If you want to know what really makes journalists tick, hanging out at an Investigative Reporters and Editors conference will restore your faith in humanity.

The whole point of this year’s massive gathering of journalists in Orlando, Florida was about finding truth — how to dig up facts, how to double and triple check them, and how to make sure a complex story is right.

It’s insanely interesting, inspiring stuff.

These tools and techniques are useful for anyone who cares about doing their own research. And they help show just how much work good journalists put into news stories at a time when a depressing number of people mistakenly view the media as purveyors of “fake news.”

I typed up my notes from the most interesting sessions I attended and included a few pointers I’ve learned over the years:

Online privacy and security

Protecting your documents and sources from prying eyes entails more than installing a privacy app on your phone and calling it a day. It requires thinking about what kind of risks you face online and what you can do about it. It’s a process.

Here are some basic steps you can take to protect yourself online, courtesy of BBC researcher Paul Myers and Mike Tigas of ProPublica:

1. Use different passwords for all your online accounts. That way, if one account gets hacked, your other accounts are still safe. Use a password manager such as LastPass to keep track of everything. It works on phones and computers.
2. Use two-step authentication in case a hacker does figure out your password.
3. Encrypt your phone and computer hard drives in case you lose them or authorities try to access them. Veracrypt is a free, open-source option. Both Apple and Android phones offer encryption as well.
4. Use messaging services that rely on strong, end-to-end encryption that prevents anyone from reading your stuff — including the people providing the service. Some options:

Signal is a smart phone app that encrypts messages and files and creates very little metadata — digital bread crumbs that reveal telling details such as when you sent a message and who received it. As long as all parties in a conversation use Signal, secure their phones, and use the self-destruct option in the message settings, Signal is about as secure as it gets. It can also encrypt phone and video calls.

WhatsApp also offers encryption. It’s more popular, but it creates more metadata. It’s owned by Facebook and no one really knows what Facebook does with that information. However, more people use it and it might not arouse as much suspicion as Signal.

ProtonMail is a Gmail alternative that also provides end-to-end encryption. While Google can see your email and provide those messages to authorities, ProtonMail can’t. It does, however, create metadata that is not encrypted, so be aware of that. I list ProtonMail on my contact page to encourage sources to protect their communications. 

Slack is a cool app but it’s not encrypted, as Gawker sadly learned. Two Slack alternatives that offer encryption are Peerio and Keybase.

Jitsi Meet is a Skype alternative that encrypts video calls.

5. Google is an amazing search engine but it tracks all your searches, which could be used against you if you’re ever sued or authorities obtain your Google data. Search engines such as StartPage and DuckDuckGo don’t track your searches at all.
6. Spend some time configuring your browser in the settings menu to protect your privacy online. Blocking third-party cookies, for example, helps prevent websites such as Facebook from tracking you across the web. Automatically deleting cookies every time you close your browser clears out unwanted trackers.
7. Use a VPN — a Virtual Private Network prevents your Internet Service Provider, such as AT&T, from seeing what websites you visit. You have to find a trustworthy one, though — avoid freebees. Go with a reputable, fee-based service.
8. Anonymize yourself by using the Tor browser. Good for conducting research when you don’t want the website to know your IP address.
9. Be careful of cloud providers such as Google Drive and DropBox. They can read your files, which means authorities or litigants can read your files, too, if they provide those companies with a search warrant or subpoena. I’m trying out an app called Syncthing that stores files between your devices without relying on a potentially vulnerable middle man. So far I like it. When I record an interview on my phone, the file magically appears on my work laptop, my home computer and any other devices I sync with it. Same thing with other types of files.
10. Install browser plugins that protect your online activities. Some good options include:

Https Everywhere: Provides a secure connection between you and a website.

uBlock Origin: A well-regarded adblocker, useful for blocking malicious ads.

Cookie AutoDelete: Deletes cookies from a web page whenever you close that tab.

Canvas Defender: Guards against browser fingerprinting, which is a way to track your browsing habits without the use of cookies.

Be careful what you download. Many browser extensions claiming to protect you are actually out to get you. There’s a huge difference between uBlock Origin (good) and plain-old uBlock (bad). Even good extensions can change owners and suddenly get all spammy without you knowing.

Further reading:

Tipsheet by Paul Myers of the BBC:

Tipsheet by Mike Tigas, news app developer at ProPublica: https://bitly.com/ire18-security

Useful privacy websites:

www.privacytools.io

Social media research and verifying viral content

When a big news story blows up, you’ll have to wade through social media, viral content and fake profiles, trying to make sense of it all. Here are some pointers courtesy of Paul Myers of the BBC, research wizard Henk van Ess, and Craig Silverman, official debunker at BuzzFeed.

Useful browser extensions and websites to verify content:

Reverse image searches and video verifier: See where an image has been posted in the past to check its origins. This is possible with Google Image Search (click and drag a photo from your hard drive to the search page), TinEye browser extension, and InVid photo and video analyzer.

Make screen grabs of controversial content in case it gets taken down, and save videos and photos. Download Facebook videos: https://www.fbdown.net/. Download YouTube videos: www.youtubeconvert.cc. Mozilla Firefox has a handy screen grabber built into the browser (click on the three dots in the URL bar and click on “take a screenshot”).

Check if a picture was photoshopped: http://www.fourandsix.com/

Check who is sharing content with CrowdTangle, a free extension owned by Facebook. It shows the top sharers — and who might be trafficking in fake news.

Check when a photo was created and other hidden details with Exif Data: http://exif.regex.info/exif.cgi

Analyze Twitter profiles: https://foller.me/

Another way to analyze Twitter profiles: https://tweetbeaver.com/index.php

Analyze a Facebook profile or page: https://stalkscan.com/

Another way to analyze profiles on Facebook: https://inteltechniques.com/OSINT/facebook.html. Also has ways to check out Twitter and Instagram accounts: https://inteltechniques.com

Analyze a viral video on YouTube: https://citizenevidence.org/2014/07/01/youtube-dataviewer/

Guide: How to spot fake news online: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/guide-how-to-spot-fakes-and-hoaxes-online/

List of more useful sites:

How to find out who’s sharing content and possibly spreading fake news

Check out CrowdTangle, mentioned above. You can also Google the ID number of YouTube videos and Instagram photos to see who’s sharing that material:

Another way to type this search: In Google, type:

[Full link to YouTube video] -site:youtube.com

[Full link to Instagram photo] -site:instagram.com

This shows you sites outside YouTube or Instagram that linked to that material.

How to find facebook pages or profiles that got taken down after a major news event:

1. Find complete name of person you’re interested in.
2. Conduct a site search for that name on google (site:facebook.com person’s name) to find the URL of the deleted page.
3. Then go to archive.is, paste url of facebook page to see if there’s an archived version.
4. You can also do keyword searches on Archive.is. Awesome way to find content.

How to hack Facebook:

Sometimes Facebook is finicky about search terms and it doesn’t always give you what you’re looking for. What then?

The good news is, every Facebook page, place and profile has a unique ID number. Sometimes that number is in the URL of the web page. If it’s not there, you can find it by checking https://findmyfbid.com.

Once you get the numeric ID code, go hack Facebook.

Modifying the URL in your browser a certain way tells Facebook to conduct a search query. For example, typing https://www.facebook.com/search/984197758297116/likers shows all the people who like the San Antonio Express-News Facebook page.

The basic formula is:

www.facebook.com / search / Facebook ID number of your choice / likers.

Type those terms with no spaces in the URL bar of your browser. You have to be logged into Facebook for this technique to work.

You can get really creative with this technique. “Likers” is just one parameter in a search query you can use. There’s also:

/visitors: Shows people who have checked in at a place. Example: Visitors at the San Antonio Express-News: https://www.facebook.com/search/984197758297116/visitors

/photos-of: Shows photos referring to that ID number. Example: Photos of San Antonio Express-News: https://www.facebook.com/search/984197758297116/photos-of

/photos-in: Shows photos taken at a place: Example: Photos in San Antonio Express-News: https://www.facebook.com/search/984197758297116/photos-in

/stories-topic: Shows discussions mentioning the account tied to that ID number. Example: https://www.facebook.com/search/984197758297116//stories-topic

Check out more hacks here: http://researchclinic.net/facebook.html

You can also combine searches.

Let’s say you’re assigned a story about the Beatles and you’re looking for San Antonians to interview. Find the ID number of the Beatles’ official Facebook page, find the ID number of San Antonio, Texas, and you can write a query that shows you people living in San Antonio who like the Beatles.

San Antonio ID: 110297742331680 (I found this by typing “San Antonio, Texas” in Facebook, clicking on the first “place” result, and finding the ID number in the URL.

Official Beatles Page ID: 69116329538

Plug those numbers into this query, with no spaces:

www.facebook.com/ search / ID_number / likers / Place _ID_Number / residents / intersect

Like this:

Boom.

Again, the reason why this might be necessary is because if you type “Residents of San Antonio, Texas who like the Beatles,” sometimes the results don’t show a list of what you want. I tried typing “Residents of San Antonio, Texas who like Phil Hardberger Park” and it didn’t show a list of people. But it does show a list if you configure the URL correctly with the right ID numbers:

Here’s another more user-friendly resource to play around with some of Facebook’s graph searches: http://graph.tips/beta/

Further reading from Paul Myers, a researcher at the BBC:

http://researchclinic.net/facebook.html

http://researchclinic.net/investigative-tools.html

http://www.researchclinic.net/graph.html

http://researchclinic.net/facebooksecrets/index.html

Craig Silverman tipsheet:

How to quickly background people you plan to quote in a story

We quote strangers every day in the newspaper, often without taking the time to verify they are who they say they are. How many times have we covered a weekend story, interviewed a bunch of people, and assumed they had no skeletons in the closet that can come back to bite us?

Kate Howard of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting wrote a feature story about a guy without knowing his criminal history, and it turned out his criminal history was extremely relevant. She only found out about it after the story ran and the victim called her.

Kate argues we should all be doing quick-and-dirty background checks on everyone we write about, no matter how innocuous the story, so we don’t get blindsided. We need to make sure we know more about the people we’re highlighting in the paper.

Here are some of her tips:

Google the hell out of everybody in different ways. Try variations of their names and scroll past the first page of search results. Same thing with social media — check them on Linkedin and Facebook for sure, make sure they are who they say they are.

Check newspaper archives, we might have written about them before.

Court records: Parties involved in local lawsuits in Bexar County are easily searchable at https://apps.bexar.org/dklitsearch/search.aspx. The search also covers criminal cases.

Professional licenses: If someone tells you he’s an engineer, you can confirm that by looking up engineering licenses online. The same goes for other licensed professions, such as real estate agents, doctors, nurses, etc.

Look out for fake names. If someone identifies himself as “Hugh Jass,” be suspicious.

Further reading:

Kate’s tipsheet:

tinyurl.com/IREbackgrounding

People finders and other cool web tools

Pipl and Spokeo were frequently mentioned at IRE as useful tools to find phone numbers and social media profiles.

Truecaller boasts a searchable database of billions of phone numbers. Truecaller snagged those numbers from people who downloaded its app and shared all their contacts. It’s a good way to find out the name behind a phone number, just be careful when you sign up for it. Try setting up a ghost email account so your personal info isn’t collected.

Skype is a great people finder. If you have an email it lets you find the right person, not copy cats. Same thing with Facebook — try searching for emails to find profiles.

GeoLocate search: Allows you to conduct radius searches in Google maps with multiple keywords. Can be useful if you need to figure out where a photograph was taken. You can do things things like, “Show me all bookstores in downtown San Antonio that are within 50 meters of a coffee shop.”

Sqoop: Set up customized searches for corporate and federal court records. Free for journalists.

Court Listener: Free, full-text searches of many federal court records. Created by the makers of the “RECAP” browser extension that alerts you to free court records.

iFOIA: Good resource by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press with input by media lawyers to walk you through the FOIA process.

OpenCorporates: Searchable, crowd-sourced documents of corporations:

Charity Navigator: Features financial evaluations of charities worth at least $1 million:

Focus on solutions, not just problems

Tina Rosenberg, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, offered some good reminders about the importance of looking for solutions to the problems we write about:

This technique strengthens our stories and prods officials to take action. Here’s an example from her tipsheet:

“The Cleveland Plain Dealer had done several major series on lead paint. They showed in convincing detail how the city was failing its children. But these series didn’t produce impact.

“What did bring major change was a 2015 solutions series: “Toxic Neglect.” The paper did a traditional investigation, looking at the lead problem, and the city’s failures, through the lens of race. But its real focus was the solutions component, showing how Rochester was doing a better job overall and how neighbors such as Grand Rapids and Akron had each solved pieces of the puzzle.

“Lead paint was seen as such an entrenched problem that city officials could dismiss “Cleveland is failing its children” as unavoidable. But “Cleveland is failing while its neighbors are succeeding” was a different message,one profoundly embarrassing to city and state officials.”

How to handle difficult stories

Investigative reporters Karen de Sá at the San Francisco Chronicle and T. Christian Miller at ProPublica gave some good advice about how to interview sources who suffered trauma and officials who fear exposure. The main message was to be transparent, be up front about where you’re going with a story, and give them every opportunity to respond.

This is usually helpful no matter what kind of story you’re working on. When I’m working on an unflattering story about someone this is what I usually do:

• Contact them as soon as feasible in the reporting process — not at the last minute before we go to press. In broad strokes, I tell them the gist of why I’m contacting them and the direction of my story, and I’d like to talk to them about it. I hope this starts a dialogue where I can continue to call them as I continue the reporting process and new questions arise.
• If they don’t respond I try to send them a message with the broad outlines of the story and my top questions. Sometimes this provokes a response. The main idea here is that no one should ever be blindsided by what they read in the paper, and you want to make sure you know about any disputed details.
• As soon as a story runs online, I send out a link to the main people in the article and ask if they have any feedback or questions and to please stay in touch for future stories. This tells them a) we care about being accurate and b) we’re not doing a hit-and-run piece.

Staying organized

Notes template: You can use the navigation pane in Word or Google Docs to create sections in your notes for interviews, questions, contacts, etc. This helps you avoid the chaos of disorganized notes. This is what I use:

Other useful tools to stay organized while reporting and writing a story are in this presentation by Sarah Hutchins of IRE and Taylor Blatchford of NICAR, bit.ly/IRE18-organization, and in helpful tips by Pulitzer Prize winner Leon Dash:

Evernote: Key feature is that Evernote lets you search everything — including text in images. It’s your vast, personal archive. Very handy on deadline when you’re trying to factcheck a factoid in a stack of documents. Two other apps mentioned at IRE that help with piles of documents are Everlaw and DEVONthink.

oTranscribe: An efficient way to transcribe your interviews. Everything happens in the browser so you don’t have to switch back and forth between your recording and your document.

Otter: Helpful transcription tool that’s free for the first 600 minutes every month. Click on a section of the transcript to hear that exact part of the recording. Not 100 percent accurate, but nothing is, and this helps you quickly find key sections of long interviews. Trint is a similar service that I’ve tried in the past and it’s been a lifesaver at times.

Note taking: Recommended by New York Times reporter Ellen Gabler, try creating a spreadsheet of all your telephone interviews. Columns can include the date, phone number of the source, topic of the story, and text of the interview. Sarah Hutchins recommends typing notes in Word and pasting them into your spreadsheet. All your interviews are in one place, and you can sort and filter by topic to find what you need quickly.

Document organizing: Another spreadsheet idea — create a spreadsheet of all the documents you gather.

Processing notes: Leon Dash said when he works on a project, he goes through all his interview transcripts, make notes of the key parts, then writes his book or story from those notes.

Scrivener: Popular writing tool that lets you organize sections of a story and see your notes as your write. Some writers swear by this app.

FOIA Machine: Provides contact info of FOIA officers automatically and offers boilerplate information for FOIA requests.

IFTTT: If This, Then That lets you create “applets” that join different services together.

For example, you can download all the tweets of a source you’re following on Twitter to a Google spreadsheet to make sure you never miss anything.

Best practices: Bookmark notebooks with post it notes, marking each interview. Lets you easily find them. On your computer, create digital filing cabinets for email and digital files. Create subfolders in similar ways on all your devices. Use dates in file names for computer documents, come up with a naming system. Avoid writing “finalfinal_final_draft2.” Write something like “Draft_JT_06252018”

Final thought: Don’t use all these tools all at once. Try each one out and give them a real chance to see if they work for you.

The post Insanely awesome journalism tips from IRE’s 2018 investigative reporting conference appeared first on John Tedesco.

Last year Daniel Russell spoke at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Boston. Dan showed us search techniques that can make anyone a better researcher. Some tips I already knew. Others I thought I understood but didn’t. And some I had no idea existed.

I thought Dan’s talk was eye-opening — and others had the same reaction. My post about his presentation last year was widely shared, so there’s enormous interest to learn more about how Google works and how to use it effectively.

Since that conference a year ago, Dan began offering online classes. I’ve had a year to practice many of these techniques. And about a week ago, Dan spoke again at the IRE conference in San Antonio with even more advice.

“You gotta know a little bit about how to make Google dance,” Dan said at his panel, Digging in with Google. “This is all mother’s milk for investigative reporters.”

I thought it’d be a good idea to compile some of the interesting new techniques, and revisit tips Dan discussed last year with some real-world examples of how journalists used them in actual news stories. Many of these methods also work on other search engines, such as Yahoo! and Bing.

These tips are for journalists, researchers, librarians and anyone else who wants to learn new ways to find information. Google will never replace the importance of shoe-leather reporting — knocking on doors and talking to real people. But Google can help reporters find the right doors to knock on and reveal surprising details about the people you’re talking to. Knowing how to find obscure information on the Internet is a vital skill for any journalist.

Create custom Google search engines

Google can focus on multiple websites with its custom search page. You tell Google which websites to search, save your settings and Google creates a link to the custom search page. Now you can search those specific websites any time.

This technique is handy for anyone interested in a particular beat or issue. I created this customized search of San Antonio media and blogs. So when breaking news hits, such as the torrential rains that drenched the region recently, you can type the relevant key words, such as flood OR flooding OR floods, and quickly see how news organizations are covering the story. You can also sort the results by time or relevance, and conduct an image search with the terms you want on those websites.

Upload a picture to search for it

Sometimes, you don’t even need to type words to search Google. Upload a picture of a person, place or thing, and Google can search for similar images. Google might find a match and it offers relevant search terms for that image.

Dan said he was showing a photographer friend how the search worked, and plugged one of his picturesque images into the search box. They were both surprised to discover that the picture was being used without permission on other websites — by wedding photographers who should have known better.

This method of finding pictures on the Internet has become a key way to avoid getting catfished, which I quickly learned is a thing when Deadspin revealed that the girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o was not actually his friend, or even a girl. She didn’t exist. Te’o had never met her, and her photographs were actually of a 22-year-old California woman who wasn’t part of the bizarre hoax.

Deadspin’s scoop noted that it’s possible to foil the reverse-image search by slightly altering a picture. But it’s still an amazingly useful tool. If you’re searching a popular image and get swamped by the results, you can type contextual terms in the search box to help give Google a nudge in the right direction and narrow the results.

Force Google to search exact words

Last year Dan showed us how the search operator intext: works and I now use it all the time.

Sometimes Google tries to be too helpful. It changes your search terms and uses words it thinks you’re searching for — not the words you’re actually searching for. And sometimes the websites in Google’s search results don’t include all your search terms because Google decided those pages might still be relevant.

That might be OK for general searches. But it’s not very helpful if you’re looking for pages with specific terms or words with unusual spellings. How do you make Google search for those exact words?

Typing intext:[keyword] (with no space on either side of the colon) might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Dan’s favorites. It forces the search term to be in the body of the website.

When the San Antonio Independent School District announced it had chosen a finalist for superintendent, it turned out the job candidate carried some baggage. As I was researching Manuel Isquierdo’s background, Google annoyingly suggested changes to the word “Isquierdo,” when in fact that was the exact word I wanted to use. And I wanted to make sure that word was in all the websites in my search results. So I used intext:Isquierdo in my searches to force Google to include that name.

This works for phrases — type double quotes around the words you want Google to look for in the exact order they appear. And you can use intext: multiple times in the same search. Typing intext:”Manuel Isquierdo” intext:”grand jury” forces Google to include those exact phrases in all the websites in the results.

You can also type allintext: at the beginning of your query to apply the command to all words and phrases. But you can’t combine it with other search operators.

I noticed that on rare occasions when I use intext:, the keyword is still missing on a page. In such cases, the website has been updated since Google last crawled it.

In addition to intext:, Google offers a confusingly similar feature called “verbatim” search. You can type double quotes around a word and Google will not change it. You can also click on a drop down menu under search tools and select “verbatim.”

What’s the different between verbatim and intext: searches? With verbatim, it’s still possible Google will remove those words from the pages that show up in your search results in an effort to be helpful. So I prefer intext:.

Use boilerplate language

Many people know that Google ignores the word AND as a search operator. But typing OR in all caps actually works.

OR is great for finding synonyms and boilerplate language. Dan said typing “Smith denied” OR “Smith claimed” OR “Smith argued” will find more pertinent websites about the controversy involving Smith.

This technique can help you perform background checks. Start thinking of terms such as indictment OR indicted OR charged OR lawsuit or any other type of term you’d want to know about in relation to the person or thing you’re checking out.

When I was working on the Manuel Isquierdo story, I was trying to track down hardcopies of tax liens the IRS filed against him to recover $150,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties. My query “Manuel Isquierdo” lien OR liens led to an interesting report by a private investigator in California.

Control F saves you time

The fact that many people don’t know they can easily search for words on web pages is a national tragedy. Even those who know about the “find” function often take the long way by using the mouse to click on the menu option, which drives me nuts.

For the love of all that is holy in this world, hit “Control F” on a PC or “Command F” on a Mac and type the words you want to find on the page.

“It improves your search speed by 12 percent,” Dan said.

Learn the structure of websites

Type site:[domain] [keywords] if you’re looking for a specific topic on a particular website. This is a time-saver if you know what you’re looking for, especially if a website doesn’t offer its own search box.

I used this method several years ago when I worked on a story about racehorse accidents. I visited the Texas Racing Commission’s website and typed injuries site:txrc.state.tx.us. It led me to an annual report that had some statistics, which led me to a little-known state database of horse-racing accidents that showed how, in a five-year period, 300 horses had died on Texas racetracks.

The site: operator also works on directories and sub-domains. So if you know how a website is structured, you can focus on a specific area of interest. For example, San Antonio’s Development Services Department approves new real estate projects. Its web address is sanantonio.gov/dsd. This is the city department that dealt with the collapse of the towering retaining wall at the Rivermist subdivision in San Antonio developed by Centex Homes. So typing site:sanantonio.gov/dsd “retaining wall” shows you a bunch of results showing how the department handled the disaster.

The search operator inurl: is another way to use a website’s structure in your search strategy. On the surface, inurl: and intitle: appear to serve similar roles — both methods help you find websites that focus on a particular term. Typing inurl:[keyword] will show you results with that word in the url of the web page. Typing intitle:[keyword] will show you results with that word in the title of the web page written by the site’s author.

But since the url’s of web pages often reflect the title of the page, what’s the difference?

Using inurl: might help you find more relevant websites because Google changes the titles of web pages in search results in an effort to be helpful. So the url of the web page could be a more accurate reflection of what the author is actually focusing on. I asked Dan about this after his panel and he said he usually uses inurl:.

Find specific files

Typing filetype:[extension] is useful for limiting your search to particular types of files, such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, pdf’s, Word documents and just about any other file type you can imagine. Typing filetype:xls [keywords] in a search, for example, will show spreadsheets that pertain to that issue, which is nice for finding public data. Typing filetype:kml [keywords] shows you relevant Google mapping files. Check this list for file extensions you can search.

Finding more public data and statistics

Google’s data table explorer page offers another way to find public data. Type some keywords and Google will search publicly available Fusion Tables or tables posted on web pages. You can then import that data into your own Fusion Table.

Search for campaign contributions San Antonio and you get a lot of hits. The first result is a table of campaign-finance data posted by the Texas Tribune. Notice the “import data” option:

Click on that link and Google walks you through the steps to import the data table on the page into your Fusion Tables account:

Now you can do your own analysis and create your own visualizations.

Google also offers a public data directory with interactive visualizations. When I was working on some stories about delays in the federal stimulus program in San Antonio, the public data directory offered a quick way to compare unemployment rates. Google shows you the source of the information so you can verify it.

Knowing what you don’t know

One of the themes in Dan’s talk was the importance of knowing the right keywords. That means a successful search isn’t so much about typing the words you know, it’s about typing the words that would likely be used by the writer of the information you’re seeking.

“It’s not about your language,” Dan said. “It’s about someone else’s.”

So be on the lookout for industry terms or phrases you don’t recognize. Don’t gloss over them; find out what those words mean. Think about synonyms. Typing define:[keyword or phrase] in Google can quickly give you a definition of a word or phrase. Dan said it’s a powerful tool that lets you learn words that aren’t even in the dictionary.

If you know how to describe something but don’t know the exact word for it, reverse dictionaries can help. Type descriptions of the mystery word, and the reverse dictionary shows you results that match that definition. Here’s a riddle from Dan’s presentation:

Someone told me that in the mid-1800’s, people often would carry around a special kind of notebook. They would use the notebook to write quotations that they heard, or copy passages from books they’d read. The notebook was an important part of their education, and it had a particular name.

What was this kind of notebook called? Looking up one of the many online reverse dictionaries available and typing “notebook” and “quotations” leads to the answer: a commonplace book.

“Reverse dictionary is your friend as a writer,” Dan said.

Exclude words and dates

When you don’t want to see a particular word or phrase in your search results, type the minus sign in front of it with no space. One way this is useful is if you’re covering breaking news and want to weed out all the media reports in an effort to see what’s been written before the big thing happened.

After the West Fertilizer facility exploded, I wanted to see if the company had a website and read what others had to say about the company before the tragic accident. But breaking news stories and blog posts were flooding my search results. Typing “West Fertilizer” -explosion helped cut through the noise.

You can also tell Google to search for older results by filtering by date: Type a query, hit return, and click on “search tools.” The date filter is to the left:

Know your way around

When you want to find words or phrases near each other, the AROUND operator can help. I mostly use this when Googling people and need to make sure I find relevant web sites about them, even if they use their middle name or initial, or the page cites their last name first, then their first name.

So typing Manuel AROUND(2) Isquierdo shows all pages that have the name “Manuel” within two words of “Isquierdo.” The results show some pages with Isquierdo’s middle initial. You can use any number you want — typing “5” would show you everything within five words.

Stay up to date

All these search terms work with Google Alerts, your own personal Web-monitoring service. Google will email you whenever it crawls new websites containing terms you’re interested in.

“This is a very good thing because you can now follow a topical area,” Russell said at his presentation last year.

Combine methods to make awesome sauce

You can use all these search operators together. So let’s say you’re curious about what kind of forms and documents the city of San Antonio has posted online. And you want to see references to the term “injuries.” Type site:sanantonio.gov filetype:doc injuries.

This is a cool way to find interesting story ideas.

Keep learning

To learn more, check out Dan’s 200-slide presentation and his notes for the IRE panel at his blog, SearchReSearch. Dan also offers online classes with video lessons.

It’s easy to forget these tricks and strategies. And Google is constantly working on new products. To retain these skills, you have to keep in practice. This is one reason why journalism is so rewarding — and challenging.

“Your job of learning will never, ever stop,” Dan said.

The post More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples appeared first on John Tedesco.

Russell posed a riddle:

What’s the phone number of the office where this picture was snapped?

Let that sink in. He wasn’t asking for a phone number for the skyscraper in the picture, which sounds hard enough. He wanted the phone number of the precise office where the photographer was standing when the picture was taken.

Nothing in that office was even in the photo. Yet in a few minutes, Russell, a research scientist at Google, revealed the answer by paying attention to small details and walking us through a series of smart Google searches.

“Once you know these tricks, you can solve problems that look impossible,” Russell said.

There are plenty of Google search cheat sheets floating around. But it’s not often you get to hear advice directly from someone at Google who offers you his favorite search tools, methods and perspectives to help you find the impossible.

Here are some of my favorite tips shared by Russell at the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. Some of these techniques are powerful but obscure; others are well-known but not fully understood by everyone.

Most of what you know about Boolean is wrong

Don’t bother typing AND in your search queries – Google treats it like any other word.

But OR in all caps actually works. OR is great for finding synonyms and boilerplate language. Typing “Smith denied” OR “Smith claimed” OR “Smith argued” will find more pertinent websites about the controversy involving Smith.

Avoid using NOT if you want to exclude a search term. Instead, type a minus sign in front of the word. So if you’re visiting San Antonio but don’t want to visit the Alamo, type:

“San Antonio” -Alamo

That will search for the phrase “San Antonio” on web pages that don’t have the word “Alamo.” There’s no space between Alamo and the hyphen.

Think about how somebody else would write about the topic

Search is all about someone else’s language. Think about synonyms and use OR operators. Google’s “related search” feature on the search page also offers suggestions.

“Part of the skill here is being fascinated about language,” Russell said. “You’ve got to think about equivalent terms.”

Use language tools

Knowing which words to search for means understanding their meaning. Typing define [space] [search term] in Google search will offer dictionary definitions. “‘Define’ ‘space’ ‘word’ is your friend as a writer,” Russell said. “Trust me on this.”

You even get a definition if you type define pwned and other lingo. “That means we have words that aren’t in the dictionary,” Russell said.

What if you know descriptions but not the actual word? Find one of the many reverse dictionaries online. Type the descriptions you know and you’ll get the matching words.

Use quotes to search for phrases

Typing “San Antonio Spurs” will show you the websites with the phrase “San Antonio Spurs.” If you don’t use the quotes, Google will search for the terms “San,” “Antonio,” and “Spurs” individually and you might miss pages related to the basketball team.

Force Google to include search terms

Sometimes Google tries to be helpful and it uses the word it thinks you’re searching for — not the word you’re actually searching for. And sometimes a website in the search results does not include all your search terms.

How do you fix this?

Typing intext:[keyword] might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Russell’s favorites. It forces the search term to be in the body of the website. So if you type:

intext:”San Antonio” intext:Alamo

It forces Google to show results with the phrase “San Antonio” and the word Alamo. You won’t get results that are missing either search term.

Minus does not equal plus with Google

Russell didn’t talk much about this but it’s worth noting. Since putting a minus sign in front of a word removes it from a search, many people, including me, incorrectly assumed that adding a plus sign in front of the word forced Google to include it.

Actually, that search operator simply stops Google from changing the word into a synonym or correcting the spelling. It’s still possible that Google will drop the word from some search results, so it’s different from intext:.

(After Google Plus was unveiled, Google dropped the plus sign operator and replaced it with double quotes. Typing “Alamo” is now the same as +Alamo.)

That’s not to say the plus sign — now double quotes — is not a useful search operator. But note how it’s different from intext: If you want to force Google to include an exact word or phrase in all your search results, use intext:.

“Control F” is your friend

Use this keyboard shortcut to find a word or phrase on any web page. It’s faster than reading the whole page for a specific word or phrase. “If you don’t know this, you’re roughly 12 percent slower in your searches,” Russell said.

Limit the time frame

If you only want search results for web pages published in the past week, past month, or some other time frame, you can click on that option on the left-hand side of the search results page under “Show search tools.”

Search by region

If you only want web pages for a particular area, you can search by region on Google’s advanced search page.

Find relational search terms

What if you’re curious about search terms that are near each other on a website? [keyword] AROUND(n) [keyword] is incredibly handy for finding related terms such as “Jerry Brown” near “Tea Party.” (“n” is the number of words near the search terms.) Typing “Jerry Brown” AROUND(3) “Tea Party” will show you all the websites where the phrase “Jerry Brown” was mentioned within three words of “Tea Party.”

Google maps as a search tool

(Update: Google dropped this map feature, which is a bummer. It was extremely useful and I hope they bring it back.) Let’s say you’re searching Google Maps for hotels in San Antonio for next year’s IRE conference and check out the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel:

This screen shows the “hotel” search in Google maps. But what if you want to know what’s near the Marriott?

In the Google Maps search bar, type an asterisk. The results will show you every single place Google knows about in that map view. So you can see nearby businesses, stores, and whatever else is around:

Now you know where to find — or avoid — the Denny’s across the street.

Restrict your search to a specific website

The search operator site:[url] restricts your search to that particular website. It’s one of the most useful searches out there. I used this when I worked on a story about racehorse accidents and wanted to search the Texas Racing Commission’s website for any mention of injuries. Typing injuries site:txrc.state.tx.us led me to a little-known state database of accidents that showed how, in a five-year period, 300 horses had died on Texas racetracks.

Find a particular type of file

Typing filetype:[extension] is useful for limiting your search to particular types of files, such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, pdf’s, Word documents and just about any other file type you can imagine. Typing filetype:xls in a search will show only spreadsheets. It’s incredibly useful for finding public data. Check this list for file extensions you can search for.

Think like a reporter

When Russell teaches his students search skills, he tells them: “Think like a reporter.” What do you know, and how can that information help you find what you need to know?

A big part of a journalist’s job is knowing where to find information. Which state agency regulates the issue you’re interested in? How might that information be documented? Who would know more about the issue?

“You have to have a concept about what’s possible,” Russell said.

Time travel technique

Typing cache:[url] or clicking on the cache function in the search results will show you an older version of the website. Handy if the site owner takes something down or edits it because of a brewing controversy.

Mashup search

Computer-savvy journalists create interactive maps of public data. Searching for the term “mashup” and the issue you’re interested in will show you what’s already been published and might give you some good ideas.

Stay up to date

All these search terms work with Google Alerts. Google will email you whenever it crawls new websites containing terms you’re interested in.

“This is a very good thing because you can now follow a topical area,” Russell said.

Search your own browsing history

Visit Google.com/history to search your past searches. Handy if you vaguely remember a search but forgot the details.

See what the world is searching for

Google Trends shows queries people are doing over time and how they compare.

Beyond YouTube

As popular as it is, YouTube is a subset of all the video services indexed by Google. Searching video.google.com searches every service, not just YouTube.

Google Public Data Explorer

Search and analyze public data in interactive charts that you can share online:

Try a Google diagram search

If you’re looking for a part of a machine or gadget but don’t know the name of it, try including the term “diagram” in your search. A search for “bicycle diagram” gives you tons of images with parts:

Combine these Google methods to make awesome sauce

You can use all these search operators together. So let’s say you’re curious about what kind of forms and documents the city of San Antonio has posted online. You can type:

site:sanantonio.gov filetype:doc

This is a cool way to find interesting story ideas.

Epic image search

Sometimes, you don’t even need to type words to search Google. Upload a picture of an object, place or other type of photograph you want to learn more about, and Google can search for similar images. Google might find a match and it offers relevant search terms for that image. This video walks you though it:

Use what you’ve got

So how exactly did Russell figure out the riddle of the office phone number?

The first step is using the available information in the picture, as scant as it might be. Scrutinize the image and see if you can pinpoint any telling details. There might be a clue.

Still stuck? Check out the answer at Russell’s blog, where he regularly quizzes people about riddles that aren’t so impossible after all.

Updates with more Google search tips from Daniel Russell:

• More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples
• New search tips for 2014 from Google research scientist Daniel Russell

The post How to solve impossible problems: Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques appeared first on John Tedesco.

Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, we only sell our mothers for really, really good stories. But more importantly, we’re actually an amazingly friendly, collaborative bunch.

I’m in Boston where more than 1,000 people are trading tips, offering advice and learning from the best journalists around at this year’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference.

This is the place to be if you’ve ever wondered, say, how Washington Post reporters figured out the complexities of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. You get to listen to the actual reporters who worked on the story. They’re essentially saying, “Here’s how we did it, and here are some tips we learned to help you work on the same kind of story.” It’s a goldmine for anyone who cares about journalism and wants to do it better.

These conferences generate a treasure trove of tipsheets that help journalists investigate just about any topic. I’ll be updating this post over the next few days with some of the more interesting links and resources I come across at the conference. Feel free to chat me up or contact me if there’s something you want to include.

Jul 1, 2013: 8:32 am

More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples.

Jun 24, 2013: 12:07 pm

Creative ways to find sources:

Perhaps the best tip sheet at #IRE13 – http://t.co/gY0bLhOqKj on building sources from @mattapuzzo

— Nick Penzenstadler (@npenzenstadler) June 22, 2013

Jun 24, 2013: 10:27 am

How to find America’s worst charities: Excellent tips by Kendall Taggart at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Jun 24, 2013: 7:40 am

Tips and tweets:

Compliments to @IRE_NICAR staff, led by @markhorvit for a great conference. Leaving San Antonio totally jazzed #IRE2013 #IRE13

— Mark Katches (@markkatches) June 23, 2013

SearchReSearch: TipSheet for IRE 2013 ( #IRE13 ) http://t.co/So9pCxVDTm great resource for maximizing your Google search capabilities

— Kenneth Olson (@ken_v_olson) June 23, 2013

MT @gijn: Getting past NO when govt pushes back. Presentation by David Jackson (Chicago Tribune) #transparency http://t.co/UtZKsd5BCS #IRE13

— Melissa Nann Burke (@nannburke) June 23, 2013

New blog post | "Beyond the written word – visual data in journalism – presentation and links from #IRE13 http://t.co/OOsFQix6Ht

— Ben Jones (@DataRemixed) June 23, 2013

Retention schedules kept on Web sites are like a "menu of documents" at an agency or government. (@jaimidowdell, #ire13)

— Becky Yerak (@beckyyerak) June 23, 2013

.@SunFoundation's @bill_allison and Jacob Fenton demonstrating great tools to follow influence in government: http://t.co/X7rcMiBK09 #ire13

— Joe Yerardi (@JoeYerardi) June 22, 2013

Jun 23, 2013: 1:22 pm

Investigating the wealthy sounds like a daunting task, but there’s actually a vast amount of historical resources available to the reporter who wants to try.

Investigative reporter Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle once visited a probate court clerk’s office to check out a tip that lawyers were making themselves rich at the expense of the estate of a wealthy but incapacited man. The clerk asked how many boxes she wanted to get in the case — there were 30.

In other words, probate courts are a gold mine. Olsen suggested looking at fee schedules and reports filed by court-appointed guardians.

It helps that wealthy Texans are chatty and often more approachable than their East and West-coast counterparts, said Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly. In many cases, the only people who crave more attention than rich Texans are their lawyers. You can learn a lot about how the real world works by simply listening to their stories.

“One way to pay kickbacks to judges is to play poker and lose,” Swartz said.

Ancestry.com can help you find genealogical records. For a modest fee, you can find an actual picture of the ship that ferried specific European immigrants across the Atlantic.

A curious mind can always lead you to a good story. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Bill Dedman stumbled across the unusual case of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark while he was house hunting and checked the most expensive mansions that were for sale. It launched him on a story that started out as a feature about Clark, whose father was a wealthy copper-mine baron and disgraced lawmaker. But the story morphed into an investigation of Clark’s current whereabouts — she hadn’t lived in any of her mansions for years, and Dedman’s reporting raised questions about the people overseeing her vast fortune.

The bizarre tale struck a chord with readers. It went viral and Dedman ended up writing a book about it called “Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.”

Dedman relied on cemetery records, depositions in court cases and old newspaper clippings. He obtained pictures of Clark’s estates and the artwork she painted. He wanted to do a good job describing them, so he talked to experts.

Botanical consultants told him precisely what kind of unique plants were on the estate grounds.

A professor of fashion history described the kind of apparel Clark wore as a young woman.

An art expert told Dedman that in the old days, women usually painted with pastels. Oil painting was considered a manly art form. Yet Clark chose to be an oil painter. It showed an intriguing snippet of her character — which Dedman would not have discovered if he hadn’t gone to the trouble of talking to a knowledgeable expert.

Jun 22, 2013: 7:57 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Not able to be at #ire13? Check out tipsheets http://t.co/nQEbHouZCR More will be added.

— Jaimi Dowdell (@JaimiDowdell) June 22, 2013

If you want my slides on tracking government contracting, you can view them here: http://t.co/zj1oG2WVCM #IRE13

— Danielle Ivory (@danielle_ivory) June 22, 2013

From the #IRE13 session on investigating the oil and gas industry, here's a link to a fracking chemical database: http://t.co/dx8Pca83YJ

— Cezary Podkul (@Cezary) June 22, 2013

There are nine exemptions in FOIA. The 10th one they don't tell you about. It's "We don't want to give it to you." @wcochran #ire13

— Cherrill Crosby (@cherrill_crosby) June 22, 2013

Tipsheet from our #IRE13 panel about how to win open-records battles with uncooperative agencies: http://t.co/LgHp6aiph2

— John Tedesco (@John_Tedesco) June 23, 2013

Investigating trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border: http://t.co/OkiN0l7yGU #IRE13

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 22, 2013

Take a look at @writerbarton's groundbreaking story about a man's death in police custody http://t.co/X10inL9szw #IRE13

— Lauren Gilger (@laurengilger) June 22, 2013

Yes! The link from the "Search Rodeo" session at #IRE13 is now live, compliments of @BarbGray – check it out here: http://t.co/IH25yQCBOP

— Cezary Podkul (@Cezary) June 22, 2013

Download a PDF of my "Digging Deeper with Social Media" talk at #IRE13 | links, examples, tools | http://t.co/S1SqcfABfa #kipcamp

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 22, 2013

Slides from my #IRE13 demo of @TabulaPDF: https://t.co/Mf4OCREjq4

— mike tigas (@mtigas) June 22, 2013

https://twitter.com/sgoldstein/status/348548832109416448

Jun 21, 2013: 4:35 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Stalking a billionaire with a boat? NPR's Margot Williams: http://t.co/vf2IFVpfcl #IRE2013 #IRE13 pic.twitter.com/k4CfiW3qmv

— Amy Pyle (@amy_pyle) June 21, 2013

New text searchable database of IRS 990 nonprofit forms from past 10 years via @LukeRosiak http://t.co/qAj4sBSViT #IRE13 #kipcamp

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 21, 2013

Getting skeptical sources to talk: "Sometimes people are more afraid of looking dumb than giving away sensitive information". So true #IRE13

— Aisha Dow (@aishamae) June 21, 2013

Enterprise on the ed beat handout here. #ire13 http://t.co/0i9GQRm7JX

— Mc Nelly Torres (@WatchdogDiva) June 21, 2013

#IRE13 Center for Investigative Reporting offers lots of reporters tools http://t.co/ClEWp47NCZ

— Bennett Loudon (@BennettLoudon) June 21, 2013

.@DavidBarstow: You need to spend a lot of time w the documents, reading everything and "marinate yourself in the information" #ire13

— Kelsey Ryan (@kelsey_ryan) June 21, 2013

Whatever you can't wait to tell a friend, don't leave it out of the story: advice from Jerry Mitchell, journalist. #IRE13 #GannettConnects

— Britt Kennerly (@bybrittkennerly) June 21, 2013

Jun 21, 2013: 4:11 pm

Check out interesting panels you missed at the IRE conference by reading the IRE Conference blog and Gannett’s IRE 2013 tumblr. Armies of reporters and journalism students are posting good stuff, including:

Delving into crime data and finding flaws

Transparency: Getting past “No”

Tips for environmental investigations

Jun 21, 2013: 11:40 am

Tips on Twitter about investigating charities:

https://twitter.com/melcrowe/status/348116910254198785

Investigating #nonprofits tip sheet #ire13 https://t.co/O9oWxFTz1j

— Kelsey Ryan (@kelsey_ryan) June 21, 2013

#IRE13: @CIRonline database of 8000 state regulatory actions against charities & solicitors: http://t.co/OjdYiUHgKo #IRE2013

— Douglas Lucas (@DouglasLucas) June 21, 2013

Jun 21, 2013: 11:23 am

So much information at IRE conferences is about how and where to find documents and information. It’s always interesting to hear what you should do after you amass that giant mountain of data and documents.

During yesterday’s Business Investigations panel, Reporter David Heath of the Center for Public Integrity talked about “the magic of simply sorting by date” when you take all your documents from a variety of sources and plug the information into a spreadsheet to make a timeline.

“It’s a very simple process,” Heath said. “It sounds too basic to talk about.” Heath includes everything he finds in the timeline early on in the reporting process because at first you don’t know what’s important. As the chronology grows, patterns, connections and narratives begin to emerge.

While investigating a shady company, Heath found a corporate filing signed by a man who claimed to lead the firm. But during that same time period, the same person also signed a different document in which he claimed to have nothing to do with the company. Heath later learned one of the government disclosures had been forged.

“Timelines are essential,” Heath said.

Other interesting tidbits at the panel:

Not many people know about LinkedIn’s advanced search page, which can help you find current and former employees of companies.

Journalists can get LinkedIn premium accounts for free, which allows you to email people on LinkedIn without being in their network. Very handy for finding sources.

Annual reports filed by companies with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can be daunting. But be sure to check out sections titled “risk factors” and “legal proceedings.” These are where companies are usually at their most honest. They lay out things that could go wrong and major litigation. For companies that are very skilled at polishing their image, these sections help you find “chinks in their armor,” Heath said.

Jun 20, 2013: 3:31 pm

Best #IRE13 tweets so far:

#IRE13 slides from "Compared to What…" with @JsavageCaller available here http://t.co/BXnmfQ8IqE Hit us up if you have questions.

— Coulter Jones (@coulterjones) June 20, 2013

If you missed our kickoff session for #IRE13, all the resources are here: http://t.co/UHQvlptmv2 #BizJ

— Reynolds Center (@BizJournalism) June 20, 2013

If, like me, you missed the session on cheap data wrangling tools, get the presentation and tip sheet here: http://t.co/jwJ0g3EbjA #IRE13

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 20, 2013

Here's Google Drive link to spreadsheet of tipsheet from this am's session #IRE13 Apps Reporters Can Use.xlsx – https://t.co/FDNJcdv7vl

— Stephen Stock (@StephenStockTV) June 20, 2013

We're happy to announce free Tableau Desktop for journalists: http://t.co/qcA82sT6M3 @tableau #IRE13

— Ellie Fields (@eleanorpd) June 20, 2013

How #IRE13 comes together, in pictures. http://t.co/b7Rd5hXwli

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 20, 2013

My hotel at #IRE13 welcomes guests by explaining why things could get punch-drunk crazy after the Spurs game. pic.twitter.com/s4bC13QOVx

— Ben Giles (@ben_giles) June 20, 2013

Jun 20, 2013: 2:55 pm

Even before the 2013 IRE Conference officially started, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism hosted a free seminar Wednesday about finding interesting news stories in seemingly dry economic data.

One cool thing about this panel was how they showcased actual news stories, then worked backwards and revealed how the kernel of the story idea was found in the data.

For this article about the Eagle Ford Shale boom that ran in the San Antonio Express-News, the reporters did the following:

• Visited the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis website;
• Clicked on the “interactive” tab;
• Sifted through a series of menus that took them down to the county level;
• Checked how much per-capita personal income had increased in the Eagle Ford Shale counties. Once you get the data you can look at it in a variety of formats, such as tables or charts:

This story and other articles used as examples all relied on economic data — but the stories were also filled with the voices of real people to bring those numbers to life.

All the resources and presentations discussed in the seminar are available here.

Jun 20, 2013: 2:50 pm

Naturally, the 2013 IRE Conference is on Guidebook. You can check the conference schedule on your phone, save the events you want to attend and get reminders. I also like how you can view a map of the hotel, read about the speakers and check the #IRE13 feeds on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Yet another cool resource I learned from IRE.

Jun 29, 2012: 2:13 pm

Missed a panel at the IRE 2012 Conference in Boston? Tipsheets for members are available at IRE’s website. Yet another reason to join IRE.

Next year’s conference is in San Antonio, and we’re already talking about upcoming panels, speakers and events. Contact me if you have any ideas.

Thanks for a great time in Boston and hope to see you next year.

Jun 22, 2012: 10:39 am

How to attract an online audience for your investigation: http://t.co/beSA1th5 Awesome tips by @jessicaplautz from #IRE12

— ICIJ (@ICIJorg) June 21, 2012

Jun 21, 2012: 7:53 am

How to solve impossible problems: Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques.

Jun 17, 2012: 9:09 pm

Tips on Twitter (via Katie Foody’s awesome Storify collection of tips from the IRE conference):

Need help cleaning up data? Mr. Data Converter, Mr. People, Google Refine. #IRE12 #irefree

— Lindsey Rogers Cook (@Lindzcook) June 14, 2012

The walkthrough of my Refine class, with sample data & slides. Arm yourself for the monkey apocalypse: http://t.co/GuCsIkEO #IRE12

— Tom Meagher (@ultracasual) June 15, 2012

Mapping & location-based data a big untapped resource for journalists. Guardian tutorial on Google Fusion: http://t.co/RIuCrpyW. #IRE2012

— Bill Mitchell (@bmitch) June 16, 2012

So many great Web tools coming out of Sunday #IRE12 session. Try www [dot] cometdocs [dot] com to convert PDF data to Excel. So cool.

— Lindsay VanHulle (@LindsayVanHulle) June 17, 2012

This. RT @willcarless: Great tip: use http://t.co/Fote8Hch to search for photos and see if they are fake #IRE12

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 16, 2012

Gem of “Tracking Private Parts of Public Officials” Gov’t firewalls that log outbound web requests. Where are your officials surfing? #IRE12

— Saul Tannenbaum (@stannenb) June 16, 2012

Jun 17, 2012: 5:08 am

Fellow #ire12 conference goers. Try the app camscaner to scan and make PDF documents with your smartphone. Best app EVER.

— jeremyjojola (@jeremyjojola) June 17, 2012

Jun 16, 2012: 9:25 pm

https://twitter.com/willhuntsberry/status/214163754848485376/

Jun 16, 2012: 4:23 pm

One “downside” about IRE conferences is you wind up amassing more great ideas and tipsheets than you know what to do with. How do you keep track of everything, and not forget an insight that might be useful months from now?

You might want to create your own tip sheet, or handbook, that you can use throughout your journalism career.

Use Google Docs, Word, a spreadsheet, or whatever format that’s easiest for you.

Organize it by topic, such as “People Finders” or “Campaign Finance.”

Under each topic, link to useful websites, and plug in your notes of the insights you learned at the conference.

My handbook is old and needs to be pruned. But you can see how it works. If I want to do a thorough job backgrounding someone, I go to the “Backgrounding” section of my handbook and start going down the list of things to check — licensing files, marriage licenses, etc.

Any time you come across a resource you think might come in handy, add it to your handbook. You might need it tomorrow — or a year from now.

Jun 16, 2012: 3:38 pm

Full link for #IRE12 #IRE2012 presentations on social media and backgrounding: http://t.co/T72BIbcc

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 16, 2012

Jun 16, 2012: 1:28 pm

Panel videos: IRE is posting videos of some panels at its latakoo page. Panels include tips for investigating businesses and a conversation about the state of the media after the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.

Jun 16, 2012: 9:16 am

Archives and historical documents can be powerful tools for journalists, even on deadline.

“It’s been my secret weapon,” said James Neff, investigations editor at the Seattle Times.

Some cool resources:

Sanborn fire insurance maps: These old maps offer rich historical details about buildings and neighborhoods. “They were like Google Streetview back in the day,” said Alison Young of USA Today, who relied on the maps for her project, “Ghost Factories.”

Regional collections of the maps are often available at local libraries, historical societies and universities.

Online Public Archives: A sweeping search of presidential archives and other holdings of the U.S. National Archives. “This is what I would consider one of the top tools,” Neff said.

Finding guides: Used to find pertinent material, finding guides are sometimes posted online, or archives will send them to you. Check out WorldCat, a library catalogue that includes 50,000 finding guides. “It’s the largest online library catalogue in the world,” Neff said.

Jun 16, 2012: 7:20 am

Check out the story behind the story of Craig Harris’ investigation of Arizona pension funds. Great stuff.

Jun 15, 2012: 4:46 pm

Resources used by Duff Wilson of Reuters for his investigation of the food industry and its lobbying against stricter health standards for children.

Influence Explorer: An overview of campaign finance, lobbying, earmark, contractor misconduct and federal spending data.

Open Secrets: Campaign-finance data broken down by industry.

National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Federal Election Commission: For contributions at the federal level.

Secretary of the Senate: For lobbying reports.

Jun 15, 2012: 11:44 am

Tips from Sara Ganim, reporter for the Patriot-News, who broke the Jerry Sandusky scandal:

When looking for a job ask: “What kind of journalists are you going to be working for?” Is this a newsroom that will allow you to spend a lot of time on investigative stories? When the Patriot-News hired her, Ganim’s bosses recognized they had a big story on their hands, cut her loose from her beat duties, and encouraged her to do what she had to do.
“You wouldn’t find that in every newsroom,” Ganim said.

Social media was NO help at first for the Sandusky story. Ganim had to rely on the old-school methods of knocking on doors. But when Sandusky was arrested, the newspaper “did a 180” and started using Twitter all the time.

“Twitter is a really great way to stay in touch with your readers,” Ganim said. At Joe Paterno’s public memorial service, people on Twitter were asking her questions, guiding her to things to look for. “I found it incredibly helpful,” she said. “It’s a good gauge of what your readers want to know.”

Try to give readers what no one else is giving them. When the news about the sexual assault charges broke, “AP was kicking our butt. They were getting all this great information, what Penn State was doing. My boss was freaking out.”

Ganim didn’t want to rehash what the Associated Press was reporting — she argued with her boss that they needed to go back to their sources, the parents of the victims, to get their reaction. No one else could do that.

“That’s really how we were able to stay ahead,” Ganim said.

Jun 15, 2012: 11:09 am

Investigating Power: A vast video archive of interviews with investigative journalists — several of whom are speaking right now at the IRE Conference.

Jun 15, 2012: 10:18 am

Tips on Twitter:

Ira Rosen of 60 Minutes: “Dead space is your friend. You ask a question and you let it lay there and people fill up that dead space.” #IRE12

— Taylor Dobbs (@taylordobbs) June 15, 2012

Pulitzer winner James Grimaldi: "Showing the quid is easy. The quo is easy. It's the pro that's tough. How did connection happen?" #IRE12

— John Russell (@JohnRussell99) June 15, 2012

Don't settle for interviews with PR people. Insist on talking to the real source. The Art of the Interview at #IRE12

— Amy Karon (@amykaron) June 15, 2012

Berens: When hunting for data on investigative pieces, remember that these stories are really about people. This is why we do it. #IRE12

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 15, 2012

"Every investigative story begins w/a timeline. It will pay gold" in showing patterns, narrative writing. M. Berens, Seattle Times #IRE12

— John Russell (@JohnRussell99) June 15, 2012

Jun 15, 2012: 8:33 am

Local communities are spending billions of dollars in tax subsidies to lure companies in the hope of getting more jobs and economic development. But the subsidies are often based on dubious claims and consultants’ studies that reporters should be checking.

The irony is that corporate subsidies erode the tax base for public schools — one of the things that actually does bolster economic development.

A few tips offered by panelists Daniel Connolly, Jim Heaney, Greg LeRoy and David Cay Johnston:

Don’t rely solely on claims made by the company, the government agency, or their economic studies, which are often paid for by the people who want the subsidy. Figure out the true cost of the subsidy.

“Develop data,” said Heaney. “This is absolutely essential. You’ve got to go to the agency and ferret out all the costs. And most projects get multiple subsidies.”

Subsidy Tracker: Search a database of companies that receive government subsidies.

Is the subsidy for a retail store? It’s probably not necessary. The jobs are usually low-paying; there’s a glut of retail space in the United States; and these companies are often simply moving from on location to another in the same region.

Read the enabling legislation and the fine print. Connolly found a one-sided deal in which the government agency agreed not to enforce a clawback provision to get the subsidy back if the company failed to provide all the promised jobs.

Delve into the job numbers. Are these full-time or part-time jobs? Low-income jobs?

Figure out the benchmarks. What is the cost of the subsidy per job? Some deals, such as a data center for Verizon, came out to a couple million dollars per job. People relate to that kind of comparison.

Jun 15, 2012: 6:31 am

Data on deadline: Keli Rabon and Stephen Brock put together this list of handy databases you can use for breaking-news stories. “Be ready before breaking news hits,” Brock said at the panel “CAR under pressure.” “Practice the data.”

interesting websites from the presentation:

Geofeedia: Type in a location and get pictures and social media posts from people in that area. Great for breaking news.

Open Status Search: Search public Facebook updates without logging into Facebook.

Safer Products: Search consumer complaints and government recalls regarding thousands of consumer products on this website published by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Jun 14, 2012: 4:07 pm

Demystifying Web scraping: Ted Han and Sean Sposito’s Google Docs presentation. Nifty.

Jun 14, 2012: 3:47 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Lots of great tips flying around #IRE12. A good one: Readers don't care abt work you did to analyze data, just findings (via @Coloradoan_TH)

— Brian M. Rosenthal (@brianmrosenthal) June 14, 2012

Does your city participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)? A gold mine of data on crime statistics. #IRE12

— Lindsay VanHulle (@LindsayVanHulle) June 14, 2012

Reading the #IRE2012 feed made me look up @alisonannyoung's Ghost Factories http://t.co/QlIt5HOL True multimedia. Nice video.

— Robin J Phillips (@RobinJP) June 14, 2012

#IRE12 blog post by @chelsbk How to get data from government agencies for any beat http://t.co/4U8XNxyX

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 14, 2012

Is anyone else who went to that privacy panel feeling a little paranoid now? #IRE2012

— Jordan Culver (@JordanCulver) June 14, 2012

Jun 14, 2012: 3:15 pm

Google Doc presentation of free computer-assisted reporting tools: Download a list of free resources discussed by Anthony DeBarros of USA Today and Matt Stiles of NPR.

Jun 14, 2012: 3:04 pm

Gannett Tumblr: Gannett journalists are covering the conference at “Gannett @ IRE. Great posts, pictures and videos.

Jun 14, 2012: 2:56 pm

Interactive wind map: Amazing map of wind patterns in the United States. “We hadn’t visualized wind before and hadn’t realized its power,” said Google’s Martin Wattenberg, who helped create the map by marshaling government data.

Jun 14, 2012: 12:38 pm

Panel tip: Get the records retention schedule.

From the Department of Things Reporters Should Really Be Doing A Whole Lot More Often, this tip comes from Ellen Gabler.

“I love teaching people about asking for data,” said Gabler this morning at “The ask: Requesting and negotiating for data.” To know what to ask for, you have to know what exists.

“Ask agencies for their records retention schedule,” Gabler said. This gives you a complete list of every type of document kept by the agency, which can point you to interesting records and databases.

Jun 14, 2012: 12:13 pm

Panel Tip: Create a data log.

Steve Doig and Elizabeth Lucas offered this gem at the “Taming monstrous datasets” panel.

When you analyze data, the queries can get really complicated. You might be doing some queries, crunch some numbers, and move on to the next part of the story. Then, weeks or months later when it’s time to publish and you’re bulletproofing those figures, an editor is going to ask how you came up with them. “You need to be able to answer that,” Doig said.

The solution is keeping a log of your work. It’s tedious, Lucas said, but it’s worth the trouble. When you turn in numbers for a story, attach a log documenting your process.

“An audit trail is absolutely essential,” Doig said.

Jun 14, 2012: 11:59 am

Muckety: Maps relationships between powerful people and organizations.

Muse: Useful tool for analyzing email archives.

30 free tools for data visualizations and analysis: Handy, sortable chart of free tools.

Jun 14, 2012: 10:37 am

Aviation Wildlife Strikes Database: Federal Aviation Administration data that tracks incidents involving birds and even deer that are struck by aircraft.

NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System: Tracks reports of safety concerns raised anonymously by pilots.

Jun 14, 2012: 10:00 am

Scout from the Sunlight Foundation: Get alerts emailed to you whenever Congress or state lawmakers discuss an issue you care about. It’s like Google alerts based on official government records. Free.

Follow the Money: Free workshop from the Reynolds Center about tracking companies’ influence on politics.

The post Live-blogging the IRE 2012 Conference in Boston: Resources that will help you be a better investigative journalist appeared first on John Tedesco.

Investigative Reporters and Editors is in the middle of a fundraising campaign. If you care about watchdog journalism, you might want to think about helping the cause.

I first heard about IRE from Ken Dilanian, who was an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News in the mid-1990s. I was a skinny dude with a flat top attending Incarnate Word College and writing for the student newspaper, the Logos. Ken suggested I read a book published by IRE called, “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook.”

I bought the handbook during Christmas break and devoured it. The book preached the value of tracking down key records to verify what people tell you, and to learn information that officials don’t want you to know. There’s a wide, wide world of public information out there, if you just know where to look. The book showed you how.

Related: Top five books every student journalist should own right now

I read the handbook just in time. In the Spring semester at Incarnate Word, I friend told me about problems at the school’s science hall. She said the school was doing a terrible job storing dangerous chemicals — even the San Antonio bomb squad had been called to dispose of potentially explosive substances.

If I hadn’t read IRE’s handbook, I probably would have called the dean, been told nothing was wrong, and walked away clueless about what was really going on.

But thanks to IRE, I thought about which government agencies might have information that could confirm the tip. I tracked down public records, such as police reports, and talked to key officials, such as fire marshals, and confirmed the story. By the time I talked to the dean, I already knew what was going on. It was liberating.

Here’s part of my story in the Logos, published on April 4, 1996:

Sloppy storage practices have plagued the science department for as long as employees remember — and the problem could be deadly.

Last semester Incarnate Word called in chemical disposal specialists from Emtech Environmental Service after old acid was found that could have exploded had it been disturbed.

Bernard Zarazua, laboratory director at the time, was cleaning a lab that hadn’t been used in over six months when he discovered crystallized picric acid in a 25-gram container.

Stable in liquid form, picric acid solidifies over time, turning combustible and sensitive to vibration.

“We had [Emtech] come out and dispose of it,” Zarazua says. “They did it at six in the morning so no one would be alarmed.”

IRE is a nonprofit group that has taught countless students, bloggers and reporters better ways to practice the craft of watchdog journalism. That’s worth a few bucks.

Sometimes I blog about stuff that helps journalists. I pay for all the products I review on my blog. To help defray those costs, I use Google ads and Amazon’s affiliate advertising program, which provides a way for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com. There’s no extra cost to you, and I’ll never link to stuff I don’t like or try to make you buy something that sucks. These reviews are my honest opinions. Thanks for reading.

The post How Investigative Reporters and Editors shaped my first investigative story appeared first on John Tedesco.