Detailed 'open source' news investigations are catching on
ABC News
News organizations are using sophisticated new technologies to transform the way they conduct investigations
NEW YORK -- One of the more striking pieces of journalism from the Ukraine war featured intercepted radio transmissions from Russian soldiers indicating an invasion in disarray, their conversations even interrupted by a hacker literally whistling “Dixie.”
It was the work of an investigations unit at The New York Times that specializes in open-source reporting, using publicly available material like satellite images, mobile phone or security camera recordings, geolocation and other internet tools to tell stories.
The field is in its infancy but rapidly catching on. The Washington Post announced last month it was adding six people to its video forensics team, doubling its size. The University of California at Berkeley last fall became the first college to offer an investigative reporting class that focuses specifically on these techniques.
Two video reports from open-source teams — The Times' “Day of Rage” reconstruction of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the Post's look at how a 2020 racial protest in Washington's Lafayette Square was cleared out — won duPont-Columbia awards for excellence in digital and broadcast journalism.
