By Enock Sithole
The 2025 African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC), hosted by Wits University, is shaping up to be a major platform for advancing journalism education and professional development across the continent.
Now in its 21st year, the AIJC will take place from the 5th to 7th of November in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference continues to grow in scale and scope, drawing journalists, educators and media innovators from across Africa, including an increasing number from countries from other parts of the world.
AIJC 2025 will feature a broad range of training sessions and workshops aimed at strengthening investigative and data journalism. Topics include data wrangling, follow-the-money reporting, health journalism, whistleblowing, journalists’ safety and innovation in storytelling. Each session is designed to provide hands-on learning and promote collaboration among participants.
Several sessions are particularly relevant to journalism education. The session on Investigating with AI will explore how journalists can harness artificial intelligence for data analysis, source protection, and investigative efficiency. Fundamentals of Photojournalism will build visual storytelling skills, while Sustaining the Story focuses on nonprofit journalism models and newsroom innovation. Other sessions include Investigating Critical Minerals in Southern Africa, which blends environmental science and investigative reporting, and Beyond Exposure, which examines solutions-driven journalism that promotes reform and protects reporters.
AIJC’s educational mission extends beyond skills training, it also encourages critical reflection on journalism’s role in society. The session Educating Under Siege highlights how conflict and displacement affect education, offering lessons in humanitarian and gender-sensitive reporting.
Overall, AIJC 2025 underscores the transformative role of continuous learning in African journalism. It offers a space where practitioners, scholars and students can engage with emerging technologies, ethical challenges and sustainable newsroom practices.
By merging practical training with reflection on journalism’s social impact, the conference strengthens the link between journalism education and practice, preparing a new generation of African journalists to innovate, collaborate and report with integrity.
The programme of the event promises great sessions for professional growth and pedagogical evolution.
The conference programme offers a wide range of training sessions, covering essential skills and new frontiers in journalism. Here are some of the educational themes:
- Data wrangling and follow-the-money investigations — training in techniques to find, clean and interpret data and reveal financial flows.
- Health, whistleblowing and journalists’ safety helping journalists learn how to report safely, ethically and with attention to accountability.
- Innovation, migration — keeping pace with societal shifts and mastering new storytelling or reporting approaches.
Sessions with educational value include:
- Investigating with AI: Tools, Tactics and the Role of NewsAssist AI in African Journalism
This will examine how journalists can use artificial intelligence in investigative work—covering tools, document analysis, source protection, ethical automation, transcription, etc. Important for those training in digital and data journalism. - Fundamentals of Photojournalism for Investigative Journalists
Focused workshop style: practical tips, resource sharing, visual storytelling techniques. Supports developing visual literacy among investigative reporters. - Sustaining the Story: Revenue, Collaboration, and Innovation in Nonprofit Investigative Journalism
For newsroom leaders, freelancers or those involved in nonprofit media: how to build viable models, collaborate across borders, and innovate in a resource-constrained environment. This is core to journalism education in terms of sustainability and professional practice. - Beyond Exposure: How Solutions-Driven Investigative Journalism Can Be a Shield, Not Just a Sword
This session explores how investigative journalism can go beyond uncovering wrongdoing to proposing reforms—a dimension of impact journalism. Also underlines how framing investigations with potential solutions may offer some protection in hostile settings. It’s a lesson in strategy, ethics, and agency for journalists operating in difficult environments. - Investigating Critical Minerals in Southern Africa
Combines environmental journalism, science, data, and community impact. Great for education in specialized reporting (energy transition, geo-journalism) and how to report on technical subjects. - Educating Under Siege: The Resistance of Girls in Conflict Zones in Northern Mozambique
A case study style presentation: covering how conflict disrupts education, how displaced communities cope, policy gaps, etc. Useful pedagogically for those wanting to learn humanitarian reporting, gender issues, conflict coverage.
Why this matters for journalism education?
- Hands-on/applied learning: Many of the sessions are workshops or case studies, not just lectures, so participants get practical tools, methodologies, and strategies.
- Multidisciplinary and technical skills: Data, AI, health, environmental science, visual media — these expand the skill set needed for contemporary investigative journalism.
- Ethics, safety, impact: There is explicit concern for how journalism can be practiced responsibly, in risky environments, with concern for who it affects and how it can drive reform.
- Sustainability and innovation: With many media houses under financial and political pressure, learning about nonprofit models, revenue diversification, collaborating across borders becomes key to keeping journalism alive and vibrant.
Meanwhile, distinguished Gambian lawyer and former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda will be the keynote speaker.
Bensouda is internationally recognised for her leadership in advancing justice and accountability, particularly in complex international criminal cases. During her nine-year tenure she indicted warlords, heads of state and other individuals involved in atrocities in countries including Kenya, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar and Palestine.
Bensouda also laid the groundwork for the court’s indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Palestine.
Like too many journalists on the continent and around the world, Bensouda has also faced numerous threats, intimidation and sanctions for her fearless work. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her efforts, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.