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

Arta Giga, Board Chair: Arta is the leading TV producer of investigative journalism in Latvia. For the last decade she has been executive editor of Nothing Personal, an investigative journalism program that airs on commercial television. Prior to that, she worked 15 years in public broadcaster where she founded similar programs. She also produces movies, TV series and documentaries.

Peter Folkins: Peter is from Canada, but has lived in Latvia since 2006. Before that, he worked as lawyer in Toronto, Canada, and did corporate finance, institutional sales and investment management in Mumbai and Hong Kong.

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 worked in the press and television since 1996. After a brief stint at the European Commission, Sanita returned to journalism in 2014 and now serves as the executive director and editor at Re:Baltica. She used to head Latvian Journalists Association and represents Latvia at UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication. She regularly teaches investigative journalism, newsroom management and other subjects with OSCE, UNESCO, SSE Riga, Thomson Reuters Foundation and others. When she has time, Sanita scripts 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 Liepina 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.

Ilze Vēbere is a Re:Check journalist. Before that she worked in TV3 news and news agency LETA. Ilze has a bachelor’s degree in communication science and a master’s degree in written translation.

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.

Jānis Orbidāns is an editing director who turns all our ideas into a video format.

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).

 

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, we have been beneficiaries in the first competitive call for cross-border investigative journalism in EU, IJ4EU, Open Society Foundations, Sigrid Rausing Trust, Latvian Culture Capital Foundation, POBB program etc). Second is our own income which we earn from teaching, moderating the events, doing research, scripting documentaries. 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 2020, 6 percent of our income were donations, 66 percent grants and 28 percent we earned ourselves.