Methodology Reporting Tools & Tips
New Technology and Online Resources to Conduct Investigations With Old Photos
Bellingcat’s Foeke Postma offers tips and tools for using new technology and online resources to investigate old photographs.
Bellingcat’s Foeke Postma offers tips and tools for using new technology and online resources to investigate old photographs.
The search of a journalist’s phone in detention exemplifies the threat digital forensics technologies pose to privacy and press freedom around the world. In Botswana, journalists recount the frightening state of government surveillance, powered by international technology companies.
Geospatial technologies and data can be used to contain and respond to the spread of a disease, but can also help in pre-empting and preventing them. Looking at outbreaks of malaria, SARS, H1N1 and Zika, among other viruses, Avneep Dhingra explores how maps and geospatial technology have helped during different outbreaks.
With a $5 million funding budget, the new platform is dreamily promising a new “canvas on which journalists can paint the future of their industry.” But it isn’t clear how the blockchain-based technology will generate the cold hard cash needed to sustain the industry’s revenue-starved publications, writes Rowan Philp for GIJN.
The trove of files that make up the Panama Papers is likely the largest dataset of leaked insider information in the history of journalism. For ICIJ’s Data and Research Unit, it offered a unique set of challenges. The overall size of the data (2.6 terabytes, 11.5 million files), the variety of file types (from spreadsheets, emails and PDFs to obscure and old formats no longer in use), and the logistics of making it all securely searchable for more than 370 journalists around the world are just a few of the hurdles faced over the course of the 12 month investigation.
The Tactical Technology Collective, a Berlin-based group of tech activists, is producing a series of web documentaries on “new forms of investigative journalism.” Its first video, Our Currency Is Information, takes a look at cross-border investigative techniques through the eyes of Romanian journalist Paul Radu. The accompanying website has a transcript of the full interview with Radu, plus a worthwhile resource page with digital tools for research, security, and data visualization.