Digging into Telegram: Investigative Techniques for Journalists

Course Details

Date

November 18, 2024

Language

English

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November 18, 2024

$40.00

Digging into Telegram: Investigative Techniques for Journalists

Are you ready to enhance your investigative skills and dive into Telegram, the fast-evolving platform at the forefront of conflict reporting? Join the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas for a 90-minute workshop, “Digging into Telegram: Investigative Techniques for Journalists,” with award-winning journalist Jane Lytvynenko. This in-depth session is designed to equip reporters covering crises and breaking news and monitoring online communities with the skills needed to uncover valuable insights on Telegram.

Telegram has emerged as a primary source for images and videos during conflicts, often surpassing X (formerly Twitter) in content exclusivity. For example, during Russia’s war against Ukraine and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Telegram users shared critical images, videos, and commentary that did not appear on other social networks. As Telegram grows, it’s essential for reporters to understand this unconventional platform.

In the first part of the workshop, attendees will learn how Telegram functions, including the differences between its mobile and desktop applications and the type of data available within the platform. This segment covers extracting metadata from images, videos, and voice memos, downloading channel histories, and working with the resulting JSON files.

In the second part, participants will discover strategies for finding Telegram channels across the web, including advanced search techniques on Google, Yandex, and other social media platforms, as well as specialized search engines. These skills are crucial for reporters who need to locate key channels and content on Telegram.

The workshop concludes with an overview of third-party apps, such as Telemetr, TGStat, and Telepathy, which can assist reporters in analyzing Telegram channels. These tools enable journalists to map relationships, track popular channels by location or topic, and gain insights into a channel’s analytics.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be equipped with essential skills to gather information on Telegram, enhancing their ability to report on breaking news, cover conflicts, monitor online communities, and improve their fact-checking processes.

During this 90 minute workshop, attendees will explore the following key topics:

Understanding Telegram’s structure: Learn about the unique features of Telegram’s mobile and desktop versions and how to use them effectively for reporting.
Locating critical information: Discover advanced search techniques to find credible Telegram channels, metadata extraction from media, and how to download and analyze channel histories.
Taking advantage of third-party tools: Get introduced to powerful tools like Telemetr, TGStat, and Telepathy that can help you analyze channel analytics, map relationships between channels, and identify popular content.

Jane Lytvynenko is an award-winning freelance reporter specializing in visual and online investigations. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, MIT Tech Review, and other publications. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jane lived in Canada for over 20 years before returning home. She’s fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, and English and has basic a knowledge of French.

At The Wall Street Journal, Jane contributes work to the Kyiv bureau, including investigations and daily reporting. In the past, she also worked with the WSJ’s visual investigations team. There, she focused on investigating Russia’s war on Ukraine. One investigation she contributed to, “Russia Is Using a Secret Network to Steal Ukraine Grain,” won the 2023 Gerald Loeb Award in the video category. The investigative documentary, “Shadow Men: Inside Wagner, Russia’s Secret War Company,” for which Jane was one of the producers, is a finalist for the 2024 duPont-Columbia Award, the Peabody award, a News and Documentary Emmy for Investigative News Coverage: Long Form.

Previously, Jane was a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Centre. She contributed to the Tech and Social Change project. Her work focused on devising a training curriculum for newsrooms and academics, auditing research, and investigating media manipulation cases globally. She held workshops for a variety of news organization, including the Texas Tribune, ABC News, Axios, the 19th, and others. She also worked with disinformation specialists around the globe on case studies for the Media Misinformation Casebook.

Before joining Harvard, Jane spent five years working as a senior technology reporter at BuzzFeed News. She focused on the disinformation beat. There, she helped pioneer a breaking news approach to debunking false information across platforms. Throughout her tenure, she’s covered elections, attacks, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She also investigated social media manipulation, extremist groups, and networked disinformation campaigns. Her coverage is widely viewed as pioneering in the field and has been cited by lawmakers globally. In addition to producing impactful work at BuzzFeed News, Lytvynenko taught workshops on online investigations to fellow journalists globally.

Prior to working at BuzzFeed News, Jane was a reporter and editor at the media criticism outlet Canadaland. She investigated misconduct within the Canadian media landscape and under her leadership, Canadaland broke a series of stories on employee mistreatment, plagiarism, and lack of diversity in Canadian media. She also contributed as a freelancer to CBC News, Maclean’s, NOW Magazine, and others.