Online tools to keep up with international news

Last updated on 1 March 2022

The war in Ukraine is arguably the first real conflict of the OSINT era. OSINT are investigative tools and methods increasingly used by journalists and day-to-day specialists, but beyond that by many information and documentation professionals.

OSINT or ‘Open Source Intelligence’ means in French ‘Renseignement de Source Ouverte’ and is based on the discovery and analysis of open sources of information. Tools that often require learning, intellectual gymnastics and technical knowledge that are not within everyone's reach.

I published a few days ago on Tools Keep a list of easy-to-use resources for teachers and students. Consumer tools and sources to keep up with international news as close as possible to the field. In view of the international situation, here I briefly summarize the main tools and sources proposed by supplementing them with one or two complementary resources.

News from the international press

Newspaper Map offers a map of the world where most of the press titles appear with url links that lead to the websites of the newspapers. In the same spirit take a look at Kiosco which will also allow you to do a press review with the Newspapers. I offered you here some time ago 3 online resources to follow the news through the global press.

Listen to live radios in all countries of the world

Radio Garden listens to and captures live streams from countless radio stations around the world. Just choose on a map. Last night several FM radios continued to broadcast from Ukraine.

The world through videos broadcast on Snapchat

The social network is global. Every second thousands of videos are broadcast all over the world. Snachat to go online a map that allows you to view snaps broadcast in one place or another on the map. From futile video to drama. Dizzy.

View live air traffic

Adsbexchange inform you in real time about all aircraft in flight at a time T. Click on an aircraft in flight and you will see the model, company, destination, speed, etc.

Visualize maritime traffic

Marinetraffic allows to visualize the position of boats at sea and on the main rivers. As with airplanes, a click on one of them displays the picture of the ship, but also the flag, provenance and destination.

Harnessing the information disseminated on social networks on a map

Sharper resource, take a look at the Osint Map of the Russia - Ukraine Conflict. Here is a good example of the power of the OSINT user community. They created a map to follow the conflict in Ukraine. Its aim is to provide reliable information to journalists and citizens on developments on the ground and online.

This card shows many pins. Each of them represents an incident or event represented by a video, photo or satellite image collected most of the time on social media. Each document has undergone a rigorous verification process to determine where and when it was taken.

The content of each piece of information on the map is checked and briefly described, so that keyword searches can be carried out to identify specific trends or patterns or to delve into the verified data.

Check images and videos coming up from the field

Modern wars are also a war of images. Fact checking tools are more useful than ever even if they find it difficult to keep up with the fast pace of live news. Verifying information sometimes takes time. As for images you can use Search by Image a tool of reverse image search This will help you get back to the source of a photo. The tool offers an extension for Chrome that allows you to start checking an image with a single click.

As for the videos you can call on InVid. Invid is an extension for Chrome and Firefox that helps to check videos broadcast on social networks.