From NICAR25, Four Free Cutting Edge and Time-Saving Investigative Data Tools

The recent NICAR 2025 data journalism summit unpacked a treasure trove of investigative tools and techniques.

GIJN will dig into these cutting edge resources and highlight techniques that we think are most useful for the international investigative journalism community in a series of stories in the weeks ahead .

In this first installment, we share some of the no-cost, easy-to-use digital tools that we believe are generally underused by reporters.

Open source RAWGraphs web app is ideal for briefings and brainstorms.

The app includes 30 chart models, from Sankey diagrams to heatmaps, and its Youtube channel offers helpful tutorials on how to build and export each one.

It’s great for brainstorming. And you don’t even have to sign up — that's how quick it is..