Investigative reporting

Updated September 11, 2026

Investigative reporting

Updated September 11, 2026

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Editor’s note: This is a new page, so feel free to suggest more resources by clicking the “Submit a Site” link on the right rail. Find more useful tools in the Fact-Checking and Search page. Several sites on this page were shared by Craig Silverman of the Indicator newsletter.

WHAT’S NEW

GIJN: Tips for Editing Investigative Podcasts

Monitoring Wildfires Using Open Source Tools
Training video on how to use the tools

Archive.ph
It takes a ‘snapshot’ of a webpage that will always be online even if the original page disappears. It saves a text and a graphical copy of the page for better accuracy and provides a short and reliable link to an unalterable record of any web page.

Bibliome
A Mac app designed for reporters managing large volumes of documents, such as FOIA returns, court filings, and scraped PDFs. It builds a searchable library and uses a local LLM to answer questions about the corpus, citing the specific page for each answer to prevent hallucinations and allow easy verification. Pricing: $29.99 one-time purchase (no subscription, no accounts, no telemetry). Free iPhone and iPad companion that syncs via the user’s own iCloud.

NorthData
Search engines for Europe and others. Journalists can get free accounts to all the tools.

Google Dataset Search

Truthfinder
Background checks

Intelius
Background checks

SkopeNow
Paid people search database

Craig Silverman Start.me Page
Full of useful OSINT tools and more

OSINT Tools Start.me
List of dozens of useful OSINT tools

OSINT Investigative Tools
Spreadsheet listing tools and descriptions.

Violation Tracker
Violation Tracker is the first wide-ranging database on corporate misconduct. Produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs

NICAR 25 Bluesky Posts
Compiled by Sharon Machlis

Crowd-Sourced Mapping Tools for OSINT Investigations

Open Source Intelligence Tools Handbook (OSINT)

Companies House (UK)

Nine Leadership Tips for Women in Investigative Journalism

Indicator Resources Page
Tools and research from Craig Silverman

Indicator Guide to Connecting Websites Together Using OSINT Tools and Methods

Indicator Academic Library
A regularly updated collection of academic studies and industry reports about digital deception.

Investigate.ai
Practical data science tools for journalists.

OSINT.link
Open-source intelligence tools

OSINT Framework
Open source intelligence tool poses a list of questions and helps you track down a username, photo, person’s full name from a social account, etc.

AI Research Pilot
This tool is designed specifically for investigators, reporters and other researchers. It works with AI platforms that cite their sources and formats queries for other chatbots in ways that encourage them to back up their claims with references. Research Pilot isn’t about letting AI do the research for you – it’s about making AI help you find where to start your actual investigation.

BillTrack50
AI-powered resource for finding and tracking legislation in the US. Free with paid upgrades. Built by Stanford’s Big Local News.

Google Public Data Explorer

US Local Data Portals

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Database

Generative AI in the Newsroom: Building Investigative Tipsheets with Claude Code

MuckRock: Guide to Requesting Text Messages in Public Records Requests
Also: An excellent story on how a reporter used them in a story.

The Accountability Project
From the Investigative Reporting Workshop, this site curates, standardizes and indexes public data to give journalists, researchers and others a simple way to search across otherwise siloed records.

Silent Push
A threat intel platform that can do whois, IP and other tracking. Also scans text, favicons and javascript code on a site.

Generative AI in the Newsroom: How Teams of AI Agents Could Provide Valuable Leads for Investigative Data Journalism (Sept. 2024)

FAVI H#SH
Get the hash of a favicon to ID websites using the ame ones. Works on the open web and dark web.

GIJN: Podcasts for Investigative Journalists
Global podcasts in a variety of languages

BBC Africa Eye: Digital Forensics Dashboard
A collation of some essential tools tailored to journalists using open source intelligence (OSINT) to carry out investigations.

GraphEmails.com
Generates network graphs out of email logs, and lets you filter the log using the graph, or vice versa

Scraped Archive of the Chicago Public Schools FOIA Logs
It updates every night.

Eight Tools That Investigative and Data Journalists Use and Recommend
From the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

SecureMessagingApps.com
Long list of apps for secure conversations

ICFJ DataShare
Tracks investigations and leaks.

Press Freedom Watch
An ongoing catalog of federal government actions affecting journalists.

GIJN 2025 Conference Tipsheets
Dozens of tools and resources for investigative reporters.

DeDigger
Searches for public documents on Google Drives

GIJN: Best Guides and Tipsheets for Investigative Reporters (2025)
Illicit Finance Data Lab
Created by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Data Lab connects journalists with researchers so that both groups can more effectively use data to expose and understand corruption and dirty money flows.

The Centre for Investigative Journalism
London-based organization trains and connects journalists, researchers and editors in the UK and around the world to investigate and collaborate on projects that support quality public-interest reporting and accountability.

Bellingcat Telegram Phone Number Checker
Requires some tech help, but this tool offers a unique way to find more information on the owner of a phone number you already have, if that person owns a Telegram account. Or you can search multiple numbers in a batch, with numbers separated by commas.

Wirescreen
Ownership information for China; flags if it is state-owned, etc.

Crystal Intelligence
Blockchain intelligence tool for real-time screening of crypto transactions.

Factiva
Global news and industry archive full of information about international companies.

Spark Interfax
Russian company registry with translations and transliterations, searchable by person or company. You also can track offshore companies that do business with Russia.

Draftable
Compare two documents online (Word, PDF, text files). Free with a paid desktop version.

FilePhish
The original query builder for fast and easy document discovery

Eight Tools That Investigative and Data Journalists Use and Recommend
From the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Grayhat Warfare
Paid search engine for publicly accessible buckets. It indexes open buckets, and lets users search for files to identify exposed or misconfigured cloud storage

Global Nature Watch
From Craig Silverman of the Indicator newsletter: Track changes in the earth’s surface over time. Example: “Show forest loss in Peru over the past 5 years” It uses resources from Global Forest Watch.

Protected Planet
It’s “the most up to date and complete source of data on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), updated monthly with submissions from governments, non-governmental organizations, landowners and communities.”

Sayari
Global public records including court, trade, tax, and business registries; covers hard-to-access regions like China, Brazil, MENA, and Africa.”

Offshore Alert
Caribbean court document database.

Opensky Network
Database of historical info for plane flights

Volza
Global import-export data and trade insights.

Darkside by District 4 Labs
Checks leaked records with emails, phone numbers and usernames.

Global Fishing Watch
Track fishing boats

Vessel Finder
Track boats

Marine Traffic
Track boats

JetPhotos
Track planes by tail number

Offshore Leaks Database
ICIJ tool that can track leaks from oil companies, etc.

Monitoring Wildfires Using Open Source Tools
Training video on how to use the tools

SeeGov
Uses AI to help civic creators and journalists select and share video highlights from local government meetings. Creators choose what to include and add context to inform residents and expand democratic participation. The platform does not alter the source video. Helps civic creators and journalists produce and share video highlights of local government meetings. Run by a nonprofit founded in 2023. Also features a Reddit community

GIJN: Tips for Editing Investigative Podcasts

Yutori Scouts
Monitor a specific topic online and get an agent-curated summary sent to you at a specific time of the day.

Earth Index
Empowering environmental defenders with AI to understand local trends.

Corporate Prosecution Registry
Duke University database of lawsuits against large corporations.

OpenSanctions
Type in a company’s name to track authorities’ sanctions against them.

Earth Index
A platform that enables you to quickly train an AI model to identify a specific pattern in satellite imagery, without requiring technical knowledge or a large corpus.

TIPSHEETS AND OTHER RESOURCES

GenAI in the Newsroom: Agentic Search for Investigative Journalism

GIJN: The Rise of Digital Whistleblowing Platforms and How They Work

GIJN: Digging up Hidden Data with the Web Inspector

GIJN: Tops 12 Guides and Tipsheets from 2021

GIJN: How to use Satellite Imagery in Forensic Investigations

GIJN: Tips for Finding People Online

GIJN: Tips for Investigative Journalists Using the Wayback Machine

GIJN’s Guide to Undercover Reporting

GIJN: 10 Tips for Investigating Police Misconduct

GIJN: 10 Investigative Questions to Ask When Covering a Natural Disaster

GIJN: A Guide to Tracking Aircraft Around the World