Investigative Journalism Network Workshop

Join us on Thursday April 27 and Friday April 28 morning for an immersive newsroom training event to carry out OSINT-based investigations using a variety of tools and skills to through hands-on collaboration and real-time demonstrations.
Please bring your own laptop with download permissions so you can leave with a set of new tools to help you in your research.

As in previous occasions, and to better prepare the session and connect relevant reporters from different news organizations, we need you to send us a brief summary of your ideas in advance. Please remember the stories are shared under strict confidentiality rules.

• Headline
• Short description of investigation (including existing sources, challenges, method)
• Countries involved
• Tentative publishing deadline

Deadline for pitches is 20 April 2023

As in previous occasions, we will also have time to discuss any ideas for stories you would like to report on with the help of other members of the network. You are also invited to a networking dinner on the evening of 27 April.

Preliminary Agenda

THURSDAY 27 APRIL, EBU BRUSSELS

09:30-09:45 Arrival, meet & greet, coffee

09:45-10:00 Opening & agenda. Pilar Requena, EIPN Steering Committee Chair and Head of Investigations Unit at RTVE Spain, Belén López Garrido, Project Manager, EBU Investigative Network.

10:00-11:30 Building digital footprints: Gain insights into an individual or organisation's online activity and presence by learning about social media monitoring, domain name and IP address research, online directories and databases, online reviews and ratings, website analysis, and email tracking.

11:45-13:00 OSINT for financial investigations: Tools and techniques to mine public/leaked records, news and media, and conducting deep web and dark web research. Reverse image searches and search engine queries will also be covered as a way to identify individuals and companies involved in potential financial crimes. How to access and investigate company filings to investigate the financial health, operations, and management of an organization.

13:00 Lunch break.

14:00-15:30 OSINT for Environmental reporting: Sources and databases to investigate environmental crimes, monitor environmental damage, analyze corporate behavior that impacts the environment, and report on climate change impacts. Social media, online forums, satellite imagery, and citizen science platforms are some of the tools that can be used for this purpose.

15:45-16:30 Web scraping:  Finding data involves searching for information in online sources, while content scraping involves using automated tools to extract information from websites. The session will teach attendees techniques to monitor and uncover data and how to securely scrape and store content for use in an investigation.

16:30-17:00 OSINT toolkit: Attendees will be given access to a curated toolkit of OSINT tools and resources, compiled by Derek Bowler. It  includes various links to tools and browser plugins used by OSINT investigators globally, categorized into distinct areas of OSINT investigations. This will be helpful for attendees in conducting future OSINT investigations within their respective organizations.

19:00 Networking dinner. (location TBA)

FRIDAY 28 APRIL, EBU BRUSSELS

10:00 Pitch session: Story ideas by members of the network (see below for details)

11:00 The missing children of Ukraine debrief: How we worked together and shared the results.

11:30 Joint investigation story proposal: Pilar Requena & Belén López Garrido, EBU Investigative Network

The EBU Investigative Journalism Network is a community of dozens of investigative reporters and editors based in more than 20 countries. All of them -all of you- share an expertise in this field that has proven to be an incredibly useful tool and joint journalistic projects have in the past stemmed from similar networking workshops.  

As in previous editions of this pitch workshop, the aim is to get active investigative reporters from the EBU community together to discuss story ideas, get acquainted with their peers around the continent and hopefully go back home with a few projects they can collaborate on, and which will result in powerful investigative publications with cross-border impact. The session is conducted under strict confidentiality rules.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, we look forward to seeing you in Brussels!

Accomodation

EBU has negotiated a rate with two hotels that are within a 15-min walk from EBU Brussels, where the workshop takes place.

• Aloft Brussels Schuman: Loft room 160 EUR + tax for single occupancy (breakfast included, cancellation at no cost until day before) . Please book here with the CODE T9222

• Renaissance Brussels: De Luxe room 165 EUR + tax for single occupancy (breakfast included, cancellation at no cost until day before). Please book here with the CODE T9222