The Public Tech Media Lab (PTML) has partnered with the nonprofit fact-checking organization Factchequeado to train newsrooms across the country on tools and techniques for conducting their own digital investigations using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).
“Open Source Intelligence is one of the fastest growing areas inside newsrooms across the world,” said Tomás Dodds, Director of PTML. “We are training newsrooms to take advantage of the data that is already publicly available to create low-cost, high-impact stories for their communities.”
Factchequeado is one of the largest collaborative efforts against disinformation for English- and Spanish-speaking newsrooms across the U.S. This fact-checking organization has partners with over 140 newsrooms in the United States, and their articles reach over 68 million Latinos nationwide.
“We are happy to collaborate with the team at Factchequeado to reach smaller or under-resourced English- and Spanish-language outlets, and help them expand their investigative capacity,” Dodds said.
Today’s social and political environment in the United States has led many Spanish-speaking communities to distrust official, legal sources and instead turn to social media for information. Ana María Carrano, editor in chief of Factchequeado, said that Spanish-speaking audiences are often left to navigate complex political and legal systems without accessible, evidence-based information.
“We already know that social media and influencers are not evidence-based information. And because there is a huge immigrant community, there is also a lack of information on how to find the right information for them,” said Carrano. “So, in those gaps, Latinos are more vulnerable to manipulation, scams, and frauds.”
The trainings, led by Public Tech Media Lab’s Faculty Associate, Guillén Torres, included techniques such as reverse image searches to verify viral photos, geolocation and chronolocation methods to confirm where a video was recorded, and database analysis to trace the origins of misleading claims.
The reception of these trainings was very positive among participants.
“The wide array of tools that were introduced to participants and the resources recommended were beyond excellent for someone beginning in OSINT reporting,” said one of the training attendees in a post-training survey. “This far exceeded all my expectations from this workshop, and I am very grateful for this introduction.”
This partnership reflects a growing recognition that misinformation does not spread evenly across communities. As digital platforms continue to shape political discourse, strengthening the tools used by journalists to provide reliable information for all audiences is crucial to our information ecosystem.
If you are interested in learning more about Open Source Intelligence, check out and register for the Public Tech Media Lab’s upcoming Digital Investigations Bootcamp.