About us

Who are we

The Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism Re:Baltica is a non-profit organization that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our investigations and journalists have been quoted on The Guardian, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Mediapart, Meduza, Buzzfeed, BBC, TV Rain, Helsingin Sanomat, YLE and many other international media outlets.

Founded in August 2011, we focus on in-depth investigations of socially important issues in the Baltic region, such as corruption, crime, finances, entrepreneurship, health, human rights and disinformation. Our journalism encourages transparency and reform. We are based in Riga, but work all over Baltics and beyond. We give away our work for free and encourage other media to “steal” it, just, please, notify us at rebaltica(at)rebaltica.com.

What we want

  1. To perform long-term, in-depth cross-border investigations of socially important issues, with a primary focus on social equality, fighting corruption and lack of transparency.
  2. To inform international audiences about the Baltic political, financial and social environment
  3. To bring new, innovative and often cost-saving journalism practices to the Baltic region
  4. To create a network for exchanging information among journalists in the Baltics, Scandinavia, E.U. and Russia

Who are the people

 

Board

Pauls Raudseps, Chairman of the Board

Pauls Raudseps is one of Latvia’s leading journalists and commentators. He writes on a wide variety of topics, including politics, economics, international affairs, and history. Born in the United States, Mr. Raudseps received a degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from Harvard University. In 1990 he moved to Latvia to work for the Popular Front, the organisation that led the fight for Latvian independence. He was one of the founders of Diena, which for many years was Latvia’s leading daily newspaper. Having worked for almost 19 years at the newspaper as managing editor and editorial page editor, he left Diena in October, 2009, to help found the independent weekly news magazine “Ir”, where he is both a commentator and chairman of the advisory board.

Kristīna Rizga, Board Member

Kristīna was born in Latvia, but relocated to US in 1994. There she worked as a writer and an investigative reporter for 18 years, focusing primarily on environmental issues and public education. Her writing has been published in “The Atlantic”, “Mother Jones”, the “Los Angeles Times”, the “Chicago Tribune”, and “The Nation,” among others. In 2015 she published book “Mission High”, for which she spent four years following five students and their teachers in San Francisco school to illustrate the most essential ingredients of great teaching. In 2011, she and Inga Spriņģe co-founded Re:Baltica.

Andrus Vaher, Board Member

After graduating as journalist from University of Tartu in 1992, Andrus Vaher worker in various positions at Estonian business newspaper “Äripäev” (owned by Bonnier Group) until 2004. Then he moved to Russia and became CEO of Bonnier’s business paper in Russia, “Delovoy Peterburg” (2004-2016) and Fontanka.ru (2014 – 2016). After Bonnier sold all media assets in Russia after invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Mr. Vaher worked as CEO for “Bonnier Business Forum” for the next five years. In 2021, he launched “Investoru klubs” in Latvia and in 2022 Russian media outlet “Repost” in Tallinn which uses social media to cover Russian aggression towards Ukraine and changes in Russian society at its sharp turn into totalitarian state.

Dmitrijs Bauļins

Dmitrijs Bauļins is a partner and Chief Investment Officer of Swiss asset management boutique “HQAM” as well as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Latvian investment company “Alphinox”. Mr. Bauļins spent his entire 20 year career managing Swiss and German institutional and private clients assets. He relocated back to Latvia in 2020.

Full time staff

Inga Spriņģe is an award winning investigative journalist, broadcaster and one of the two founders of Re:Baltica. In 2010/2011, Spriņģe was a Fulbright/Humphrey scholar and spent a year in the University of Maryland, working as intern in The Washington Post and The Center for Public Integrity. In 2014 Spriņģe was named as one of the “outstanding challengers from Central and Eastern Europe” in the project NewEurope100 supported by Google and Financial Times. She has been the head of Latvian Journalists Association and is co-teaching Media literacy class at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga). Springe spent fall of 2018 at Harriman Institute at Columbia University to create a media management program at SSE Riga.

Sanita Jemberga has been working in the media since 1996. After a brief hiatus from journalism to work at the European Commission, Sanita returned in 2014 as the executive director and editor of Re:Baltica. She also represents more than 50 investigative journalism centres worldwide on the board of OCCRP. She also serves on the board of the magazine “IR.” In collaboration with organizations such as OSCE, UNESCO, SSE Riga, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and others, Sanita regularly teaches courses on investigative journalism, news management, and other subjects. Additionally, Sanita has been working as a media expert in international election observation missions for 15 years. When she has time, Sanita writes scripts for documentaries.

Evita Puriņa leads Re:Baltica’s fact-checking and social media research hub, Re:Check. Previously, she worked as a correspondent for the leading Latvian daily in Riga and Brussels, and as an editor-in-chief in the one of the best regional newspapers. She is also the main content creator for media literacy program Full Thought, which is taught in schools, and was a regular contributor to public broadcaster’s special fact checking column: before we stole her from them.

Inese Braže used to work in the Latvian newspaper Diena and produce TV with Janis Domburs for Delfi TV, but now she is with us working as an investigative journalist/researcher and producing a satirical show By The Way. She graduated from Rigas Stradinsh university and is Distinguished Humphrey fellowship program alumni.

Annija Petrova is a Re:Baltica and Re:Check journalist. Annija graduated University of Latvia, she has bachelor’s degree in communication science and master’s degree in political science. Before Re:Baltica Annija for several years used to work in the News service of Latvia’s public broadcaster Latvian Radio.

Ronalds Siliņš is a Re:Check journalist. Ronalds has a master’s degree in biology with specialization in microbiology from University of Copenhagen. Before Re:Check, he worked as an editor for the Latvian edition of Science Illustrated (Ilustrētā Zinātne).

Olga DragilevaOlga Dragiļeva is an experienced journalist who, in her more than 15-year-long career, has worked in several leading Latvian media. She gained recognition as an investigative journalist on the LTV broadcast “DeFacto” and as the host and author of the Delfi TV broadcast “Kāpēc.” Olga holds a master’s degree from the University of Tampere in Finland.

Madara Eihe appeared as someone who wanted to volunteer for Re:Baltica. Little did she know that she will end up as our regular illustrator and the technical guru.

Ieva Strazdiņa is Community relations manager and Project manager at Re:Baltica. She has bachelor’s degree in International economic relations and a master’s degree in Project management. She also can’t imagine life without books and tries to encourage others to read more.

Elizabete Rode creates content for Re:Baltica’s social media accounts and is currently studying Materials Technology and Design at Riga Technical University.

Emīls Ernests “Miko” Rode is responsible for creating illustrations and animations on Re:Baltica’s social media platforms. He is a full-time architecture student at Riga Technical University and designer at the fashion brand Tribal Hotel.

Volunteers (and others)

We currently don’t have any active volunteers. However, we previously worked, teached and gained from the enthusiasm of Gunita Gailāne, Ilze Pole, Elīna Gulbe, Laura Zvejniece, Gundega Tupiņa, Gundars Veidemanis, Raivis Vilūns, Lote Lārmane and late Andra Tully.

Where can you find our work

Investigative reporting is expensive and time consuming, which is why most media outlets around the world are cutting it. The main idea behind our center is to keep this important work alive without the daily pressures of maintaining a large audience or attracting advertising. Our model centers on pushing content out through a variety of platforms rather than building a new platform and competing for readers. You can find our work at Ir, Sestdiena, TVnet.lv, MK – Latvii, The Baltic Times, TV3 Latvija, Lsm.lv and in the public broadcasters in Latvia, Eesti Express, Postimees and Delfi in Estonia, IQ, Delfi, 15min.lt in Lithuania. Our works has been published in Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Who pays for this

Our income is built from three sources. First is competitive grants, mostly from the institutions based in EU/NATO countries (for example, over years we have been beneficiaries in the competitive calls for cross-border investigative journalism in EU, IJ4EU, Open Society Foundations, European Commission/BECID, Sigrid Rausing Trust, Latvian Society Integration Fund, Calouste Gulbenkian foundation, Free Press Unlimited, POBB program etc). Second is our own income which we earn from teaching, moderating the events, doing research, scripting and producing documentaries as well as providing fact-checking services to META. Third source of income are donations, both from physical and legal persons, list of which is attached to our annual reports. Re:Baltica has been recognised as the organisation which is doing the public good, therefore the donors can get the tax-break. All donors – individual or institutional – who gives more than EUR 4999 have to sign an agreement which protects Re:Baltica’s editorial independence.

In 2023, Re:Baltica ‘s total revenue was 453,804 euros. Of this, 10% came from donations, 48% from grants, and 42% was self-earned.

The main sources of revenue (exceeding 1% of total revenue) were:

  • Media Support Fund (open newsroom in Daugavpils and the series “Schism”) through a competitive process
  • META
  • Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (EMIF) through a competitive process
  • International Press Institute
  • BECID (a project funded by the European Commission) through a competitive process
  • Small donations from individuals (EUR 1 – 500) totaled 23,018.71 euros
  • Small donations from legal entities (EUR 1 – 1000) totaled 200 euros.

In 2023, Re:Baltica received payments for work from Latvian public media for creating programs to expose disinformation, as well as grants for participation in projects from the Belarusian Investigative Center and Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH. None of these sources accounted for more than 1% of Re:Baltica’s total revenue.