Learn how user-generated and open source content can boost your journalism. Journalism is changing. Are you keeping pace?

This one-day workshop will help you apply traditional journalism to an interconnected digital environment. With this aim in mind, participants will learn the skills used by intelligence agencies of search and discovery, data collection, source verification, understanding networks and data analysis.

The aim of this workshop is to improve awareness through open intelligence. You will be taught how to:

• Choose appropriate tools to effectively monitor the Internet and user-generated content
• Identify possible leads
• Discover tools to dig quickly and deeper into a source or lead
• Understand and analyse trends
• And verify sources and contents of user-generated online material.

Step-by-step, hands-on exercises will engage the journalist in you, and you’ll gain practical online investigation techniques.

This course requires a computer and accounts to the following services: Google+, Facebook and Twitter. Please ensure that you have a laptop available and have created the above accounts in advance of the course.

About the trainers
This workshop will be led by trainers from SecDev, a company which specialises in open intelligence and builds search and discovery infrastructure, conducting expert analysis on data uncovered. SecDev has delivered training for media organisations such as BBC and Frontline Club as well as various Canadian and US government departments.

[user generated content: the source and the story]

Disruptive technology is transforming journalism. Revolutions are tweeted. Drug lords and hitmen have Facebook fans. Wars are waged with cyber attacks. Surveillance and espionage have never been so widespread or easy to conduct.

The social fabric of cyberspace is as important as the physical world. From commerce to sex, every interaction is mirrored online. Traditional media feel left behind by bloggers, social media, and the race into cyberspace – but that race has just begun. The next-generation news organisation will be agile and smart. It will apply the trusted techniques of traditional journalism to the online world. Speed is just as important as accuracy – and both can be won.

The SecDev training programme considers how journalism has changed, and offers solutions for media professionals to break the news without compromising credibility and integrity in a real-time digital age.

With emerging digital tools and methods, journalists can:

• Discover the what as it happens
• Determine the where – globally – with speed
• Find and engage the who directly – anywhere in the world
• Understand the why, putting it quickly into a multifaceted context
• Access the how through an unlimited amount of available resources
• Verify the source with precision and efficiency

All aspects of traditional journalism still apply, but are supercharged in the digital age of media. It’s more than counting tweets, trending social media or data-driven journalism: it’s the future news environment – and it’s here today.

8:45 – 9:00 REGISTRATION

9:00 – 9:15 WELCOME MESSAGE

9:15 – 10:00 WHY DOES SOCIAL MEDIA MATTER? Presenting the ways in which social media has become the news, this information session considers how journalism has changed as a result and what media professionals can do to break the news without compromising credibility in a digital age.

10:00 – 10:45 KNOW THY THREAT Avoid being a target. Learn how to quickly distinguish fact from fiction in an online environment. This session covers issues related to cyber espionage such as what devices are easily compromised and tips for secure communications.

10:45 – 11:00 BREAK

11:00 – 12:00 BREAK THAT STORY Tools and methods for using social media to get to the story first with a structured and iterative drill designed for journalists to reinforce analytics techniques and approaches.

12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH

13:45 – 14:30 KNOW THY SOURCE Techniques and methods for verifying sources, focusing on verification of cross domain sources, culminating in a hands- on drill to test and validate core skills of participants.

14:30 – 17:00 HANDS ON PRACTICUM Let’s find the news! A breaking news simulation exercise where students will be challenged to apply their new skills in a real-time scenario, working as a team.

The trainer:

Rafal Rohozinski is co-founder and principal of the SecDev Group, a recognised leader in complex analytics. He spent 17 years working in an operational capacity in 37 countries including conflict zones in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa. He is also a co-founder and past CEO of Psiphon, he served as director of the Advanced Network Research Group University of Cambridge, is the co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor, and co-author of the Ghostnet study of Chinese cyber-espionage. He has written many publications and is a frequent commentator on cyber security and cyber war.

The workshop will be followed by an event with Rafal Rohozinski on Tuesday 20 May at 7:00 PM, for details see here.

This course requires a computer and accounts to the following services: Google+, Facebook and Twitter. Please ensure that you have a laptop available and have created the above accounts in advance of the course.

The event will follow a day long workshop on Monday 19 May, for details see here.

Disruptive technology is transforming journalism. Revolutions are tweeted. Drug lords and hitmen have Facebook fans. Wars are waged with cyber attacks. Surveillance and espionage have never been so widespread or easy to conduct.

Traditional news organisations are falling behind as pioneering new tools are being developed to understand and stay at the forefront of fast moving global events. The way we do journalism is being redefined.

Cyber pioneer Rafal Rohozinski will be joining us in conversation with Robin Pembrooke, head of product at BBC News Online, to explore what the next generation news organisation will look like and the techniques and technology that they will be using. We will be discussing the possibilities they present as well as the challenges in ensuring the validity and accuracy of content.

Rafal Rohozinski is co-founder and principal of the SecDev Group, a recognised leader in complex analytics. He spent 17 years working in an operational capacity in 37 countries including conflict zones in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa. He is also a co-founder and past CEO of Psiphon, he served as director of the Advanced Network Research Group University of Cambridge, is the co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor, and co-author of the Ghostnet study of Chinese cyber-espionage. He has written many publications and is a frequent commentator on cyber security and cyber war.

On the Internet, their voices are skillfully shielded, but the famous bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan and Farnaz Seifi aren’t afraid of the dictatorial regimes in their respective home countries of Cuba, China and Iran. With indefatigable determination, they keep people around the world informed about the abuses taking place in their countries.

Director Barbara Miller follows these brave young rebels on their dangerous journey. She traces their use of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to denounce and combat human rights and freedom of speech violations in their countries.

It is not surprising that these fearless women were named among the world’s most influential people by TIME magazine, but will they ever achieve the equality that they so desperately want when there are still thousands of similar voices in prison or under house arrest?

Directed by Barbara Miller
Duration: 96′
Year: 2012

By Nicole Hunt

The two men charged with the April 2010 murder of South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terre’Blanche go on trial in Ventersdorp on Monday. Chris Mahlangu and an unnamed teenager are accused of killing the leader of the Afrikaner Weerstasbeweging (AWB) party over a wage dispute.

EU Foreign Ministers meet in Luxembourg, with Syria expected to be on the agenda after a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria was vetoed by Russia and China last week and Syrian opposition members officially formed a National Council.

Liberians go to the polls on Tuesday to elect their president for the next six years. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who became Africa’s first female leader when she was elected in 2005, is hoping to win a second term.

A verdict is expected in the corruption trial for Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in Kiev, who is accused of ‘misspending’ some $280m during her time as Prime Minister.

In New York City, alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout’s trial for selling weapons to Colombian rebel group FARC gets underway.

The European Commission presents its 2011 enlargement package in Brussels on Wednesday, which includes a formal favourable opinion on Croatia’s accession and a much-awaited opinion on Serbian accession following the arrest earlier this year of alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic.

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan hold the first of three unlimited US dollar auctions, which were announced last month and are designed to flood the financial market with dollars to support banks through the EU debt crisis. Two more auctions are planned for 9 November and 7 December.

On Thursday, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara pays his first visit to the country’s troubled western region since taking power in May following months of post-election violence and a power struggle with former President Laurent Gbagbo. Violence has continued in the west, where suspected Gbagbo loyalists are thought to be conducting armed raids over the Liberian border.

In France, journalist Tristine Banon publishes her book Le Bal des hypocrites, detailing her accusations of attempted rape against former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors begin a two day meeting in Paris on Friday, with the EU debt crisis expected to be high on the agenda.

In Dublin, the OECD publishes its latest Economic Survey of Ireland. The last edition was published in 2009, so there should be plenty of new material given the country’s economic woes in the interim.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee begins its annual gathering on Saturday. The meeting is seen as a key part of the power handover that should see Xi Jinping replace Hu Jintao as President next October.

Elections are held in Oman to name the 83 members of the country’s lower house of parliament, the Majlis al Shura, a consultative assembly which was granted legislative and regulatory powers in March as the Arab Spring spread across the region. The upper house is still appointed by the monarchy.

France’s Socialist Party holds the second round of voting in its presidential primaries on Sunday, choosing the person who will go up against Nicolas Sarkozy in the 22 April presidential election. Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been a favourite to win the party’s candidacy before he was charged with sexual assault in May; despite the charges being dropped, he opted not to run.

It’s also Blog Action Day, which encourages bloggers worldwide to post about the same topic in hopes of driving collective action and sparking global discussion. This year’s theme is food, with the date chosen to coincide with World Food Day. Around 5,600 bloggers from 143 countries participated in last year’s event, which focused on water.

The defense plans to appeal the verdict in higher instances till the European Court of Human Rights. International community has strongly condemned the case as political one and Amnesty International has already adopted the bloggers as "prisoners of conscience."

Emin Milli, 30, and Adnan Hajizade, 26, were assaulted and beaten while dining in a downtown Baku restaurant and then detained for hooliganism on early July this year.

Note: this piece was posted with a back date

According to Reporters Without Borders blog, friends and supporters of detained bloggers will hold birthday parties for, but without Emin in Baku, Strasbourg, Paris, London, New York, Budapest, Houston and possibly, Basel.

Ironically, Adnan Hajizade also had to mark his birthday in jail this year – just five days after his arrest he turned 26.

However, the new government in Baku fell – various narratives talk of it as either a coup, or a national salvation. Hikmat Hajizade was dismissed from his post and recalled home. And then, it happened in Baku, when the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan was assaulted and severely beaten while walking in the street of its capital – somewhere in downtown in 1993.

Now, after sixteen years, history is repeating itself once again: this time it is Hikmat Hajizade’s son Adnan who was assaulted and severely beaten together with his friend Emin Milli while dining in a downtown restaurant. Yet, what ended for Hikmat Hajizade with injuries and possibly, bitter pains, has ended for Adnan with additional two-month pretrial detention and plus, a hooliganism charge promising up to 5 years in jail. Not an adequate perspective for a University of Richmond alumnus and BP employee, and a pioneer of video-blogging in Azerbaijan. Neither for his friend, Emin Milli – former country director of Friedrich Ebert Foundation and former Council of Europe consultant.

Back in 1993, when Hikmat Hajizade was assaulted and beaten, the country was embroiled in a bitter chaos, partly a fault of incompetency of the government once he represented. Baku’s major street fights and last armed uprising were to be subdued two years later – I still recall those bullet sounds in my neighbourhood. Now, the country enjoys a stability and oil revenues have created some sense of prosperity – however, the state of freedoms seems to change in a worse direction – sixteen years ago, a father would be beaten, but now, a son is not only beaten, but is also jailed and can face an endarkening prison sentence.

Democratic activism is a long tradition in Hajizade family, as well as the state of being assaulted and beaten for their activities – the only new element here is the fact that Adnan Hajizade now is being tried for both. Below – is the interview of Adnan Hajizade’s father to RFE/RL Azeri service, with English subtitles.