodes drop monthly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.      

Reporting on The Invisible Burdens of Women – Heliograph: The Investigative Journalism Playbook

In this episode of Heliograph: Snapshots, we talk with IJB OG, Emma Jarratt. What makes Jarratt's reporting important is not just that her work takes aim at power, but that her work shares stories that are hiding in plain sight. These are stories we should not take for granted. They’re stories we should have known by now and reckoned with. And they are stories that report on the invisible suffering of women. In her career she has chosen to take big swings at very difficult subjects and does so with a fierce lens and a steady touch.You can read this work at: https://ijb.utoronto.ca/projects/privileged-and-confidential/Learn more about IJB at: ijb.utoronto.caSupport the IJB at: https://ijb.utoronto.ca/support-us/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1. Reporting on The Invisible Burdens of Women 28:48
2. Heliograph Chapter 7: Reporting on the sadistic world of monkey torture 28:56
3. Heliograph Snapshots: Reporting on death featuring Robert Cribb 27:35
4. Heliograph Chapter 6: Stacked Against 15:42
5. Heliograph Chapter 5: Suspended 22:15

The Investigative Journalism Bureau is an impact-driven, collaborative newsroom that brings together professional and student journalists, academics, graduate students and media organizations to tell deeply reported stories in the public interest. Based at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, the IJB has national reporting honors since its inception in 2020.

Media contact: ijb.dlsph@utoronto.ca 

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