Blogger power: Or how a Filipino professor extends her expertise as a global investigative journalist

A whole new world awaits the adventurous journalist who would dare to ride the rising advances of technology as it impacts social media and the pro-democracy movements in societies long shadowed by restrictive regimes.  

“From Bahrain to Burma, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, savvy muckrakers are using blogs, mobile phones, Google maps, and social media to expose the excesses of the powerful,” writes

Sheila S.Coronel. “Watchdog sites have taken advantage of the Internet to report about corruption and organized crime. Moreover, journalists overseas are mining information from online public records and databases to uncover stories that would previously have been buried in secrecy.”

Tapping the power of social network, Coronel has cranked up her skills for looking beyond the surface of events. Her acumen have been proven since she became the founding executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) up to her current post as the director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism of Columbia University in New York. Calling it her chance to explore “the changing landscape of global investigative journalism,” Coronel has started her own blog called Watchdog Watcher.

“This blog draws from my work, both past and present. It looks at how watchdog reporting is being done around the world; it also contains reflections on what I think is a golden moment for investigative reporting, but also a moment fraught with challenges and threats,” explains Coronel who has trained journalists from “Asia, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere” at one of the world’s premier journalism school. Coronel adds that journalists have to “take advantage of all these opportunities to collaborate across borders and tap into databases that have long been out of reach.”