Investigative Techniques Reporting Tools & Tips
How to Verify Bystander Video
From the Minneapolis shootings to the Guthrie kidnapping, visual investigation skills are now mandatory. Here’s how to do it.
Tag
Henk van Ess
13 posts
Global Academy On-Demand Courses
SOLD OUT: AI Without the Guesswork: Smarter Journalism Without Prompting and Hallucinations
In this full-day session, investigative trainer Henk van Ess will teach journalists how to use AI for source discovery and data analysis, stop hallucinations, and prompt effectively without memorizing a single template.
Past event
Webinar: Detecting AI-Generated Content – Updated Tools and Techniques
March 26, 2026
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Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Turning Unreadable Text Into Evidence
Whether it’s extracting names from footage, decoding social media posts, or reading distorted text in documents, Henk van Ess explains how free digital tools can take on these investigative tasks.
GIJN Workshop: Search Tips for LinkedIn – How to Track People and Companies on the World’s Top Professional Network
GIJN is pleased to announce a hands-on session with search guru Henk van Ess, focused on helping journalists worldwide to navigate the LinkedIn network. The session will include how to track people and companies across the platform, find out what individuals and companies post online on specific topics, and figure out who is part of a specific LinkedIn group without being a member.
Resource Tipsheet
Tips for Optimizing Google Search in Investigations, from Online Expert Henk van Ess
At a recent GIJN online workshop, open source research expert Henk van Ess offered key tips and techniques for optimizing the use of Google search in your investigations.
Resource Video
So You Think You Can Google? – Workshop With Henk van Ess
We need to talk about Google! The world’s most popular search engine tries to please as many people as possible. But for journalists, the quality of results has rapidly declined. What is the issue and what can investigators do about it? GIJN is pleased to announce a hands-on session with search guru Henk van Ess, […]
GIJN Workshop: So You Think You Can Google?
GIJN is pleased to announce a hands-on session with search guru Henk van Ess, focused on helping journalists worldwide to find the best answers online in the shortest amount of time.
News & Analysis
A Curated List of GIJN’s Top Stories from 2021
One of our core missions at GIJN is providing journalists in the field with the latest tools and techniques. To do that, we work hard to find original stories that will be of immediate, practical help for watchdog reporters around the world. Here is a curated list of 10 of the notable stories we’ve published this year, reflecting our most popular articles, groundbreaking discoveries, topical issues, and stories you just shouldn’t miss.
Reporting Tools & Tips
Tips for Mining Social Media Platforms with Henk van Ess
Open source reporting expert Henk van Ess has dozens of tricks to find elusive social media information through indirect means, as well as a search app he created. In a recent GIJN webinar on “Investigating Social Media,” Van Ess shared several of these tips.