Investigative Toolkit

This tip sheet offers practical guidance on both sourcing and interviewing, with tips on finding potential sources, making first contact, building trust, and asking strong interview questions. Explore Laurie Cohen’s insights on interviewing, along with the Trade Secrets: Unlocking the Vault of Business Insights workshop recording.

This video demonstrates how you can use findagrave.com, obituaries, newspapers.com, the VA's National Cemetery Administration, and the American Battle Monuments Commission to find information on family background.

Join Sunlight Research Center and investigative journalist Andrea Ball for a hands-on workshop exploring the art and craft of narrative investigations — a storytelling approach that uses real people as the engine of deep, fact-based journalism. Narrative investigations rely on scenes, dialogue, character, and emotional stakes to bring truth to life — merging the immersive power of fiction with the rigor of investigative reporting.​

We know the questions we want to answer. Now, let's talk about some principles for effectively finding the information.

Use this sheet to identify financial disclosures at the state level.

Join The Marshall Project, Arizona Luminaria, Ocala Gazette, and Sunlight Research Center for a hands-on workshop on investigating deaths in custody — a largely underreported and deeply consequential issue. With limited federal oversight and minimal state enforcement of reporting requirements, many unnatural deaths in correctional facilities go unreported. This session will equip journalists with the tools and context needed to expose systemic failures that can have tragic consequences.

Join The Marshall Project, Arizona Luminaria, Ocala Gazette, and Sunlight Research Center for a hands-on workshop on investigating deaths in custody — a largely underreported and deeply consequential issue. With limited federal oversight and minimal state enforcement of reporting requirements, many unnatural deaths in correctional facilities go unreported. This session will equip journalists with the tools and context needed to expose systemic failures that can have tragic consequences.

This tip sheet from Digital Lifeline: Saving At-Risk Data is best used alongside the workshop recording. You'll find valuable information on identifying, preserving and reporting on government data. Using the tip sheet and recording, you will be well equipped with the tools and knowledge to safeguard critical information.

Watch this workshop recording where Sunlight Research Center, Data Rescue Project (DRP), MuckRock, and the Data Curation Network (DCN) discuss identifying, preserving and reporting on government data. In an era where federal data is at risk of disappearing or being altered, this training will equip you with the tools and knowledge to safeguard critical information.

Join Sunlight Research Center and Trusting News Network for a hands-on workshop on building stronger relationships between newsrooms and communities. In an era of mistrust, this session will equip journalists with actionable strategies to demonstrate credibility and actively earn audience trust.

This tip sheet from Following the Money:Investigating Nonprofits and Getting to Know 990s provides valuable information on documents available for tax-exempt organizations, tools for finding information on nonprofits, and Nonprofit Explorer tips.

Join Sunlight Research Center and Andrea Suozzo, lead maintainer of ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, for a deep dive into nonprofits and the financial records they file. After this session, you’ll be able to confidently navigate IRS Form 990s, spot red flags and uncover important details about nonprofit finances and operations.

Learn tools and techniques to investigate businesses from Sunlight, private investigator and fraud examiner Lecia Kaslofsky, and Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Laurie Cohen. Learn to use government databases and open data platforms to investigate public corporations and uncover critical corporate details. Understand how to use tools to dissect private company profiles, uncovering financial trends and ownership details despite limited disclosure.

This Interviewing Tips and Tricks tip sheet was created using the insights from Pulitzer Prize-winning Investigative Journalist, Laurie Cohen, who is sharing her wealth of knowledge and experience in identifying and interviewing sources.

This tip sheet from Trade Secrets: Unlocking the Vault of Business Insights provides valuable resources for basic business backgrounding; investigating businesses to look at misconduct, assets, and connections; and finding sources. Watch quick, narrated tutorials on how to use different resources, from the SEC to UCC Filings to Business Personal Property.

Take a shot: In this demo, we talk about searching the SEC for nonprofits, private companies, and individuals. It's a good idea to search the SEC even if the company or individual isn't required to file. You never know what will pop up!

A UCC primer: Watch this demo to learn how to find Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings, documents that lenders use to show their legal right to assets a borrower uses to secure a loan. We will discuss what UCC filings are, what they can reveal, and how to find them. These are key because they can give information on a private company's finances, and the listed collateral can reveal assets owned by the company or individual, or even previously unknown LLCs.

Finding assets: In this demo, we show how to search for business and personal property in Harris County, Texas. This is an example of how to find information about the assets of a private company.

An SEC primer: In this tutorial, we discuss six forms that are a great place to start researching a business.

Connecting the dots with LinkedIn: Watch this brief tutorial to learn how to use LinkedIn to find former employees, co-workers or classmates.

Check out this tip sheet for links to the articles that David McSwane and Neena Satija referenced in their panel discussion. Also, find some resources they've found to be particularly useful in their investigations over the years.

Watch this panel discussion with David McSwane and Neena Satija, investigative journalists from ProPublica and The Houston Chronicle. You'll walk away with tools and tips you can use to make impactful investigations an integral part of your beat coverage.
Getting started: Discover how seasoned journalists identify stories worth pursuing and transform them into compelling investigations.
Overcoming challenges: Explore strategies veteran reporters use to overcome investigative roadblocks.
Mastering Inquiry and Adaptation: Learn how to select reliable sources and frame questions to uncover core truths.

Watch It's All Political to learn from our partners at OpenSecrets about various tips and tricks for tracking political history, campaign finance, and lobbying records.

Reference this tip sheet to find links to the articles referenced in the panel discussion with Andrea Ball and Walter Smith Randolph. Also find links to resources that they have found to be useful in their investigations over the years.

Watch this panel discussion with Walter Smith Randolph and Andrea Ball, investigative journalists from CBS and The Houston Chronicle. You'll walk away with tools and tips you can use to make impactful investigations an integral part of your beat coverage.
Getting started: Discover how seasoned journalists identify stories worth pursuing and transform them into compelling investigations.
Overcoming challenges: Explore strategies veteran reporters use to overcome investigative roadblocks.
Mastering Inquiry and Adaptation: Learn how to select reliable sources and frame questions to uncover core truths.

Check out this tip sheet for links to the articles that Tony Plohetski and Daphne Duret referenced in their panel discussion. Also, find some resources they have found to be particularly useful in their investigations over the years.

Watch this panel discussion with Tony Plohetski and Daphne Duret, investigative journalists from The Austin American-Statesman and The Marshall Project. You'll walk away with tools and tips you can use to make impactful investigations an integral part of your beat coverage.
Getting started: Discover how seasoned journalists identify stories worth pursuing and transform them into compelling investigations.
Overcoming challenges: Explore strategies veteran reporters use to overcome investigative roadblocks.
Mastering Inquiry and Adaptation: Learn how to select reliable sources and frame questions to uncover core truths.

Watch Sunlight's training, New Year, New Lawmakers, to learn different ways to track legislators at the state and local levels. We'll discuss some potential ethical pitfalls lawmakers can encounter and demonstrate two Sunlight-created templates that are helpful for keeping track of their words and actions over the years.

Did you miss SRC's training, 'Tis the Season: Fa la la la lobbying and gifts? Watch this recorded training to learn how to track lobbying activities and gifts to elected officials at the federal and state levels.

Check out this recording of School & Work, in which we discuss finding more information about an individual's professional and educational background.

In Social Media Sleuthing, we look into various social platforms that can be useful in background reporting and finding more information on an individual. We are joined by MuckRock to learn more about how to use MuckRock's KlaxonCloud to track website changes.

Watch Getting Personal with Finances to learn what you can find and analyze in personal financial disclosures from members of Congress. We consider, what are some things of note that could prompt further investigation?

Sunlight provided a five-part training series in 2024. Backgrounding Basics is our first session of five, in which we discuss the importance of and ways to start backgrounding political candidates. What is some key information to collect from the beginning? We will also practice using our Sunlight-developed tool, the Timeline and Source List, to start organizing your investigation. We are joined by experts at MuckRock, who delve into the FOIA process and specific tips and tricks for more successful public records requests.

Use this template to track the actions and activity of elected officials at the state or federal level. The sheets allow you to track legislation they have been involved in, committee assignments, their connections to lobbyists, and interactions with major donors.

This tip sheet from Sunlight's training session, New Year, New Lawmakers, provides resources for tracking elected officials at both the federal and state levels.

This reporting recipe explains how we automated the process of downloading campaign committees’ fundraising and spending records to find overlap among multiple candidates’ donors and recipients.

The U.S. Small Business Administration backed and distributed PPP loans to help businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis from April 2020 to May 2021. The following is a step-by-step guide you can use to identify PPP loans to political candidates, their businesses and their spouses.

Political campaigns often use billboards to spread their message, but the spending isn't always fully disclosed in campaign finance reports. This guide will help reporters investigate reported campaign spending and billboard advertising in their communities, potentially uncovering discrepancies.

This video demonstrates how to search USASpending to find information on grants and loans given to certain companies from the US government at the federal level.

This video demonstrates how one could have checked for Burr's PTRs on the Senate efdSearch database.

This demonstrates how to search the legislator misconduct database and set up tracking notifications on an elected member of Congress. It also shows what can be found on this website, including the accusations of misconduct and information on legislators missing roll call votes.

Here we show how to navigate GovTrack. We demonstrate various ways to search this database and how to set up tracking notifications on an elected official. The video shows how to search for information on certain issues and how to check for committee information and assignments.

This video shows how to navigate congress.gov and set up tracking notifications on a legislator.

This tip sheet is from Sunlight's training session, 'Tis the season: Fa la la la Lobbying and Gifts. Here you'll find links to helpful resources for investigating lobbying activity at the federal and state levels. You'll also find resources for looking into gifts to elected officials at both levels.

The Backgrounding Basics tip sheet includes a Timeline & Source List template spreadsheet, an Investigative Checklist and suggested Source List. Use these resources to conduct and track your research so that you can see where events overlap in newsworthy ways and identify sources for interviews.

This tip sheet offers instructions on how to use MuckRock’s services, as well as a list of secondary steps to take once you have begun the process of formulating your public records requests. Use these resources to make requesting and accessing public information simpler and more successful.

The Getting Personal with Finances tip sheet includes a Timeline & Source List template spreadsheet, an Investigative Checklist and suggested Source List. It also includes a Personal Financial Disclosure analytical spreadsheet template that makes it easier to understand officials' personal finances and how they've changed over time.

The Social Media Sleuthing tip sheet includes a Timeline & Source List spreadsheet template, an Investigative Checklist and suggested Source List. It also provides a robust list of social media platforms that can be useful in background reporting, along with a tutorial on how to use MuckRock's KlaxonCloud to track website changes.

The School and Work tip sheet includes a Timeline & Source List template spreadsheet, an Investigative Checklist and suggested Source List. Use these resources to learn more about where an individual has worked and what schools they have attended and identify sources who can verify that information.

The Sunlight Research Center Timeline and Source List is a spreadsheet template for collecting data that can be used to create a Candidate Accountability Timeline in SRC’s format, as well as a Source List for organizing information pertaining to individuals associated with candidates.

This template can be used to organize data presented in Schedule A of the U.S. House of Representatives Personal Financial Disclosure form. Use it to approximate candidates’ personal wealth and holdings by income type and time range and to see changes in wealth over time.

This document provides a state-by-state list of where to find or who to contact to obtain state-level personal financial disclosures for political candidates and elected officials.

This template can be used to organize data presented in all seven sections of the U.S. Senate Personal Financial Disclosure form. Use this template to approximate candidates’ payments, income, donations, gifts, liabilities and personal wealth and holdings by income type and time range and to analyze changes in wealth over time.

This video will guide you through an example of verifying an individual's educational background. Here, we find Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' attorney license using the Florida Bar Association website. Instructions are provided on how to cross-reference this information to verify education claims on his campaign website.

In this video, we demonstrate how to analyze domain registrations using Whoxy, a domain search engine, and ViewDNS, a reverse IP lookup. We focus on domains linked to a specific email address. Follow along as we go through this process step by step.

In this video, we provide step-by-step instructions to navigate the FEC website to find official campaign committee disbursements. Follow along as we explore spending details that are crucial for analysis.

This video provides detailed instructions for finding the personal financial disclosures of a congressman and ascertaining notable changes in income that can raise important questions.

This video lays out the steps for using Google Maps to identify the date range of when a construction project broke ground. We show you how to use Google Earth Pro to find additional images that are unavailable on Google Maps.

Use the Advanced Internet Search Guide to find exactly what you're looking for on the web. It explains all of the search operators you can use in Google and other search engines, provides search tips and strategies, and lists the search engines that can find what Google can't.