# Investigative journalism tips and tools: Highlights from the International Journalism Festival

*The International Journalism Festival in Perugia is one of the most intensive weeks in the journalism calendar — panels run in parallel, insights pile up, and it's easy to miss something important. To help you keep up, we've distilled the key takeaways and tools from the investigative journalism sessions worth your attention.*

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### Beyond the battlefield: investigating the business of war

*Uri Blau (Shomrim), Milan Czerny, Timur Olevsky (The Insider), Vivian Schiller (Aspen Digital)*

* **Look for the footnotes:** Investigatory leads often hide in local registry filings rather than major headlines.
* **Customs and digitised databases:** In some regions, like Russia, black-market digitised databases are vital for tracking procurement.
* **Financial leak datasets:** Leverage access to large datasets through organisations like ICIJ or OCCRP to find new connections in current conflicts.<br>

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/beyond-the-battlefield-investigating-the-business-of-war>" %}

### Welcome to the age of the upside down: how to cover the U.S. as an Axis power

*Natalia Antelava (Coda Story), Patricia Campos Mello (Folha de São Paulo), Peter Geoghegan (Democracy for Sale), Julie Posetti (Information Integrity Initiative), Maria Ressa (Rappler)*

* **Track "narrative warfare":** Monitor how executive orders and government actions act as "content triggers" for massive online amplification campaigns.
* **Identify "technocratic capture":** Look for instances where tech companies are essentially privatising state functions, such as in health data or military targeting.
* **Strategic litigation:** Use legal challenges to force the disclosure of documents related to government-tech deals (e.g., the Palantir NHS deal in the UK).
* **Narrative funnel data:** Analyse data to show how check-and-balance institutions break down when information integrity is lost.

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/welcome-to-the-age-of-the-upside-down-how-to-cover-the-u.s.-as-an-axis-power>" %}

### When sources are the story: journalism’s new responsibility in the age of AI

*Julia Angwin (Proof News), Attaullah Baig, Jennifer Gibson (Psst), Mark MacGann*

* **Whistleblower law firms:** These act as essential shields to protect sources from "lawfare" and massive financial penalties found in modern NDAs.
* **Assume absolute surveillance:** Sources should never use corporate laptops to leak, and must be aware that AI can identify them through metadata or behavioural patterns.
* **Consult whistleblower support organisations:** Newsrooms should partner with specialised organisations (like PSST or The Signals Network) to handle legal and psychosocial protection for sources.

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/when-sources-are-the-story-journalisms-new-responsibility-in-the-age-of-ai>" %}

### OSINT, accountability, and the future of human rights reporting

*Manisha Ganguly (The Guardian), Alexa Koenig (Human Rights Center UC Berkeley)*

* **Implement holistic security:** Treat digital, physical, and psychosocial (mental health) security as one interwoven system.
* **Adopt trauma-informed workflows:** Recognise that 90% of OSINT practitioners may show symptoms of PTSD and implement resilience strategies as a functional necessity.
* **Humanise the data:** Move beyond "cold and clinical" reports by using visual forensics to foreground victims and survivors.
* **Independent satellites:** Seek independent satellite options to bypass corporate restrictions on high-resolution imagery during conflicts.

> *“I think the fact that there is a growing sort of shift towards form video actually helps people understand how open source works in practice. But it also gives us an incredible opportunity not just to point the camera at us to present the story, but to turn the lens around and actually show the people being affected by it, and really give people a way to emotionally connect with the story, which I feel like most open source reporting misses most of the time.”*  - **Manisha Ganguly.**

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/osint-accountability-and-the-future-of-human-rights-reporting>" %}

### Uncovering Big Tech’s sphere of influence

*Carole Cadwalladr (The Nerve), Margarida Silva (SOMO), Natalia Viana Agencia Publica), Bram Vranken (Corporate Europe Observatory)*

* **Expose "astroturfing":** Look for fake grassroots groups funded by Big Tech that claim to represent small businesses or consumers.
* **Monitor think tank funding:** Investigate how corporate money shapes the "expert" narratives heard by policymakers.
* **Database lobbying acts:** Cross-reference visitor logs of legislative houses with tech company employee lists to reveal hidden influence.

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/uncovering-big-techs-sphere-of-influence>" %}

### Right to protest: investigating violations using social media

*Barbara Marcolini and Milena Marin (Evidence Lab Amnesty International)*

* **Focus on the "Three Vs":** Identify the Violator, the Violation, and the Victim in every piece of evidence.
* **Analyse the legality of force:** Evaluate police actions based on international principles of legality, proportionality, necessity, and the protection of life.
* **Establish timelines:** Use chronolocation to understand the context of events—such as what happened before a video began—to see who initiated violence.
* **Uniform analysis:** Examine patches and uniform colours to identify specific battalions or special forces involved in incidents.
* **Weapon analysis:** Distinguish between "less lethal" tools (tear gas, water cannons) and lethal weapons (rifles, automatic firearms) to prove violations.
* **Remote sensing:** Use satellite imagery to corroborate ground-level videos.

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/right-to-protest-investigating-violations-using-social-media>" %}

### So you want to report on the tech industry but aren't a tech reporter?

*Peter Geoghegan (Democracy for Sale), Daniel Howden (Lighthouse Reports), Natalia Viana (Agencia Publica), Amy Westervelt (Critical Frequency)*

* **Transnational collaboration:** Join forces with newsrooms across borders to track the same lobbying playbooks being used in multiple countries.
* **Follow the money and lobbyists:** Treat tech reporting as political reporting by focusing on the "invisible hand" of lobbying.
* **Question the "Magic Black Box":** Do not be intimidated by technical jargon; investigate whether policymakers actually understand the AI systems they promote.
* **Use historical analogies:** Look at current tech monopolies like the East India Company to explain their extractive and expansionist nature.

> *“It's really worth remembering that what you're doing is reporting on a series of people who are building a narrative. And that narrative, more or less, is about the inevitability of their own success, and the transformation that that's going to bring to society. And they are such a uniquely poorly qualified group of people to make any of these decisions on our behalf.”* - **Daniel Howden**

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/so-you-want-to-report-on-the-tech-industry-but-arent-a-tech-reporter>" %}

### The best free or cheap digital investigative/OSINT tools to use right now

*Craig Silverman (Indicator)*

* **Prioritise user IDs:** Always capture the unique account ID, as users can change their usernames to hide from investigators.
* **Master search operators:** Become proficient in advanced search terms like site: and filetype: to find hidden documents.
* **Archive twice:** Keep a public record via the Wayback Machine and a personal record of every page you visit during an investigation.

> *“Tools are great, but they are useless if you don't know how to apply them. If you don't come with the right mindset of how to search things, if you don't understand what they actually tell you and what they don't tell you. And so, yes, tools can be helpful. They can speed up things. \[But] tools do not deliver investigations for you.”* - **Craig Silverman**

{% embed url="<https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/the-best-free-or-cheap-digital-investigativeosint-tools-to-use-right-now>" %}

## <mark style="color:$primary;">Investigative OSINT Tools</mark>

Across all the sessions above, the following tools were specifically recommended:

#### Capture & Archive

* [**Ubicron**](https://www.ubikron.com/)**:** A free tool for automatically taking screenshots of every page visited during an investigation.
* [**Wayback Machine**](https://web.archive.org/)**:** Public archiving of web pages

#### Research & Analysis&#x20;

* [**OSINT Bookmarklets**](https://tools.myosint.training/)**:** Tiny pieces of code that can extract hidden metadata (like account creation dates) from social media profiles.
* [**NotebookLM**](https://notebooklm.google/)**:** A Google tool for synthesising large volumes of non-sensitive research documents with accurate footnotes.
* [**Silent Push**](https://www.silentpush.com/)**:** A tool for "fingerprinting" website scripts to identify shared ownership of disparate sites.
* [**OSINT Navigator**](https://navigator.indicator.media/)**:** A tool for finding and evaluating other investigative tools.

#### Accountability & Corporate Research&#x20;

* [**The Counter**](https://www.somo.nl/nl/the-counter/)**:** A pro-bono corporate research help desk provided by SOMO for journalists.
* [**Big Tech Global Lobbying Playbook**](https://www.somo.nl/big-tech-lobby-playbook/)**:** A resource for understanding the common tactics used by multinationals to influence law.

#### Source & Survivor Protection&#x20;

* [**The Murad Code**](https://www.muradcode.com/)**:** Utilise this victim-centred, trauma-informed guide for interviewing survivors of extreme violence.<br>

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