San Francisco, June 28, 2014 – Rana Sabbagh, running Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) since 2005, has won a seat on the first board of directors of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) with the highest total votes.

Sabbagh, a career journalist and first female chief editor of a political daily in the Near East, won 49 votes from 66 non-profit investigative journalism organizations who took part in the week-long electronic vote that ended on June 16, according to David Kaplan, GIJN Executive Director.

“Our highest vote total went to Rana Sabbagh, the life-long executive director of ARIJ,” he told an international luncheon at the sidelines of the annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) in San Francisco, California.

“This is a tribute to Rana’s years of hard work and spreading world-class investigative journalism across the Middle East and North Africa,” he added. “Our membership around the world has recognized how much important work Rana has achieved”.

The GIJN was created in 2003 when more than 300 journalists from around the world gathered for the second Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Copenhagen. Since then it has grown to more than 90 member organizations in 44 countries. Its member organizations produce stories, conduct training, provide resources, and encourage the creation of similar nonprofit groups.

Every 18 to 24 months, GIJN holds the Global Investigative Journalism Conference, which brings together nearly 4,000 journalists from 100 countries since 2001.

The new GIJN board structure reserves six positions for representatives of six geographic regions.

To start the new board, members are elected to terms of one year or two years (and thereafter for two years). The current term lengths were determined by a coin toss. Regional seats went to the top vote-getter in each of the six regions. Ms. Sabbagh represents the Middle East and North Africa, for one year.

The Amman-based ARIJ is the region’s leading media support network promoting investigative journalism among journalists, editors, students and media professors in nine countries: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq and Tunisia.