Investigative
Journalism Toolbox
Not that long ago reporters might spend weeks searching through dusty file cabinets in government buildings searching for specific information.
Today, much of the same information can often be located in minutes by searching online. But knowing how to search can speed the process immeasurably. This site can be helpful for journalists in two areas:
1. Using a few simple techniques, you can find reliable information on Google or other search engines very quickly.
Below are two case studies involving actual news events and how focused searching helped add to the information very quickly, plus a primer on how those techniques might help you.
2. OSINT is the acronym for Open Source Intelligence, which is a field of online research practiced by everyone from journalists to employees of the CIA.
Most of the sites for journalists have a focus on international websites, which is of little use to most US reporters. As you will see, this website focuses on the best websites for domestic investigations.
Investigative
Journalism
Toolbox
Helpful Search Websites
A productivity web tool and browser extension designed to open multiple search queries or URLs simultaneously in separate tabs.
Allows you to see search results from another city or country. Searching from different locations often returns different results.
The Wayback Machine is a free digital archive of the World Wide Web that allows users to view how websites looked at specific points in the past.
Below you will find links to websites that specialize in information under the categories listed. Many are free but even those that charge a fee can reveal useful information before requiring any payment.
One final note; these websites often come online and then disappear as the developers lose interest or as they are not financially viable. This site will be updated as much as feasible.
Investigating People
Operates as a dynamic search engine that connects disparate pieces of information—such as emails, phone numbers, and social media handles
Organizes over 12 billion public records into profiles for searching individuals via name, phone number, email, address, or username. Has both a free and paid subscription.
Enterprise data quality and identity verification platform offering people search, address verification, phone append, and email verification across global datasets.
Offers background checks, contact information, and other details through public and private databases about U.S residents.
Public data including property tax records, voter registration, and social media accounts.
Find Addresses, Phones, Emails, and Much More!
Operates as a dynamic search engine that connects disparate pieces of information—such as emails, phone numbers, and social media handles
Digital investigators use Namechk to find a person's linked accounts across various platforms by searching for a known unique username.
To conduct reverse username search across various social media platforms, online dating sites, forums, and communities simply by providing a username.
Free people search engine indexing over 300 million profiles. Aggregates social media accounts, public records, and web presence into unified profiles.
Free people search engine that calculates a web visibility score based on online presence across social networks, news, and web pages.
Really good for people searches in the US.
Investigating Companies
Fresh, standardized, auditable information direct from official primary sources across 140+ jurisdictions.
ImportYeti is a search engine and business intelligence tool that lets you look up the suppliers of any American company by searching through millions of public U.S. Customs sea shipment records (Bills of Lading).
Provides detailed, real-time organizational charts for large companies worldwide.
Can be used to find verified email addresses, phone numbers, and social media profiles for over 700 million professionals and 60 million companies worldwide.
Find email addresses of companies and people
Free web-based tool that aggregates WHOIS, DNS, and network information for domains and IP addresses into a single consolidated report.
Comprehensive domain intelligence platform offering reverse lookups, ownership history, and related domain discovery. Trusted by government agencies, domain investors, and legal firms.
Investigating Non-Profits
Has clear summaries of revenues and salaries.
Has a pro account but most 990s are available for free.
The US Government website.
Evaluates charities using a 0 to 4 scale.
An aggressive, watchdog approach. Issues letter grades. F-A+
Reviews and info from donors and volunteers.
Transportation
VesselFinder is a real-time vessel tracking service that provides the current positions and movement history of ships worldwide.
Provides real-time tracking of over 550,000 ships worldwide. It functions like "flight tracker for the ocean," using a global network of land-based AIS (Automatic Identification System) stations and satellites to map vessel movements.
Equasis provides vessel ownership and safety records, as well as shipping company fleet information.
Ship/shipping-related information from the International Maritime Organization.
ShipFinder is an application designed to track vessels in near real-time across the globe.
Accident reports, Data on Inspections, Info on Grade Crossings
National Transportation Safety Board. Investigates all major rail accidents, identifies causes and issues safety recommendations.
Freight statistics, traffic reports, safety trends.
An extensive and detailed online map of the world's railway infrastructure showing speed limits, track gage, and electrification.
Records of civil aviation accidents and incidents in the U.S. and international waters from 1962 to the present.
Offers preliminary reports on accidents and incidents reported to the FAA, usually within a few days of an occurrence.
Flight tracker with live maps and a search function.
A global flight-tracking platform that provides real-time data on aircraft movements. It offers live tracking, historical data, and predictive analytics via its website and apps.
Flightradar24, a real-time flight tracking service, that provides comprehensive information about aircraft positions, flight numbers, routes, historical data, detailed aircraft specifications.
Audio from air traffic control towers in the United States. More complicated to use than e.g. Flightradar24.
Live flight tracker (including many miltiary aircraft). Live data available for the past month. Historical data available for purchase by request.
Database for aircraft details.
A database of aircraft details
Aircraft incident database; can be searched by country, registration, year, etc.
Nationwide Plane Registry. Search by N-Number (a.k.a. callsign). Comprehensive list of privately owned planes in the US.
Maps & Satellites
An interactive 3D map visualization tool that provides detailed rendering of urban landscapes and geographical features.
Mapping service that can serve as an alternative to Google Maps or Apple Maps.
View current and historic wind, weather, ocean and pollution conditions on an interactive animated map.
Sea map of borders, special zones, shipping lanes, with overlays of MarineTraffic and other sources.
OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world.
Overpass Turbo is a web-based tool for querying and visualizing OpenStreetMap crowd sourced data, aiding in extracting specific information like locations of amenities e.g. hospitals.
ShadeMap is a global simulation of mountain, building & tree shadows for a given date & time. Base data is free, but users can buy 30cm accurate data per sq km for areas of special focus.
Images & Video
You can upload images to perform “reverse image searches” on Google Images, Bing, and other search engines to determine if the image is new or old, and whether it is related to the incident it claims to depict, or if it pertains to a different incident or location. Reverse image search only works if the photo exists online.
To know if it is manipulated or not upload the image to this website.
A powerful tool for detecting manipulated images using advanced techniques like Metadata Analysis and ELA Analysis.
Media Verification & Research tool, detects AI.
SunCalc is an application that shows the sun’s movement throughout the day on any map area. This helps users verify information by matching the shadows in videos to the time of day the video was taken.
Microsoft visual search engine with reverse image lookup and crop-based matching for partial-object analysis.
Facial recognition search. Search engine that finds publicly indexed face matches across web and social sources.
Commercial reverse face search engine for locating appearances of a face on publicly indexed websites.
AI reverse image and face matching platform designed to find similar or edited visual content.
AI geolocation tool that estimates likely photo capture locations from visual scene analysis.
Online EXIF inspection utility for camera, location, and embedded image metadata fields.
A global network of owned and operated live streaming webcams
VIDEO DOWNLOADING
Allows you to easily convert and download videos and audios from youtube for free and in the best available quality.
Download Instagram Stories and Highlights
Is a free web-based service primarily used to download Facebook videos to a computer, tablet, or mobile device. I
Federal
Government Spending
This is a record by fiscal year of all federal spending. Type in the name of a company, a state, county, or organization and get detailed data.
Offers a "Your Guide to America’s Finances" and includes the Monthly Treasury Statement, which tracks actual outlays (money paid out) rather than just obligations (money promised).
The authoritative source for federal contract award data and provides access to Assistance Listings, detailing federal programs that provide grants and loans.
Maintained by the GSA, this site allows you to search for audits of organizations that spend $1 million or more in federal grants annually.
A specialized portal managed by USAID and the State Department to track U.S. government spending on foreign aid.
A non-partisan initiative that provides simplified, interactive visualizations of the federal budget, spending categories, and historical trends.
A Real-time Federal Budget Tracker that monitors the federal deficit, spending, and receipts using daily Treasury data.
A congressional page from Rep Craig Goldman that tracks what is categorized as wasteful government spending across various federal agencies.
Offers a "Your Guide to America’s Finances" and includes the Monthly Treasury Statement, which tracks actual outlays (money paid out) rather than just obligations (money promised).
The Enviroment
(Enforcement and Compliance History Online) is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) public website used to search and analyze the compliance and enforcement records of regulated facilities nationwide.
An email service that alerts subscribers to new enforcement or compliance activities by the EPA in their chosen geographic area.
A news service connected to Yale University that aids in understanding the reality of climate change, its consequences, and potential solutions in the U.S. and beyond.
Gathers daily news on climate change from various sources.
Provides real-time national air quality data.
The premier interagency system for active wildfire incidents. It provides maps, containment updates, and official announcements directly from incident management teams.
The nation's primary support center for wildland firefighting. Their National Fire News page offers daily snapshots of fire activity and resource commitment across the U.S..
An advanced tool for satellite-detected active fire data. It uses MODIS and VIIRS satellite instruments to show thermal hotspots globally in near real-time.
The Beach Advisory and Closing Online Notification system tracks pollution occurrences and health advisories specifically for coastal recreation waters.
A non-governmental site that aggregates and simplifies testing data for nearly 50,000 public water systems. It highlights contaminants that may exceed health guidelines, even if they meet legal federal standards.
Explore tree cover loss and gain data, recent deforestation and fire alerts, land use designations, carbon emissions, biodiversity metrics and more.
The Military
Equipment identified by branch of service.
Office of the Inspector General. The primary oversight body for the Department of Defense. You can find audit reports, investigative summaries.
Government Accountability Office. Their "Military" topic page contains thousands of reports on defense programs and readiness.
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Responsible for personnel vetting and industrial security.
Regularly publishes deep-dive reports on personnel issues, equipment failures, and policy shifts.
Regularly publishes deep-dive reports on personnel issues, equipment failures, and policy shifts.