Investigative Techniques
Updated Test of 24 LLMs for Geolocation
Bellingcat ran a series of geolocation challenges using two dozen popular AI platforms, with varying results.
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Investigative Techniques News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
How Newsrooms Are Using AI Chatbots to Leverage Their Own Reporting — and Build Trust
From the Philippines to the UK, a number of major newsrooms have created their own AI chatbots designed to respond using only that site’s trusted reporting archive and vetted databases as source material.
Investigative Techniques Press Freedom
Mining Social Media and Visiting Morgues to Document Police Violence in Bangladesh
“Our priority was to reveal what the government was trying to hide,” says Zyma Islam about the work of her team in the weeks that changed her country.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Beginner’s Guide to Identifying Explosive Ordnance in Social Media Imagery
The rise of conflict imagery on social media has provided open source researchers valuable material to identify explosive ordnance.
Investigative Techniques Methodology
Investigating Russia’s Proliferating Use — And Supply — Of Attack Drones Against Ukraine
A cross-border investigation into Russia’s use of drones in Ukraine includes how drones are assembled despite sanctions, and cooperation with Tehran to produce UAVs on Russian soil.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Using ChatGPT as a Quick Search Tool in Investigations
At IRE24, investigative reporter Jeremy Jojola shared his practical advice on how to use ChatGPT for contact searches and quick document analysis.
Investigative Techniques Methodology
Embracing Failure: The Importance of Learning from Your Mistakes in Open Source Reporting
Small amounts of failure in the open source field are inevitable, and somewhat expected. But they will also help you become a better open source analyst and investigator.
How They Did It Investigative Techniques
How Reporting From Six Years Ago Exposed a Political Fundraising Scandal That Rocked India’s Elections
Poonam Agarwal explains how her reporting six years ago ultimately led to one of the biggest political fundraising scandals in a decade.
Databases Investigative Techniques
Guide to Investigating Digital Ad Libraries
Digital investigations expert Craig Silverman offers a short guide to using digital ad libraries to dig through online influence efforts.
How They Did It Investigative Techniques
‘Smoke and Lies’: How Visual Forensics Disproved Official Accounts of a Deadly Migrant Center Fire
Lighthouse Reports journalists share how their cross-border collaboration investigated the deaths of 40 people in a fire at a migrant detention center.
Tipsheet Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Reporter’s Tipsheet for Acquiring Free Satellite Images
There is a treasure trove of compelling visual evidence out there that is going unused by many watchdog journalists. Here’s how to find it.
Investigative Techniques News & Analysis News & Analysis
Lessons Learned from the Fact-Checking Collective That Covered India’s National Elections
How a fact-checking collective in India fought misinformation and deepfakes in that country’s recently concluded elections.
Investigative Techniques Research
‘The Cost of Free Land’: Investigating a Personal and National Legacy of Indigenous Land Theft
Rebecca Clarren’s investigative history grapples with her immigrant family’s success at the expense of their Indigenous neighbors.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Dissecting Propaganda: Using AI to Cut Through North Korean TV Spin
Accessing information from isolated nations like North Korea is difficult. Cutting-edge AI tools now enable efficient analysis of foreign language video broadcasts.
Investigative Techniques
29 Journalists Graduate from GIJN’s Third Digital Threats Training Course
The third cohort of GIJN’s online training in cyber and digital threats investigations has now completed, graduating journalists from more than 26 countries.
Investigative Techniques News & Analysis
Building Trust and Authenticity in Visual Journalism in the Age of Deepfakes
Photo editors and AI experts discuss the dangers of generative AI and other synthetic media to visual journalism — and what news organizations can do to reduce them.
Investigative Techniques News & Analysis
Exposing the Money Behind Environmental Destruction
The Pulitzer Center discusses how it has developed different methodologies to uncover environmental wrongdoing, adapted to the region, jurisdiction, and industry.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Linking Shell Companies to their Secret Owners
At a recent panel at the 2024 NICAR conference, Karrie Kehoe, deputy head of data and research at ICIJ, offered a series of tips for investigating the true owners of shell companies.
Tipsheet Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips Research
How to Identify and Investigate AI Audio Deepfakes, a Major 2024 Election Threat
Experts agree that AI-driven audio deepfakes could pose a significant threat to democracy and fair elections in 2024.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
How Journalists Can Practice Self-Care When Investigating Graphic Visuals from War and Conflict
Open source experts are faced with torrents of graphic visuals. So how can journalists protect themselves against harm from incessantly viewing traumatic imagery?
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Finding US Records to Pursue Cross-Border Investigations
A guide to some US government data sources that can help foreign and US journalists covering US wars, arms sales, and the impact of US foreign policy.
Investigative Techniques
Best Practices for Investigating Culprits of War, Human Rights Abuses, and Other Conflict
GIJN senior reporter Rowan Philip shares accumulated best practices from reporters around the world, on how to investigate culprits of war, human rights abuses, and other conflict.
Investigative Techniques Methodology
When to Greenlight an Investigative Pitch — or End the Project?
Committing to a long-term investigation — also known as “greenlighting” — does not always involve a specific moment of decision. At IRE23, GIJN spoke with five veteran investigative editors to ask them what information they need before giving a project the the go-ahead.
Case Studies Investigative Techniques
Tips for Getting New or Reluctant Sources to Talk
For every human source who assists investigative journalists, there are dozens of officials, victims, and potential whistleblowers with vital information whom reporters never engage.
Tipsheet Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
4 More Essential Tips for Using the Wayback Machine
Based on an interview with Wayback Machine’s director, Mark Graham, ProPublica’s Craig Silverman shares more essential tips on using it, including how to bulk archive pages, compare changes, and see when elements of a page were archived.
Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
Journalists’ Guide to Using AI and Satellite Imagery for Storytelling
Satellite imagery provides information that can enhance the ability to write compelling narratives about the state of our planet, cutting across multiple beats. But such a tool tends to be complex and out of the reach for many journalists, so this guide offers a process that reporters interested in covering the climate crisis can use for story projects.
Chapter Guide Video Investigative Techniques Methodology Organized Crime
Guide to Investigating Wildlife Trafficking: Short version
The illegal trafficking of wild animals and plants is damaging biodiversity worldwide and spreading diseases. It’s an international story, with great opportunities for investigations in virtually every country. GIJN’s new guide encourages deep reporting about the subject with tips and tools for covering a global trade.
Investigative Techniques Methodology News & Analysis Reporting Tools & Tips
Investigating Sexual Assault and Abuse
In a GIJN webinar three journalists who have experience reporting on the #MeToo movement and sexual abuse told reporters how to investigate an often-hidden crime. Among their tips are preparing interviewees for the process, investigating the story doggedly, and using alternative forms of evidence to verify your story. Read these and other tips for investigating sexual abuse allegations in GIJN’s latest tipsheet.