Creativity, left-field thinking (and luck) in OSINT research: a geolocation demonstration

Gordon Farrer was a journalist for more than two decades before moving into tertiary education, where he has taught introductory journalism, journalism ethics and photojournalism. His current teaching obsession is fact checking and verification – also the field of his research – and OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) tools. To promote and build on this new field of journalism practice he set up RMIT Journalism's Fact Checking & Verification course, the first of its kind in Australia. Gordon was also instrumental in the establishment of RMIT ABC Fact Check and is attached to the unit as an academic researcher.

Gordon’s Journalism colleagues are sick and tired of him telling them that fact checking, verification and research using OSINT are the future of journalism in a post-fact world and that Facebook is destroying democracy. But that won't make him stop.