About the Caucasus Investigative Reporting Center

The Caucasus Investigative Reporting Center, located in Tbilisi, Georgia, is dedicated to helping reporters hone investigative reporting skills in a comprehensive and responsible manner.

In 2005-2006, its first year of operation, international and local trainers will help three teams of reporters examine issues of importance to Georgian society as it evolves from a failed and corrupt post-Soviet state to a developing democracy. Subsequent reports will address comparable issues in the neighboring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Each team of reporters will undergo training in the latest techniques of investigative reporting, including computer-assisted reporting, internet research, and locating and analyzing documents. CIRC has two staff trainers and editors (one in English and one Georgian), who assemble rosters of local and international experts for each project.

The teams will spend two months researching, reporting and writing their stories, which will be posted on the project’s website, www.circ.ge, in Georgian and English. As each series is completed, it will be made available to local media at no cost.

The Tbilisi center is modeled on the Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia, the first such organization in the Balkans, which posts its projects at www.cin.ba. CIRC is funded by an anti-corruption grant from USAID and Global Conflict Prevention Pool (United Kingdom) through the Eurasia Foundation and by the International Center for Journalists in Washington, DC. It is a joint project with Kent State University in the US state of Ohio, which provides technical assistance in broadcasting as well as investigative journalism.

Look: http://www.circ.ge/english/index