Mundus alumna forms investigative reporting centre

Italian alumna Guia Baggi, Mundus cohort 2009-2011, is part of a group that has launched IRPI, the first non-profit investigative reporting centre in Italy.

Together with Leo Sisti, Cecilia Anesi, Giulio Rubino, Lorenzo Bodrero, Cecilia Ferrara, Guido Romeo, Alessia Cerantola and Mara Monti, Guia Baggi is part of the Board of Directors of Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), the first non-profit investigative journalism centre in the country. Baggi translated her interest and knowledge acquired while working on her MA thesis, “Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in Europe: Motives, Organisations and Practices”, and became an investigative journalist herself. The founders of IRPI define themselves as a group of investigative journalists who “intend to inform our audience about any kind of wrongdoing, with a special focus on public affairs”. They investigate many issues in the country, such as “the dirty businesses of corrupt politicians, the Italian mafias and their numerous ‘branches’”.

But as Baggi's thesis reveals, transnational cooperation between the various investigative journalism centres is necessary. That is why “IRPI will cover other issues too, such as Islamic terrorism or environmental crimes. IRPI won’t restrict itself to national borders. We will cross them, with the help and collaboration of similar organizations and reporters in other countries.” In addition to authoring written articles and reports and multimedia projects, IRPI offers foreign journalists help with contacts, locations, records, data, language and bureaucracy issues for their stories involving Italy, and offers services in many languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Japanese.

Image: IRPI on twitter, website and article updated 15/10/16