Regional investigative journalism is important, says BIHUS.Info journalist at an IMI Mediabaza training class

Training class on working with open registers at Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson. Photo by Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson

Despite registers being partially closed and the restrictions on access to information under martial law, Odesa journalists can still investigate and monitor the actions of local authorities and law enforcers.

This was the conclusion to the training class "Working with Open Registers: How to Search for Information" given by BIHUS.Info journalist Anastasia Usenko at Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson.

The journalist believes that regional investigations are no less important than the materials by large national outlets.

"All investigations – regardless of the scale and the region they cover – are equally important. After all, there are specific names and positions behind each corruption story. Often in our work, we turn to our regional colleagues while investigating an official with ties to a specific region," Anastasia Usenko said.

Training class on working with open registers at Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson. Photo by Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson

Anastasia Usenko says that prior to the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was one of the leading countries in terms of data openness. Due to the war and related threats, many of these open sources were temporarily disabled, some of them had been restricted significantly. Still this toolkit, albeit somewhat limited, helps carry out high-quality journalistic investigations and verify information.

The practical part of the class included searching for information about certain people and the participants sharing their experience.

"It is very helpful that the basic theory is interspersed with practical excercises and concrete examples. Very useful knowledge, which I would like to apply in practice," said training participant Yulia Sybir.

In addition to searching for information on persons, the participants learned to gather information on business by studying the capabilities of the official state register:

• usr.minjust.gov.ua;
• business analytics system YouControl (youcontrol.com.ua);
• Opendatabot (opendatabot.ua).

The court register and searching for budget spending information were also discussed.

Training class on working with open registers at Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson. Photo by Mediabaza Odesa, Kherson