26/ The Augmented Journalist
From OCCRP databases to 3D storytelling with AI.
Welcome to the 26th issue of Nuanced,
This August I'll be headed to San Francisco for the Swissnex Multimedia Lab for Journalists. If you're around, let me know! I'll be researching and testing AI investigative tools and Gaussian Splatting to prepare for Apple Glass.
I've started viewing AI as a force multiplier for our work rather than something that replaces human judgment. The investigative superpowers AI is bringing to the journalist's toolbox are just extraordinary.
Let’s dive in.
Inspiration
My favorite visual project this month is Inside the miracle of modern chip manufacturing by the Financial Times.
I also really enjoyed this investigative work by Danwatch on a security breach of Russian nuclear facilities.
How Europe’s Baby Problem Became a Border Problem
My latest video explains Europe's population collapse in about 15 charts. With birth rates plummeting and populations aging rapidly, European governments are caught between the economic necessity of immigration and the political reality.
Watch it here 👇
Decoded
While AI's capacity for generating fake content rightfully concerns our industry, we're often overlooking its transformative potential for investigative journalism. AI excels at pattern recognition - perfect for analyzing massive datasets like OCCRP's Aleph platform, financial documents, and large PDFs.
Tools like Claude's Deep Research can produce reports with up to 700 verifiable sources to summarize or verify leads. Meanwhile, coding agents with MCP integrations are giving us digital superpowers for data scraping, analysis, and visualization.
The GIJN has compiled a great list of use cases for AI.
Journalist's Toolbox
New tools I recommend.
Claude Code with MCPs like Firecrawl
Apple Quick Look, making the transition from web to mobile XR much simpler.
Thanks for reading!