Data journalism and investigative news reporting practices during the pandemic: The case of Zimbabwe and South Africa

This chapter interrogates the opportunities and challenges provided by data journalism to investigative journalists during the pandemic. Our findings reveal a paradoxical contribution of data journalism to investigative journalism. On the one hand, unprepared newsrooms and journalists found it hard to understand the practice, whose demands were “foreign” to some journalists. Yet on the other hand, data-driven journalism provided immense opportunities to investigative journalists to play their monitory role more effectively – holding the ruling elites to account, providing “lively and real-time” fact-based news on the pandemic, countering state propaganda on the pandemic and widening investigative journalists’ news sourcing routines. The lockdown led to a “flight and retreat of news sources”, yet data journalism revitalised investigative journalism by opening up other avenues of news sourcing and countering pandemic-related disinformation. In a region rife with elite corruption, unaccountable use of public resources and public scepticism with the state, data journalism provided avenues to investigative journalists to reclaim their fourth estate role and hold the powerful elite to account during the pandemic, making unique contribution to monitory democracy in Zimbabwe and South Africa.