Open-Source Journalism in a Wired World - Nieman Reports
peter.suber's bookmarks 2025-08-27
Summary:
"A popular traffic app could show you the queues building up at border crossings between Russia and its neighbors back in September, as young men evading mobilization sought to escape the country.
Apple’s Find My tool can show you where that Russian soldier who stole a local’s headphones ended up.
A heat signature tracker can show you where fires rage in the warzones of Ukraine’s east and south.
Satellite imagery starkly comparing Ukraine’s cityscapes before and after Russian airstrikes is now a regular fixture in the news.
More than nine months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the online methods for tracking this war are many and proliferating, including the most obvious source of all — social media networks. A 2019 law designed to keep its military from posting on social media has not deterred Russian servicemen from sharing images and updates from the frontline, not least on Telegram and the Russian social network VKontakte, potentially allowing anyone with an Internet connection to pinpoint the place, time, and sometimes individuals seen in footage of military movements.
Open-source investigations (OSI), popularly and misleadingly known as open-source intelligence, is not synonymous with social media, however. OSI is any information that can be publicly accessed by others, including but not limited to online sources. That includes everything from local newspapers to satellite imagery and images shared on TripAdvisor. What it doesn’t include are two mainstays of traditional investigative journalism — non-public document leaks or closed-source reporting, otherwise known as shoe-leather reporting and interviews...."