Viewfinder is a non-profit organisation that seeks to strengthen investigative journalism in southern Africa through original reporting, training, editing and collaboration with like-minded organisations.
Viewfinder is a non-profit organisation that seeks to strengthen investigative journalism in southern Africa through original reporting, training, editing and collaboration with like-minded organisations.
Featured story
Police officers in South Africa still regularly use an Apartheid-era suffocation torture method during interrogations. Despite the widespread use of torture within the police, implicated officers are rarely disciplined.
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A Viewfinder data analysis done in collaboration with the New York Times revealed that “tubing” – a torture method once popular with the apartheid security police – is still pervasive within the police today. Still, torture cases are almost never prosecuted.
A failing government teacher vetting drive has likely left scores of convicted sex offenders in their posts at public schools across South Africa. Longstanding challenges of confusion, backlogs, and non-compliance from teachers remain unaddressed.
The Southern Africa Accountability Journalism Project (SA AJP) aims to support and strengthen investigative journalism in the region. Working with journalists throughout the region, Viewfinder provides editing and mentorship to journalists working for the project.
This investigation exposed how commanders in the South African Police Service protect their colleagues implicated in such crimes as murder, rape, torture and corruption from consequences for their actions. Problem officers are given free reign to reoffend.
This dashboard is an interface to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate’s (IPID) database of more than 47,000 criminal complaints against the police, from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2020.
This investigation exposed how social workers in South Africa routinely fail to detect and intervene in cases of reported child abuse. The consequences for children left in the hands of their abusers can be fatal. We revisit one such avoidable death.
Eight out of ten South African 10-year-olds cannot read for meaning. This investigation exposed how a National Reading Plan – widely touted within government as a remedy for the literacy crisis in the country – failed to deliver on its promise.
This investigation exposed how South Africa’s police watchdog closed thousands of cases prematurely to inflate its performance, obstructing justice for the victims of police brutality and allowing criminal cops to get off scot-free.
Work with us
Viewfinder’s work is collaborative in nature and we value the opportunity to work with like-minded reporters, editors and organisations. If you have a story to pitch or a proposal for working together, get in touch.