Education, Advocacy and Activism

📨 MuckRock Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens www.muckrock.com in a new tab.

Public-records request filing and tracking, plus a large archive of released documents. The closest match to a records request tracker. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open MuckRock ↗

🕵️ Bellingcat Online Investigations Toolkit Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens bellingcat.gitbook.io in a new tab.

A curated, searchable list of open-source investigation tools and guides from Bellingcat. Overlaps with the OSINT Monitor and Advanced Search. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open Bellingcat Online Investigations Toolkit ↗

🌐 Global Investigative Journalism Network Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens gijn.org in a new tab.

Guides, tip sheets and training for investigative reporters worldwide. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open Global Investigative Journalism Network ↗

📰 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens www.ire.org in a new tab.

Training, a tip-sheet library and data resources for investigative reporters. A membership organization. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) ↗

🧰 SPJ Journalist Toolbox Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens www.journaliststoolbox.org in a new tab.

A long-running directory of reporting tools from the Society of Professional Journalists. A list of links, not tools you run on the page. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open SPJ Journalist Toolbox ↗

⚖️ Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens www.rcfp.org in a new tab.

Legal guides for reporters, including state-by-state open records and open meetings guides. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press ↗

🔎 Free Tools and Resources for Investigative Reporters Resource

Material to read or an outside site. Outside sites are run by other organizations. Opens businessjournalism.org in a new tab.

A roundup from the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism. It dates from 2017, so some links may be stale. External site, not run by Learning Tools.

Open Free Tools and Resources for Investigative Reporters ↗

🧭 Investigation Toolkit: What This Group Is For Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

The cards below collect tools that reporters, advocates and researchers use to check whether a photo or video is what it claims to be, trace where an image came from, save web pages before they change or disappear, collect and study social media material, organize a long investigation, and stay safe while doing it. They follow the order of a typical verification job: Verify (reverse image search, face tools, metadata and forensics, deepfake checks), Preserve (web archiving), Collect (social media research), Organize (data organization and analysis) and Protect (advanced online safety). Most entries come from the Bellingcat Online Investigations Toolkit, a community-maintained list; every link here goes to the tool's own site, and each link is checked once a month. Treat results as leads to confirm with a second source, not as proof. Face search and people search raise real privacy and legal questions, so read the Privacy and Security section first and follow the law and each site's rules.

🖼️ Reverse Image Search Tools Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Reverse image search finds where else a picture appears online and which copy is oldest. Reporters use it to test a viral photo, find the original photographer, spot a photo recycled from an older event, and locate a place or object. Run the same image through more than one engine, because each one indexes different parts of the web.

🙂 Facial Recognition Tools Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Tools that compare faces or search for look-alike faces. They can give a lead on who appears in a photo or whether two photos show the same person, but they make mistakes and a match is never an identification by itself. Using them on private people raises privacy, accuracy and legal concerns, and some of these sites are controversial. Confirm any lead with reporting before you publish a name.

🔬 Metadata and Image Forensics Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Metadata is the hidden information inside a photo or video: camera model, date, software and sometimes GPS location. Forensic tools look for signs of editing, such as cloned areas or compression that does not match. Use them to check a file you received and, with the removal tools, to strip identifying data from files you publish. Metadata can be missing or faked, so it supports other evidence rather than replacing it.

🧩 More Image and Media Tools Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Helpers that do not fit the other image groups: spotting AI-generated faces and fake audio, removing objects, joining photos into panoramas, finding duplicate files and arranging reference images. Detection tools are guesses with error rates, so use them to raise or lower suspicion, not to settle a question.

🗃️ Web Archiving Tools Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Pages get edited, deleted and taken down, sometimes right after a story runs. Archiving tools save a copy with a date so you can show what a page said, watch a page for changes, and keep social media posts that may vanish. Archive early, keep the archive link with your notes, and save the original address too.

📊 Data Organization and Analysis Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Once you have material, you need a way to store it, connect it and chart it. These tools cover note keeping, collaborative evidence logs, network and timeline views, maps, charts and databases you can publish. Pick one note system and one analysis tool and learn them well rather than collecting many.

📚 Tools: Directories, Books and Guides Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Three reference works worth keeping open while you research: a Swiss catalogue of investigative sources that shows how a country-specific toolkit is organized, the standard book on online investigation methods, and a step-by-step workbook for removing your own data from people-search sites.

🛡️ Advanced Online Safety Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Investigators open hostile pages, handle files from unknown senders, and make themselves targets. These tools and guides cover private browsing and search, blocking trackers, testing links and files before opening them, two-factor sign-in, secure phone recording and blurring or sanitizing risky material. Start with Security Planner or Surveillance Self-Defense to match your steps to your real risks. This pairs with the Digital Safety for Writers and Privacy modules.

🔎 Social Media Research (Multiple Platforms) Resource

Links to sites run by other organizations. Each link opens in a new tab and is checked once a month.

Tools that work across many platforms at once: finding the same username in many places, checking whether an email address shows up in breaches, and collecting posts for analysis. A username match is only a lead, since different people share names; confirm identity with other details before you connect an account to a person. Respect platform rules and privacy law, and keep notes of what you searched and when.