Investigative Journalist's OSINT Handbook

You have a name, a tip, or a company in three documents you cannot connect. You open a browser, search for ninety minutes, and close the laptop with nothing publishable. The information was there. You had no system to reach it.

This handbook gives investigative journalists the Source-to-Story Pipeline - the same structured OSINT workflow used by Bellingcat, the ICIJ, and the NYT Visual Investigations unit - translated for working reporters without a cybersecurity or data-science background. Every technique runs in a browser. Every tool has a free tier. Every method produces a documented evidence chain your editor and lawyer can follow.

- Build a repeatable source-discovery pipeline from a single lead to a verified network of sources
- Verify digital claims using satellite imagery, public records, and social media cross-referencing
- Map ownership structures through multi-layer corporate entities and beneficial ownership registries
- Conduct advanced web searches using Google Dorking and site-specific operators that surface what standard search misses
- Track vessels and aircraft using AIS and ADS-B open data to detect transponder manipulation
- Geolocate photographs and videos using landmark triangulation, sun angle analysis, and satellite cross-reference
- Identify and test source independence to distinguish genuine verification from echo-chamber corroboration
- Visualize entity-relationship networks using Maltego CE and Gephi to find structural patterns no single document reveals
- Develop a story architecture from verified OSINT findings using the accountability frame framework
- Protect sources through layered technical and procedural operational security matched to risk level

Each chapter closes with decision filters, code-block templates, and lab exercises you apply to a live investigation - not a classroom scenario. The Source-to-Story Pipeline is documented, reproducible, and built for deadline conditions.

For journalists, reporters, and newsroom researchers who want to find what is publicly available and verify it to a standard that holds.

Pick it up before your next investigation. Use it on every one after.