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.