by BIRN
The second day of BIRN’s Summer School of Investigative Reporting in Pristina, Kosovo, continued with a masterclass in open-source intelligence (OSINT) with Reuter’s visual investigations reporter, Reade Levinson.
Levinson shared tips and tricks on how to use free satellite imagery providers and their different tools in order to find and verify publicly available information online, and how to track ships and planes.
Using examples from the stories produced by Levinson and Reuters, participants immediately put their newly harvested skills to the test. “My steps may not be the same as yours, so please share it with us, as this is the space to also learn from each other,” Levinson told participants.
The day continued with Jonathan Soma, professor in data journalism at Columbia University Journalism School. With Soma, journalists gained elements of analysis using data tool Pandas and coding with the help of AI.
“One of the things that people joke about data journalists is that you spend six months finding data, then a month or two analysing it, which ends up as one paragraph in the article,” Soma said.
“But this does not mean that data journalism is not important or fun to do,” he added.
Sharbil Nammour, media safety adviser and founder of Vallaris Solutions, a consultancy company specialised in working with media in risk assessment and safety planning, shared tips on how to stay safe online and protect your privacy.
“On a societal scale, digital security is press freedom in practice. On a personal scale, digital security isn’t about paranoia, it’s about habits. Own your safety,” Nammour said.