When the Narrative Is the Weapon
A Practitioner's Introduction to Narrative Intelligence.
Welcome back.
This week we open a new multi-part series on narrative intelligence, a discipline that sits at the intersection of open source intelligence, threat analysis, and information operations. It is one of the fastest-moving areas in the field right now, and one that every practitioner should understand.
As always, you will find the latest tools, tips, and job listings further in the newsletter.
Missed last week?
Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:
OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News
Everything you need to know from the past seven days.
Timelines are an investigative reporter’s most powerful organisational tool — here is how to build one. Mark Lee Hunter walks through the step-by-step process of constructing and maintaining investigation timelines for GIJN | read here
Forbes reports that Google has launched a new opt-in "Personal Intelligence" feature that connects Google Photos to Gemini, allowing the AI to scan users' entire photo libraries to generate personalised images featuring real people from their lives | read here
Stephen Abbott Pugh introduces OpenCheck, an open-source customer due diligence tool that queries open datasets including Companies House, OpenSanctions and Wikidata, surfacing sanctions, PEP status and complex ownership structures in a single attributed intelligence report | view here
A new research paper by Paul Roettger et al. suggests AI writing assistance distorts how readers perceive writers, making them appear more extreme, confident, and privileged | read here
The Institute for the Study of War published an interactive map titled "Russia's Cognitive Warfare Infrastructure" and a research report titled "The Kremlin's Expanding Media Conglomerate 2026 | view here
Aleksandra B shared on LinkedIn that investigators can access hidden Google search result tabs by modifying the "udm" parameter in a trimmed search URL, with different numerical values unlocking different result modes beyond the default tabs | read here
Claude-osint is a GitHub repository published by ElementalSoul containing a pair of
SKILL.mdfiles that equip Claude with structured external reconnaissance methodology and tactical tooling for authorised red-team and bug-bounty engagements. We have not tested it, but Claude users may find it worth exploring | check out here
A Practitioner’s Introduction to Narrative Intelligence
Part 1: What It Is and Why It Matters Now
