I organized my first investigation travel for journalists.network (jn) in 2006, together with my colleagues Oliver Bilger (Sueddeutsche Zeitung) and Stefanie Bolzen (Die Welt). For about one week we traveled through Romania, visited Bucharest and Sibiu and met a lot of people there. It was one year before the EU membership, so there were a lot of interesting aspects for investigation such as corruption and the approaching transformation of the agriculture branch. In terms of corruption we met for example the Romanian Minister for Justice, Macovei.
The organization of such a travel means: to find sponsors, to create a program, to find suitable people for discussion, to book hotels and flights, to select applicants, to pass the travel, to prepare the bill and to document the articles and radio packages for the sponsors…. lavishly but it’s worth it.
Through such a journey young journalists get the opportunity to explore a new country (for 350 to 450 euro) and to meet interesting people. Ideally there arise some good articles / radio packages which are published in important German media (such as Sueddeutsche Zeitung, taz, FTD, Reuters, National Public Radio etc.). Every year there are four to five investigation journeys organized by voluntary journalists – more detailed information you get on: http://www.journalists-network.org/.
The last investigation journeys I organized was to the Republic of Moldova / Transnistria in December 2010 and to Poland / Ukraine in 2012.