Looking forward to the future of journalism

Insanely awesome journalism tips from IRE’s 2018 investigative reporting conference

IRE Conference in Orlando, Florida 2018

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, … Read more

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

Daniel Russell, research master at Google
Daniel Russell, research master at Google
Daniel Russell, research master at Google

When a research scientist at Google offers to show you how to unlock the full potential of the powerful search engine, you pay attention.

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.

You gotta know a little bit about how to make Google dance. This is all mother’s milk for investigative reporters.”

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.

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

Dan Russell, Google

Daniel Russell stood in front of a crowd of investigative journalists in Boston last week and showed us this picture of a random skyscraper in an unknown city: 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 … Read more

Live-blogging the IRE 2012 Conference in Boston: Resources that will help you be a better investigative journalist

The classic stereotype about journalists is that we’re all backstabbing vultures who would sell our mothers for a good story. 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 … Read more

How Investigative Reporters and Editors shaped my first investigative story

IRE Conference 2013

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 … Read more