As many of you know, I share a lot of tools, tips and tricks from fact-checker and OSINT extraordinaire Craig Silverman. Over the years, many of his favorite resources have appeared on the Journalist’s Toolbox site and in these newsletters.
A few months ago, he wrote about getting the most out of the browser extension with The Wayback Machine. The tool is on Archive.org, which features a library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites and more. I’ve used it for years to look up stories and laugh at old designs from pages I built in the late 1990s.
And its cache is invaluable when tracking pages that have been taken down, though one recent change has been a huge drawback (more on that later). You can still find those pages and posts if you have the web address by simply pasting it into the search field.
With the browser extension, you can go to a page, click on the Wayback extension in your browser, save the current page, view past versions and see a timeline of a page's changes. This is invaluable if you’re tracking a government website that may have removed content under a certain administration, a celebrity or public officials website or bio, etc. In short, it keeps people from hiding information from you.
If a page has been archived, the extension icon will show a number indicating how many captures exist. Just click on the icon to see a timeline of changes. It also can detect broken links and offer archived versions of those pages, which is a huge timesaver. It also can give access to research papers and TV news clips.
One important drawback: The feature also lets you exculde certain pages from being automatically archived. I first heard rumblings about this last spring at the NICAR 25 conference, and it’s true.
Just for fun: Here are a few old designs of websites listed on the Wayback Machine. Enjoy …
The Journalist’s Toolbox (2003)
The broken image at the bottom of the page was a free traffic counter I had installed.
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More Tools and Resources
ZigZag
A web-based, AI tool that creates a lean canvas based on a single prompt. It can provide sample questions for empathy interviews, elevator pitch suggestions, potential startup names, and even sample code for a simple landing page.CoStorm
A prototype from Stanford University that will search several websites based on a prompt, pull links and research into a summary for you. It also can write a story or paper, but use the summary feature instead. It’s a good research/summary tool, just don’t have it write for you.MyMap.ai
Free with paid upgrades. Make charts, mind maps and much more. Not to be confused with Google MyMaps.TextSniper
A simple and easy to use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) app that helps instantly extract text from images, PDFs, slides, Zoom calls, or even YouTube videos.SolidPoint
Summarizes lengthy videos using AIPodExtra AI
An AI-powered podcast tool provides transcripts, mind maps, outlines, summaries and highlights for you to gain knowledge from podcasts efficiently.
Textbooks
The Journalist’s Toolbox
My new book, “The Journalist’s Toolbox A Guide to Digital Reporting and AI” was published by Routledge in December. You can order it here,
Data + Journalism
Samantha Sunne and I co-authored a textbook, “Data + Journalism” that’s available now on Routledge. (Order here). It’s an introductory- to intermediate-level guide to learning data storytelling from A to Z.
In Quotes …
“AI is a mirror, reflecting not only our intellect, but our values and fears." – Ravi Narayanan, VP of Insights and Analytics, Nisum
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