A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
Peer into the murky underworld of financial crime in this masterclass on how to detect corrupt practices and laundered bribes. Using practical examples, we will explore how to approach different types of corruption investigation and some of the key techniques and datasets you’ll need to develop these stories, including:
– Common origins of corruption and money laundering investigations
– Key sources of data and where to find them
– How to read the telltale signs of corruption and laundered kickbacks
– How to avoid the dangers and pitfalls of these types of investigation
While investigating corruption and money laundering can take a lifetime to master, this class will introduce you to the skills you need to hold the world’s rich and powerful to account. You’ll need a laptop and your brain!
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
Whether you’re investigating deforestation, (illegal) mining activities in nature-protected areas, or nature loss, QGIS is a great tool to add to your investigative toolkit. Participants will learn where to find different types of geospatial data, including satellite imagery from open sources, and how to open, visualize, and manipulate them using QGIS to reach their investigative goals. Participants will work on real data from previous investigations done by the Pulitzer Center’s Data and Research Team. No particular knowledge of QGIS is needed to participate in this masterclass, and it is suitable for those who have not used QGIS before or know only the basics. Before coming to the session, please install QGIS on your laptops and make sure it works. Download from: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
If you encounter issues during installation, this guide might be helpful: https://www.qgis.org/resources/installation-guide/
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
How do you find people and information online, verify an event’s geolocation, detect AI deepfake images and audio, or identify disinformation? This masterclass will help you identify the best OSINT tools and methods to help you in your investigations.
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
Peer into the murky underworld of financial crime in this masterclass on how to detect corrupt practices and laundered bribes. Using practical examples, we will explore how to approach different types of corruption investigations and some of the key techniques and datasets you’ll need to develop these stories, including:
– Common origins of corruption and money laundering investigations
– Key sources of data and where to find them
– How to read the telltale signs of corruption and laundered kickbacks
– How to avoid the dangers and pitfalls of these types of investigation
While investigating corruption and money laundering can take a lifetime to master, this class will introduce you to the skills you need to hold the world’s rich and powerful to account. You’ll need a laptop and your brain!
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
If you’re investigating deforestation, (illegal) mining activities in nature-protected areas, or nature loss, QGIS is a great tool to add to your investigative toolkit. Participants will learn where to find different types of geospatial data, including satellite imagery from open sources, and how to open, visualize, and manipulate them using QGIS to achieve investigation goals. Participants will work on real data from previous investigations done by the Pulitzer Center’s Data and Research Team. No particular knowledge of QGIS is needed to participate in this masterclass, and it is suitable for those who have not used QGIS before and those who know only the basics. Before coming to the session, please install QGIS on your laptops and make sure it works. Download from: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
If you encounter issues during installation, this guide might be helpful: https://www.qgis.org/resources/installation-guide/
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
How do you find people and information online, verify an event’s geolocation, detect AI deepfake images and audio, or identify disinformation? This masterclass will help you identify the best OSINT tools and methods to help your investigations.
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
How do you find people and information online, verify an event’s geolocation, detect AI deepfake images and audio, or identify disinformation? This masterclass will help you identify the best OSINT tools and methods to help your investigations.
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
Peer into the murky underworld of financial crime in this masterclass on how to detect corrupt practices and laundered bribes. Using practical examples, we will explore how to approach different types of corruption investigations and some of the key techniques and datasets you’ll need to develop these stories, including:
– Common origins of corruption and money laundering investigations
– Key sources of data and where to find them
– How to read the telltale signs of corruption and laundered kickbacks
– How to avoid the dangers and pitfalls of these types of investigation
While investigating corruption and money laundering can take a lifetime to master, this class will introduce you to the skills you need to hold the world’s rich and powerful to account. You’ll need a laptop and your brain!
A separate ticket is required to attend this masterclass. If you would like to attend but haven't yet purchased a ticket, please contact us at info@dataharvest.eu
If you’re investigating deforestation, (illegal) mining activities in nature-protected areas, or nature loss, QGIS is a great tool to add to your investigative toolkit. Participants will learn where to find different types of geospatial data, including satellite imagery from open sources, and how to open, visualize, and manipulate them using QGIS to achieve investigation goals. Participants will work on real data from previous investigations done by the Pulitzer Center’s Data and Research Team. No particular knowledge of QGIS is needed to participate in this masterclass, and it is suitable for those who have not used QGIS before and those who know only the basics. Before coming to the session, please install QGIS on your laptops and make sure it works. Download from: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
If you encounter issues during installation, this guide might be helpful: https://www.qgis.org/resources/installation-guide/
The new European Commission's focus for the next five years will be on boosting industry's "competitiveness". This entails a radical deregulation agenda for rules that industry perceives as burdensome. Von der Leyen's deregulation agenda was heavily inspired by corporate lobbying campaigns. Last year, the chemical industry led on the Antwerp Declaration, a wish list of industry to slash regulations. This is now followed by the 'Clean Industrial Deal' which is pushing fossil gas for hydrogen, and ignores the other planetary crisis: pollution and biodiversity decline. CEO has compiled an initial list of more than 15 different tools for systemic deregulation. These create more hurdles for new progressive EU regulation, and create escape routes allowing companies to avoid regulation, as well as new hurdles for national level regulation. A good example are the Omnibus proposals, the first of which diluted sustainability reporting rules that had only recently been agreed. We'll share our insights on these new developments in the deregulation agenda, assess what's at stake, and how to build stories around them, at the European level and in your country.
I'M WAITING FOR THE SPEAKERS TO CONFIRM THE TITLE AND DESCRIPTION Far-right and other extremist networks in Europe organise themselves and coordinate their activities across borders by using different technological and strategic means, and pursuing different social and political goals. In this session, two (or three, or four) journalists will explain the diverse methodologies they employed to investigate how powerful hardliner networks operate in Europe.
Brecht Castel will describe how he and his colleagues used OSINT techniques to uncover how Active Clubs -- which mix fitness and martial arts with far-right ideology -- recruit and radicalise their members online. And Gabriela Keller will explain how she and her colleagues investigated how the international religious right has built cross-border alliances with civil society and political actors, with the aim of influencing policy and restrict women's reproductive rights.
By attending this session, you will learn different approaches to think of and plan a collaborative investigation into the activities of extremist networks.
Whistleblowers can be vital sources for journalists, and their information has initiated some of the biggest investigations. But whistleblowers are running big risks – from personal safety to legal threats. What do you do as a journalist if you are approached by a whistleblower? How do you get and verify the information you need while still keeping your source secret and safe? And what protection exists for these people who shed light on conditions that were meant to be kept hidden? Join this conversation between a journalist with long experience of working with whistleblowers and secret sources and a specialist in the protection and legislation around whistleblowing.
We all know that oligarchs, gangsters and shady politicians use shell companies and trusts in offshore jurisdictions to hide their ill-gotten gains. Just because they hide their cash doesn't mean we can't find their companies! This session will show you the tools available to help you crack open those nests of shell companies. Come join us on this wild ride through an offshore maze
The European Ombudsman investigates cases of maladministration within EU institutions, acting on their own initiative or in response to complaints from EU citizens - often journalists. In this session, the new European Ombudswoman, Teresa Anjinho will share her position on transparency issues, and will discuss, with three experienced journalists working on EU-related topics, a wide range of pressing issues. How will journalists’ concerns related to the treatment of the freedom of information requests be addressed? What are possible solutions to the loopholes in the current EU Transparency register? How can the transparency of EU spending be improved, including oversight over RRF money and the proposed Defense fund? Come to the session and join the discussion!
Privacy rights under GDPR are often seen as an obstacle to investigative journalism. In this session we focus on the great opportunity to access information which GDPR gives us. While national laws on the right to access information are for everyone, GDPR is about individual control over information. When you learn to make use of this regulation, you can access information from big tech companies, from consumer clubs, and even religious sects.
Satellite data has become a powerful resource in investigative journalism—but using it effectively comes with technical, ethical, and practical challenges. This session draws on several recent investigations to highlight how journalists are incorporating satellite imagery and geospatial data into their reporting.
We’ll explore how radar-based analysis was used to document destruction in Ukrainian cities, and how satellite-derived location data revealed movement patterns of German intelligence service employees. These examples show not just what’s possible, but also what can go wrong—and how journalists adapted when it did. From sourcing the data to picking the right tools and interpreting results responsibly, the session offers real-world insights into the craft of satellite-aided investigations.
No technical background is required. This isn’t a hands-on workshop, but a behind-the-scenes look at how satellite data fits into newsroom workflows.
Court records can be a true treasure trove, containing vital nuggets that can jumpstart your investigation or judgements primed for reporting. It can be tough enough to access court documents in our home countries, but how do you find records abroad, sometimes in secretive jurisdictions? This session will show you how to find legal judgements from arbitration courts to property disputes in places like Russia, UAE and the UK. We will show you how to access them (VPN may be needed), how we found stories in them, and will get you started on your quest for legal leads.
Many journalists get lost trying to find information and data quickly in the institutional labyrinth that is the European Union. Finding specific amendments, understanding the issues surrounding a piece of legislation, establishing the position of specific member states in negotiations or the approach of the European Commission... so much information is unknown or inaccessible to the layperson - who will easily become discouraged from pursuing their EU investigation.
In this session, we will will use concrete and practical examples to show you how to navigate the institutional triangle (Commission, EU Parliament and the Council), as well as the Court of Justice of the European Union. We'll explain how to track the European legislative process, quickly find the relevant players, information and data you need. This won't be an ex-cathedra lecture, but a practical deep dive session, with, as a take away, a list of useful links organised according to journalistic needs. After the session, you are also welcome to join us in the EU Cafe corner for a further discussion or get your specific EU questions answered.
In this session, we will share tips on tracking lobbyists and understanding how the PR campaigns and people behind them influence public policy. We will look into the available databases, registries and other methods that allow us to track lobbyists, their networks, topics they work on and their influence and the EU level and beyond. Lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory will introduce you to the Brussels lobby scene and show you how available lobby data can help you to nail your stories. Ellen Ormesher from De Smog will talk how to investigate corporate influence through the PR industry. It's an industry which is loosely regulated and yet influences the wider public conversation, ensuring some topics are kept off the agenda, while affecting other policies and their implementation.
If you are denied access to information, you can fight for your rights in court. What can you gain, and when is it worth the hassle? Staffan Dahllöf has taken the Swedish state to court for denying access to environmental information, invoking the Aarhus Convention.Eva Belmonte has repeatedly challenged Spanish authorities in court, seeking transparency on multiple fronts: the passengers of official planes, the true cost of government-procured medicines, the identities of public advisors, and most recently, access to the algorithms governing social policy decisions. Alexander Fanta has sued the German government for documents about its support for Ukraine, and inspired a court case in which the New York Times fought for access to text messages between Ursula von der Leyen's and the CEO of Pfizer during the Covid pandemic. Tarjei Leer-Salvesen won an FOI request from the US State Department, when civilian vessels from his area turned up in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's navy. Hear their thoughts and tactics – and how they use the fight for transparency in their journalism.
Private finance data aggregators are a powerful - if often expensive - tool for understanding the investment and ownership structures of the funds or companies that are the subject of your investigation. With the right approach, they can also help generate stories by identifying suspicious or controversial flows of money. This sessions shows you how. We will share a case study from a recent series that revealed supposedly ethical public pension funds held investments in controversial businesses - including tankers for Russian fossil fuels and crypto, all via opaque private equity intermediaries.
In this session, we will show the methodology developed by The Guardian to gather and measure content published on TikTok during the UK election campaign. Using this methodology, we revealed how far-right Reform's leader, Nigel Farage, [outperformed all other parties and candidates](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/26/nigel-farage-outperforms-all-other-uk-parties-and-candidates-on-tiktok) on the platform. We also exposed the [political content shared during the campaign](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/04/ukpolitics-how-the-2024-general-election-has-played-out-on-tiktok) aimed at young audiences. During the session, we will also show how to set up accounts that are located in countries different to the one where the reporting team is based. We will also show the scraper to automatically gather content associated with particular hashtags at various times over several days. TikTok is relatively hostile to scrapers, forcing us to resort to advanced scraping techniques including residential proxies. We will also show how we identify the main content creators, using some metrics from TikTok as well as the number of videos recommended by the algorithm, and how we used the algorithm to manually find more related videos - and therefore Tiktokkers - similar to those we were investigating.
The arms business is booming. Between 2014 and 2023, EU countries have increased their defense spending by more than half, reaching 632 billion euros annually, and the defence budget is to explode in 2025. With defense budgets surging globally, how can journalists effectively investigate the defense industry during this period of rapid growth? In recent years, two reporters from Investigate Europe have uncovered hidden aspects of the German Rheinmetall Group's operations, including its covert trade in ammunition factories. This workshop will share their insights and techniques, demonstrating how to investigate companies, employees, and trade flows in the defense sector. Participants will gain practical knowledge of investigative tools and strategies to uncover the concealed practices driving the arms industry's expansion.
In this session , you will have three different speakers presenting skills/tools that can be valuable in different aspects of your next investigation.
1) Learn how to create compelling before-and-after visualizations of satellite images using free tools. We'll walk through a basic workflow and share tips to quickly visualize change over time — no prior geospatial knowledge needed!
2) How to reveal metadata and other hidden information in PDF documents? We will walk our audience through the command line tool that can be used to explore PDFs in depth, and address issues that a journalist faces when they upload a PDF to an investigative tool like open source Aleph and discover that the OCR produced no text output.
3) How can journalists use AI to build a customized assistant that digs through a large number of documents? In this skillshare, you will get examples of a combination of skills and tools to screen, systematize, and analyse content in a cross-border investigation.
4) AI-powered search through audio - how do you find what you want without falling prey to hallucinations? Using the example audio transcription with Whisper, we showcase the issues of search through audio and how we've solved it in several recent use cases of ours.
Did you know there is a tool which can set aside the protection of business secrets? Journalists have used it to access details on Russian bitcoin-mining near a Nato-exercise, from privately owned salmon farms and overseas fracking-operations. In this session you learn about the Aarhus Convention. The beauty of this tool is not only that it in some cases overrules secrecy of business interests but also the vague or wide defintion of environmental information. Welcome to learn how this can be done, and how to argue in order to open otherwise closed doors.
In recent years, Telegram has evolved beyond a simple messaging application, becoming a platform for audiences to consume information and a tool for journalists to monitor and track conflicts, wars, and other incidents around the world. However, alongside its general use, Telegram has become a widely used platform for malicious actors to spread disinformation and smear campaigns, spread hate speech and fear, and orchestrate influence operations aimed at shaping public opinion. This session will equip journalists with essential investigative techniques tailored for Telegram, providing a comprehensive guide for effective research. Journalists will learn about the tools and methods available to monitor, collect, and analyze Telegram data effectively. Who should join: If you have never conducted an investigation focused on Telegram channels, this session is for you. This session is also valuable for those who occasionally report on manipulation and disinformation on Telegram, as it provides new tools, insights, and available resources. Experienced journalists who have participated in this session have reported learning at least one new tool, method, or tip for investigating Telegram. What to expect:
Learn tools and tips to identify, monitor, and investigate public Telegram channels. Explore methods and tools for collecting Telegram data. Gain insights into the challenges of working with Telegram data and ways to leverage and interpret it. Participate in exercises: If you already have a Telegram account, we will practice exercises together. It is recommended to have API keys if you want to experiment with data collection in real-time.
Bluetooth trackers can help you develop interesting investigations. This team started using trackers while following two cars from Germany to Siberia, then a parcel from Prague to Moscow. In late 2024, they tracked more than 230 letters sent within Germany, using up to 80 trackers simultaneously. For almost 1,5 year, they tracked 24 items of electronic waste from Germany to places as far as Pakistan. In this session, the team will share the learnings and the technology behind all these projects and the scraping tools and software behind them. They will also bring some trackers and covers to inspire colleagues to use these devices, and share lessons learnt from ongoing collaborations in different countries where other journalists and newsrooms licensed their forward for their respective projects.
How do oil, gas, and coal giants manipulate climate narratives to protect their profits? How does climate disinformation shape government policies and delay urgent climate action? In this hands-on workshop, investigative journalist Liubov Velychko will share the methodologies and tools used to track and expose disinformation campaigns financed by major polluters, such as Shell, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, and Coal India Ltd. In this session, you will learn to map the disinformation system, to track connections between fossil fuel corporations, disinformation agents, and policymakers; how to Where to find key data sources on corporate lobbying, campaign funding, and PR influence. analyze financial flows behind disinformation campaign, track disinformation influencers and identify key figures spreading climate disinformation Practical techniques for uncovering covert industry-funded research that distorts climate science.
You will leave the session with a toolkit of investigative methods for tracking climate disinformation, a list of reliable databases and sources for following money and influence., hands-on techniques for fact-checking corporate claims and policy manipulation and a clearer understanding of how climate disinformation impacts global climate action.
Come ready to dive deep into the mechanics of disinformation and learn how to expose those who profit from climate denial. No prior experience required—just bring your curiosity and investigative mindset!
