"Building Open Source Research into a Newsroom" with Mike Yambo

You're listening to a stage talk titled building open source research into a newsroom. To learn how you might embed open source practices into a traditional newsroom, we spoke with Mike Giambo from Kenya's Nation newspaper. Within the talk, he shared invaluable tips and tricks on getting started in OSINT and convincing your peers and employers of the value of the skill set. All of the links mentioned in the talk can be found

in this episode's description. This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday the 30th of January 2025 in the Bellingcat Discord server. We can, we can hear you very well. Oh yeah, I can see the guys. Yeah, I can see the guys and their bridging. Karavu, welcome! We're all here for the Bellingcat stage talk series. This week we're joined by Mike Yambo from The

Nation newspaper in Kenya. Mike is their first and only, I think at this stage, open source investigator on The Nation team and is pioneering a new type of reporting there. I'll let him tell you how well it is going. Before working at The Nation, Mike also had some experience working

on investigations with Africa Uncensored. Today we're going to talk about how you might follow Mike's footsteps, setting up open source research in a journalism slash newsroom setting and learn a little more about how Mike communicates his research to wider audiences. We're also going to run through some of Mike's recent investigations, looking at his methods and overall impact. One of which you can already find in our chat, which some of you had a nice read of while you were

waiting. As we talk. Please put your questions in the chat. And as I've just said, if you do not want me to read out your Discord username on the podcast recording, please make sure to note that in your question. And I'll make sure to ask those questions as we move into the Q &A section. Okay. Mike, we're ready. Please tell us more. I'm going to mute myself just while you talk a little bit about what you do. All right. Thank you so much, Shelley. I'm truly,

truly honored to be here. Thank you for this Pelling Cart invite. It's a great honor. And I must say that I have been a long time for Pelling Cart, just as everyone else. You guys do amazing stuff. My early inspiration for open source investigation was drawn by reading a lot of Pelling Cart's works. And so my name is Mike Yambo. I'm an investigative journalist, a national media group based in Nairobi. My work focuses on combining open source investigative

techniques with traditional journalism. I'm here to share my experiences on not only pioneering open source investigations in our newsroom, but also share a journey of gradually building a new way of investigative storytelling vaccination. I also have a huge love for storytelling, which is why I'd like to share this personal experience through a story from how I entered the newsroom. to working on actual open source investigations.

Through this story, which I'll try to compress into the few minutes I've got, I believe you understand how we build an open source research perspective nation, and why OSINT has become crucial to our investigative journalism. So when I was hired at Nation, an open source investigative, as an open source researcher, OSINT was a gray area in the newsroom. The traditional culture of reporting was dominant in our reports, and new techniques like fact -checking and using

tools weren't very common. So I was hired as an investigative researcher who will focus on infusing open source investigative techniques with traditional reporting. Our newsroom was at the time heavily shifting towards public interest stories focused on investigative journalism, and open source journalism was a way of bringing forward our investigative storytelling. It was an immense challenge of not only debunking news and disinformation, but also facing now open

-source -led investigations. I think we all understand that all cities that released really new concepts in the newsrooms, especially the mainstream media, who are kind of now gradually trying to catch up. And this was also my fate. I also realized that most of our editors were struggling to understand this kind of storytelling. You know, only a few did. I remember my initial stories ended up re -edited to suit the traditional way of storytelling.

Some ended up being published late, way beyond the headlines, while some ended up not seeing the light of the day. So when I say stories were re -edited to fit the traditional way of storytelling, what this is what I simply mean. Some key components of posting stories like, you know, archiving links, hyperlinks, or even visualizations ended up being removed. And that was very frustrating, obviously, because that meant that I ended up

with an incoherent piece of work. Something I found also particularly hard was educating my seniors as to what awesome pieces of work needed to look like. If I just imagine that you would be trying to educate an old journalist who has been here, who has been in Tech TM for probably 20 plus years. In most cases, that will look

like disrespect to them. And so I only explain my approaches to the ones who kind of bother to ask me, and some militias who are particularly worried that it took too long to deliver the story. Remember, this is like a newsroom environment. Things are moving so fast, you know, and catching up with some of these things while using awesome

methodologies might be particularly hard. But I think even as the militias are worried about, you know, our turnaround times, Uh, I probably think they were right to a certain degree because often stories are told from an evidence point of view. And the fact checking and clarification is usually quite a lengthy process most of the time. But generally it was, it was a micro job

in the beginning to be honest. There was generally a slow culture to publish the fact checks I work on, um, with a speed at which other pieces got published. But I kind of had somehow braced myself for it. because they understood it would be hard, based on the news culture that existed way before my arrival. But interestingly, slowly by slowly, let me say, probably after a year, story after

story, I began noticing gradual shifts. As some editors then call it, it began, it started becoming curious to understand what Osint was and what it took to produce such kind of reports. So instead of struggling with so many obvious explanations, which is often boring, I believe what I did was share my articles with the ones who were particularly

interested. In that regard, I believe that it was easy to make them truly conceptualize the open source methodologies to build an even more deeper sense of clarity on, you know, to make people truly understand and appreciate this kind of storytelling. What I did was simply collaborate on stories with other reporters, incorporating individual investigative elements into their stories. So from this proposition, we have produced major public interest journalism that are deploying

open source techniques. We have debunked false claims from Kenya's Directorate of Criminal Investigations, just Kenya's principally investigative agency under the National Police Service. And subsequently, our news reports resulted in a statement of public apology from the DCI, which is a very big win when it comes to public interest journalism.

We have also used remote sensing tools to tell other stories of how a religious cult that led to the deaths of hundreds of Kenyans secretly established itself inside a forest for two years. Most people did not really realize that this

was going on. And this was, this popularly became known as the Shakahola Massacre, where we used Sentinel Hub and we used Google Earth to kind of, you know, establish and determine when did the, you know, the cows start building their homes inside this forest in the name of prayers. And most of them ended up dying as a result of starvation. You know how cows can turn out to be. And we consistently also monitored protests, and in the process, analyzed police brutality

incidents using these officers' techniques. We have also analyzed Twitter networks, particularly a Twitter network revealing how hashtags were deployed to spread news and disinformation claims against Kenyan doctors who went for 90 days'

protests due to a poor working environment. And discovered that this got probably government and anti -drug government bloggers who are trying to play a particular agenda to spread some sort of false claim against the doctors who are worried and very concerned about their working environment. We have also told stories about the current war raging in Sudan between the RSS and the Sudan armed forces. And this story, we largely pivoted our data from the Sudan Weakness Project under

the Center for Information Resilience. Toward 2025, that's the last, 2024, sorry, that's the last year, my amazing colleague at the research desk, Jacqueline Mosharia, did a brilliant work using open source information to track cases and establish a database on femicide statistics in Kenya. So on story after story, our newsroom nation has produced investigations that have really relied on Austin. I know that that's quite a long story about how we began this and where

we are so far. But before I conclude, I think I'd like to drop a piece of advice, like general advice to someone or a newsroom that intends to venture into OSINT. One thing I've come to realize or kind of understand is that venturing into open source intelligence is an individual. or newsroom requires some sort of elements like strategic planning, skill development, and even some ethical considerations before venturing

into it. So the first, I believe, is of understanding all things is truly get from the standard statistics of all things if you want to do it for a large newsroom or even from an individual capacity. All things involves collecting, analyzing, and very fine publicly available information. And the best way to be good in all things, I believe, is to know how to find data, verify data, and

how to analyze data. The second thing that I also kind of would like to pass to people who are interested in developing this kind of storytelling is to invest in training and skill development. Media houses can invest in training their journalists on the use of verification techniques in their reports. I have conducted trainings for journalists as well as attend many trainings myself as well. And as an individual journalist, I identify an awesome community or personality that does these

kinds of works. On a personal note, I taught myself how to do this kind of journalism to be honest. And I did this by closing the YouTube tutorials of Benjamin Streep. who works for, who currently works for the Center for Employment and Resilience. He's been so very instrumental in my, you know, laying the foundations of my investigative, operational journalism. Um, and if you'd like to learn the fundamentals of awesome reporting, I highly recommend you watch the past

videos. They are very, very rich, and they kind of help you as a journalist nail the, uh, the why, the where, and the when. He kind of uses tools to explain this, you know, basic concept. concepts of a journalistic piece. I think I've also found Bellingcat's website having tons of free guides and resources, which can be very fundamental, especially if you need to develop your skills. Another website that offers free guides, particularly on video verification and

AI is witness .org. vast resources on how to, you know, navigate the AI space, which is now becoming a very elusive and a very big subject when it comes to the walls of investigations. And also generally AI, it's to kind of help broaden your mental scope when you need to understand

this kind of stuff around AI. Something else for a newsroom or an individual who intends to like put up an authentic research test, is to learn the basic tools like, you know, Google Jogging, how do you resign your searches online? How do you go and find that particular piece of information that you're trying to find online? Google Jogging simply saves you time by being very particular on what you specifically want

to find online. Another basic thing that one can... uh, prob - probably investing is, uh, knowing how to scan websites, knowing how to establish the validity of websites, for instance. Uh, and, and I know who is local tool is a very, is a very good tool that was like way back machine. Uh, there are basic things like, you know, performing

reverse image searches. I believe these are very basic elements that one or a particular newsroom that intends to deploy this kind of closed source methodologies can... easily invest on and produce a story that can be, you know, the turnaround time is very fast. Something else as you build your awesome toolkit is to learn the basic methods of social media analysis. There are tools out there. Most of them basically are paid, but some of them are paid that can help you analyze social

media. For instance, I know X. You can use Mel's Water Explore, uh, to, you know, analyze the hashtags trends. Uh, you also analyze the sentiment analysis I've used before in my reports. Uh, the famous report about the storming of Caliament, we began by, you know, analyzing the hashtags, seeing what people were saying online before transferring their page, uh, into the streets of Nairobi and other, other streets of, of, of

Kenya. These also, uh, the most basic elements of posting, which I believe most people should really, really invest in. Because I think that's, that is what kind of gave me the confidence around all things, with the geolocation and satellite analysis. Um, and one master, master tool to help you perform this is the Google Earth Pro, uh, which has tons and tons of features that can help you to, you know. geo -rotate and also establish the locations of different things or

situations that you're trying to find out. Sentinel hub is also a very good one when it comes to establishing changes over time in a particular place. Geolation and satellite analysis, I think, is one of the most common practices around osintric now. And it's one thing that can easily instill the confidence in you to be able to perform other aspects of OSINT. Something else is to develop a verification culture in your newsroom. This is something about encouraging a mindset of being

skeptical about things that you see online. Just because something is online, it doesn't mean it's true. And so if you are able to perform a Google reverse image search, for instance, and do a whole report about it, or just a very brief report about it, It's going to be very vital in establishing that foundational level of, of, of audience, um, in which most process I like, I like referring to as part checking.

Also is heavily reliant on part checking. And so if you are able to perform small part checks over time, then you'll be able to perform even, um, complex part checks and even, uh, perform complex person's investigations, the deep dive over time. So you don't have to like start so big. You can start with a small factor and over time you'll truly understand and learn the basic and the different tenets that, you know, are

tied to OSINT reporting. It's also very important to, even as you look for it, to start out your OSINT research depth in your newsroom or even intend to do this on a particular or like on an individual level. Let's go to ensure your digital security and also look at the ethical considerations around this field of open -source research. It's very vital to be aware of the

legal risk. So just understand what the law points out concerning data in your own country and follow ethical guidelines to avoid or violation of privacy, which might end up in court cases and you may probably end up with lawsuits or something which you do not want to enter into. The second last thing about integrating officers reporting into your reports or like into your newsroom is to apply awesome techniques in your projects. I think I've mentioned this, please a little bit.

And it doesn't have to be mega reports at first, just simple fast checks as you slowly gain momentum over time. Other way to integrate open source into your newsroom is probably also having a small dedicated team working around awesome staff or even just hiring an awesome specialist within the newsroom. And this will prove very significant. It can help in, I believe, two ways. It can save you time verifying information if your newsroom is so quick and fast, and also it will help you

at the core. add the complementing elements of a story, for instance, visualizing data using data wrapper. So some of these tools and techniques can help you, you know, make your stories more rich and even more compelling to your audiences. And finally, liberate collaboration and open source communities. Some of the most successful audience investigations that I've seen, for instance, have one underlying thing in them, and that is collaboration. Collaborate with partners and

researchers to improve reporting. As you already see, Atonation, for instance, we have active partnerships with other research organizations like Coach for Africa. CFA basically has access to some awesome tools that we do not have at Atonation. Therefore, we are able to, you know, have a sense of partnerships while doing some stories. I hope this was helpful when, you know, looking on how to set an awesome tool of this

in your newsroom. Thanks so much for listening and I'll hand it over back to you, Charlie, for the Q &A session. Mike Nakashikuru, thank you so much for that amazing brief. You went through so many tools just then that somebody in the chat said, this is like the most informative talk I've ever attended, has so much practical information for newcomers like me. So thank you

so much for running through so many tips. And before I get to audience questions, I just wanted to ask you, what kind of sparked your passion in open source research? What was the moment where you decided to invest time into this skillset? Interesting. Yeah, so I just made a completed compass. And at that point in time, the BBC had released something on Cameroon, a documentary called There Has to Be a Bad Healing, which I believe is very popular with office structures.

And I was very curious about how this was done, that level of masterpiece, and the fact that they were able to produce a very impactful piece of journalism. So I got really curious, and I wanted to know how they did it. And over time, basically, I'm a curious person. I tend to read a lot, especially when I discover new stuff. So just navigating the whole aspect of Google Maps, Uh, I started, I came across Benjamin Street's YouTube channel. Um, and he was there teaching

so many things about awesome. But at that point in time, I didn't know that he was the, he was part of the team that was behind the anatomy of a killing. Um, and so I found these tutorials very, very educative. And I think with the foundational level of fact checking that I got at African Censored. I got to build up over time by watching Ben's videos on YouTube. And Ben also cited Bellingcat in most of these examples. So it was what, it

was some kind of a ripple effect. And over time, I wanted to draw this nepotism, so I ended up practicing. And slowly by slowly, that's how I got into art scenes. And coincidentally, I got a job a year later. Um, well, funny how I was learning all these things, uh, without being

actively engaged in the journalism space. So when, um, an interesting opportunity to be, uh, an investigative research admission came up in that power was like able to, you know, get in and nail and execute some of these things that had learned over time. So, uh, just to answer you precisely that anatomy of a killing documentary sparked my, um, my enthusiasm for open source reporting. Amazing. I just shared the link to that in the chat. I believe some of our team

helped on that, but I might be wrong. If anybody from the team then, back then, can comment. I remember there's some relation to us, but anyway, it's an amazing investigation if you haven't had it. a look at it. So please do check that out. And I also linked, while you were talking earlier, Bender Brown's YouTube channel as well. So please look at that and Code for Africa as well, while you're going through it. We have

quite a few audience questions coming in. Following off your recent reporting on the storming of parliament, someone's asked, how do you, when fact checking government sources, how do you ensure the safety of your newsroom? when you go up against the government, for example? That's a particularly interesting question. So for the newsroom itself, we have this set of ethical

guidelines we have to operate around. Especially, you know, now when it comes to forming of the parliament for instance, there was a way we are supposed to handle the coverage. because it was a very hostile environment at that point in time, if you can't remember. And I have some Kenyan audiences here, who on ground reporting became particularly hard for journalists themselves.

So, one of the things that we were taught to, you know, or kind of something that was kind of highlighted before we got off to the field at that point in time during the protests is to make sure that you try and provide the accurate information that is on the ground. Because there was a lot of anger at that point in time and any misreporting or any misrepresentation on what was actually going on on the grounds would have led to, you know, this public backlash or

outrage. So we were very keen in terms of, you know, our reporting, trying to ensure the accuracy and also trying to not really, um, not really miss out on some of the facts and the fundamental, uh, aspects of reporting. Uh, just as a general to keep, you know, the general media house image out there so well. We, we didn't really, we didn't really want to, you know, of a report or kind of, you know, over an alive situation, you know, being the session that means sensational about

our reports. Um. That was one of the approaches that we used while covering the process, just being very factual and being very accurate. But something else that you can look out for, especially when you are an on -scene researcher, it's being able to prevent the doubts and to be able to prevent a lot of questioning around the works that you do. is to be able to show the methodology,

the approach in which you do your reports. They need to be as transparent as possible, but also that's not enough because coming from a journalistic background and even at Nation, we try to blend these methodologies to the actual stories or other storytelling aspects. kind of merging what our findings, the research findings, and also the reports and also the, the reports and, you know, the things that the interviews that we carry out, marry them together and find a very

accurate account for our reports. And that is what we also did during the process. So it really helped us go a long way in terms of being accurate and, you know. Being able to tell the truth out there to what was really happening, not only Kenya, but also just clearly to the entire globe. It's really got a lot of, you know, global attention. Absolutely. As we always say at Bellingcat, stick to the facts and always communicate that open source research can only get you so far as well.

And that you're not coming with all of the answers, but with as much that open source can tell you. Um, it's just a starting point for investigations as we like to get out. Um, so we have a few more questions and I want to make sure that we get to them before the end of the hour. So Sarah's asked, hi Mike, I have to use Facebook a lot to dig into the social media of the community I'm curious about. And I wondered if you had

any tips for researching on Facebook. I can't do something like create a list on Twitter and it's extremely time consuming. Do you have any research tips for Facebook? have I researched on Facebook recently? Not really. Yeah, but I mean, Facebook is a very interesting area and it's one of those social media platforms that I've been really interested into. And then also considering that some of the tools were brought down and also the most recent developments we

are checking. was discontinued. It's something that we are considering, that we are really, really upscaling as a new group. You know, how to tell more stories, especially regarding the digital threats around Facebook, because we have so much happening there in terms of scamming and also in terms of, you know, potential mis and disinformation. So it's an area that I've not really... put on so much weight in terms

of advising newsletter. It's something that, you know, I'd really be interested in learning about also as well. Even as I continue doing further investigations, much of my investigations in recent times have heavily revolved around, you know, the dark social media sites like the Telegram. And I've also been heavily doing open source visual investigations. But Facebook is a great area and it's something that I think we work on so much moving forward in our newsroom,

for sure. Yeah. Everybody in the chat was like, your size said it all. I think we're all feeling this kind of disappointment in how easy, what a lack of... control we have over kind of Facebook research. You mentioned Telegram. So I've just popped into the chat, one of Bellingcat's tools. Yeah. So we have a tool called the Telegram phone number checker. So I've just popped that into the chat for anybody who's regularly researching on Telegram. It's a really useful tool. So check

that out on our GitHub. And thank you for going through all that Mike though. In terms of, you mentioned earlier that your newsroom was a little bit reluctant to take on open source at the beginning. What kind of changed your editor's minds? What kind of galvanized the change? Because you mentioned to me before the talk that your team was actually looking to grow. So what has kind of convinced your editors or your newsroom that open source

is worth the investment? Yeah, for sure. One thing, one thing is producing stuff and, you know, getting your stuff out there. Because I remember first it was so hard, you know, doing his reports and doing this project and see them, you know, timely to, you know, the traditional news that he calls. But it's very important now,

for my case, then... What I had at that point in time was producing so many reports and presenting to my editors and, you know, also being able to assess the value of whatever I was bringing in the newsroom at that point in time, because we are trying to introduce the new thing altogether. Not so many people are familiar about it. And so you need to have a few reports to show some of the editors about the impact of your work. Just remember, it's easier to sell an idea when

you have the actual work itself. And something else that is very important, especially to change the mindset and shift people's ideas and how they view OSINT is to emphasize on the impact of OSINT -driven investigations, such as exposing work crimes, for instance. In Africa, we have so much that is happening. around Sudan and, you know, Congo right now. You can produce such kind of, you know, war crime stories to truly make them understand the methodology, the process,

and also probably the impact. Verifying this information or tracking illicit financial flows demonstrates how async complements traditional reporting. This, you know, most editors, whenever, especially in the traditional newsroom setups, as long as you can save the resources, save the money, and somehow improve your storage capabilities, then you see the interest gravitating towards

your work. So basically, it's about having reports, impactful reports, that shows some of the editors the impact of your work, and also trying to emphasize the impact of passing prevention investigations. to the editor so that they can see the real value and the real need to do this kind of journalism. In that sense, I believe it will be easier to sell the awesome idea to your newsroom bosses.

Thank you for that. We actually had a question earlier from Alicia, who was asking for some more information about how to find your Sudan work. So I've just linked in the chat, one of your pieces called, Look, the fire is inside your houses. Where are you? Sudan's war within. But if there's any other particular links that you want to highlight, please pop them in the chat if you can, Mike, because I think there's quite a want to have a read of some of your Sudan

coverage as well. Oh yeah, sorry. So that Sudan investigation was just kind of inspired by the need to, you know, report so practically on Sudan because so much was going on there. Um, I also saw Falling Country something, NYT did something. Um, but it was also kind of a way of adding up, you know, getting the voices out there to the world to truly understand the, uh, the situation instead of that. It, it took us about three years

to kind of nail it down. Uh, but I believe it's one of those pieces that had some sort of impact, especially, and now that you are... kind of highlighting the damage and the losses that Sudan underwent between 2023 and 2024. It was a very powerful, awesome piece. It's one that I keep on responding to whenever probably I'm training or I'm giving examples to some of my works. Yeah, there's so much in Africa. There's so much in Ethiopia currently.

So, yeah, but I see the link to my Sudan was, it's a very classic example of how to switch your locations and locations. That's basically what you did. Absolutely. And there's so, so many stories on the continent at the moment, unfortunately, to do with conflict as well. As you mentioned, we've been publishing on Burkina Faso as well. Just had a story come out yesterday by some of the members in the audience on the

Democratic Republic of Congo as well. So thank you so much for sharing that and to you Sudan experience in terms of your coverage. And you can see that from that article and also from your coverage of the stormy parliament and you, you do a lot with visualizations and something that I really connected with when I looked at your work was how. well, you communicate kind of the findings that you've come up with in your

research. What are some of the factors that you consider when thinking about visualizations? What are the key factors you consider when thinking about how you're going to visually tell the story? First of all, it's to communicate the impact of that incident we are trying to find out. I believe through pictures and you know, uh, videos, it's very, very, um, easier to, you know, sell, sell a story or like kind of communicate the impact of something that you're trying to communicate

out there. But, you know, doing visual investigations and, you know, all that stuff around, you know, geolocations and location, you have to consider, uh, if that piece of media you're trying to analyze answers, um, Because now I'm saying this from a journalistic point of view, if it answers the four W's on the H in a journalistic piece, but also the cases, you'll want to look into the

who, the why, and the how. So if a particular piece of video, for instance, that is associated with a Kenyan protest, you want to understand, maybe you're trying to analyze a police brutality incident. you want to understand where that image was probably taken, when it was taken and who was behind it. Those are some of the factors that I consider myself in my works and I think

probably other people do as well. And also on top of that, it can kind of help you to weave through your story and also add on top the element of storytelling aspect and the voices, you know, the sources voices on top of it. So, Basically, nailing and understanding the context and trying to answer those questions particularly well and having them come up so clearly will inform the decision to have this piece of visual evidence

as a journalistic piece of work. So basically, it's analyzing the whole, the way, the how, and generally piecing it up together, adding on top the sources' voices. you know, kind of paints the context and the events very clearly. Yeah, because for us, it tells stories from our journalism prior to Rio. I think I've read much of Bellingham's works. It's usually mostly based on research. But then now for us at Nation, we try to add the journalistic elements on top of it to, you

know, kind of communicate, you know. the wider problem, what is the human story in that data point or in that particular event that you're trying to answer with the four W's and a H. So that is our approach when it comes to visual storytelling. And it's incredibly powerful. And I love how many different modes and mediums you use to tell those stories as well. Even referring back again to the storming the parliament piece,

you have 3D models in there. I've seen cases where you've used peak Pfizer to showcase the mountain ranges that you found. I think it's really amazing that lots of different methods that you use in telling your stories. Yeah, basically just to, you know, add the juice to these kind of stories, make them even more relevant to people. Because I believe the whole essence of doing journalism is to be able to communicate your story out there, make people understand and truly

engage them. Because there's no whole point of showcasing all these brilliant skills that without really addressing the real, real concern that needs to be addressed. So as much as, you know, I've borrowed all these spelling cards types of storytelling, in as much as we do heavy coding to our stories, we try to kind of help drive some sort of impact. And that's why we particularly add the human voices on top of our stories. I think that is a very powerful way to, you know,

put your work out there as a journalist. Not only not focusing on the methods, You know, for instance, you mentioned the 3D models. They are very, you know, cool ways of telling a story, but we use them to make the people remember that story even further. Yeah. The innovation has to fuel understanding. We have one other question

from the audience. Guilfoyle asks, and I think this is based on some of your comments earlier about ethically and doing investigations, particularly when you're starting out and also thinking about how you stay secure as well. Guilfoyle said, how do you handle operational security among your whole team? I imagine you get several phishing, like email phishing attempts given your line

of work. Is that something that you have had to face, particularly since starting in open source research where you're kind of digging into large data sets? Have you had a lot of online threats or online attacks at all that you've had to deal with within your team? Yeah, interesting. I mean, at the media house, we were attacked with a series of hashtags some point last year as a result of our coverage that we had all these forms of means and disinformation spread against

the mission media group. And it was politically driven, basically. But now how can you, you know, stay safe while doing all this kind of stuff. Myself, I've not really gone so deep, especially to the aspects of, you know, maybe trying to,

you know, track someone. But generally, I tend to think this whole concept of, you know, being secure online, probably like even having the virtual boxes, sometimes it tends to be really, really talking much about, but an essential thing generally, and this is something that I picked up over time and I also read so much about it. It's really good to use secure communication channels as you try and, you know, probably reach your sources or try to contact people who maybe

you believe are in some sort of danger. And there are tons of them out there, you know, secure communication channels. We have session, we have proton mail, we have saving. I believe as open source researchers, I believe we have an ideal space. But if you don't, there are tons out there that, you know, maybe you can't read until you understand how to, you know, use them. Something else is just basically avoid logging into your personal accounts while maybe trying to track

down an individual. In 253, we did an investigation about, it was a PEP, a person of interest, like a politically exposed personality who was connected to the Al -Shabaab terrorism in East Africa. And so, as I was researching, there was so much, tons and tons of information about this person on Facebook. At that point in time, uh, what I did was establish, uh, another second account to help me kind of, you know, obscure myself. Because this guy basically would post stories

on a daily basis. And if you probably do a mistake of, you know, going and feeling the story using your, uh, real account on that you used to connect to your loved one or one that is so personal to you. they can be able to, you know, see your digital footprints or kind of see you as one of the viewers to that particular story. So having a second account or a banner account is very,

very powerful. Also protecting yourself by knowing the legal risk associated with, you know, Austin's because some Austin techniques may violate the hyper -fiction laws. VPNs are there. I know they've been talked so much about. I use it myself most of the time. As a company, we have a policy. Our emails are well protected in -house. We usually change our passwords after every three weeks or one month, I believe. So it kind of helps

us secure our communication channels. So whenever you're trying to establish a connection with a source, who probably maybe is a whistleblower, it kind of helps, it kind of limits the threats of hacking or phishing. or all that stuff that involves security concerns. Yeah, so the changing of passwords, but that is done for us automatically in our media house. And also all those other things that are mentioned, they're very particular, particularly important while, you know, doing

this online repurchase. And it helps quite a long way in terms of even keeping our own... your loved ones that you are, people who are so close to you. Amazing. I know we started a little bit late, so I want to ask one last question, if that's okay, if you have time. Yeah, absolutely. We can have all this time. Amazing. The question I wanted to ask, and it's kind of a summary of what you've been speaking about. I wanted to understand from your perspective, what has been

the... Best parts and the most difficult parts of working with open sources for breaking news stories, like fast moving stories. What are the best and the most difficult aspects of working with open source in that context? Interesting question. What else in the country competes with breaking news stories? Yeah, because breaking news stories physically are meant to like, you know, move quickly. The story needs to be updated

and people move on after that. But the best thing, if you ask me, there's an investigation I did in 2023 around July, and my turn around time was particularly faster. So we had this protest in Kenya. It was like an anti -government protest led by the opposition leaders. And we had a lot of police brutality meted out against opposition. Strongholds in Kenya. And there was this particular video that really went viral online towards the end of those demonstrations on a particular evening.

So there were a group of police, 16 police officers, and unleashing brutality towards a single person who was lying there helplessly. So when this photo was shared to me by my editors, Um, it was around 10 p .m. If my memory serves me right. Um, and by midnight had like kind of hacked a geolocation for that particular piece of, of video. And we were able to establish where it happened, the when, and all those, all those basic questions one asked themselves while maybe

analyzing a piece of video. Um, the following day, uh, that particular Geolocation was used by human rights organizations. I remember Amnesty International reaching out to me with a Twitter handout. They used that to, you know, go and provide help to the affected families in the aftermath of those protests because there was so much violence in the opposition strongholds. So I did, that was one of my successful stories,

which like I had a quick turnaround. And it helped not only in our newsroom, but it also helped the public interest journalism that people are speaking about. Because you see human rights organizations, civil society organizations using a piece of work to help these families. That in itself is a very humbling moment for you and your career as a journalist. Failures, we only have failures, especially when, you know, but we were doing open source research or we, maybe

when we are getting started. Keeping up with the new cycle can be so hard. Um, one thing that we've not really, really, um, paint on a personal level up not really nails so well, um, is, you know, applying all those tools. We have so many tools. and which are quite expensive to, you know, have access to. So some of the stories that, potential stories that I identify online, like coordinated inauthentic behaviors online, or particularly on X, I tend to miss out on some

of those stories on the day they happen. But then through collaborations, I mentioned we collaborate with Code for Africa. We're usually able to reach out later to them and they provide us with the necessary data that can help us tell that story after a day or two or even a week. So we do not really have access to all the tools, you know, some of them are really expensive, but we have

access to majority of the tools basically. So that usually makes me feel somehow bad about, you know, meeting out and, you know, missing out on retorting some of these aspects. But usually they make up for that reporting on that incident way later, like the day to reporting aspects to it. So we don't do it as a breaking news story or a regular news story. We do it as a day to story, a piece of story. Yeah. And that's how I've been able to navigate my success and failure

and it's been impactful generally. Such good advice, because I know that's something that a lot of people struggle with is kind of the fast moving nature of news and how to cover it with open source as quickly as possible. I mean, at Bellingcat, we still struggle with that sometimes in terms of mobilization, particularly when there's multiple news stories a day. So thank you so much for that advice, Mike. As onto Sana, it's been amazing to have you. In the beginning, you

said that you were a fan of Bellingcat. I think you've created a fan of Mike's, to be honest, in the audience, myself included. Thank you so much for this talk. It's been amazing. And some of our mods have put in the chat. Please hand it over. Thank you so much, Ali and Bellingcat for having me. Some of our mods are put in the chat. Please hang around the Discord server because there's quite a lot of people who want to ask

you questions in the server. So please do hang around afterwards as well and just have a little browse. Thank you so much for this talk and thank you to everybody who's joined in the audience as well today. Thank you for listening to the stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage tour live where you can ask the guest questions, join the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy of Artlist.