Open Doors: Backgrounding & Deduction – Comprehensive Study Notes

The Logic of Story-Based Inquiry

The investigative approach outlined across these pages rests on a simple but powerful cycle:

  1. Discovery of a subject.

  2. Hypothesis formation.

  3. Verification with open-source data.

  4. Engagement with human sources.

  5. Systematic organisation of all material so it can be examined, narrated and cross-checked.

  6. Narrative composition.

  7. Rigorous quality control.

  8. Publication, promotion and defence of the story.
    Each iteration of the cycle increases the investigator’s knowledge base and bargaining power.

“Take the Open Door” – The Core Mind-Set

Many beginners emulate the tough kid in the film “Harper,” trying to crash through locked doors. Veteran investigators instead turn the knob first:
• Most alleged “secrets” are merely unexamined facts.
• Roughly 90\% of needed information is already available in open sources.
• The journalistic marketplace is chronically under-exploiting these sources, leaving “easy wins” for those who bother to look.
• Seeking secrets too early reverses the power dynamic: the interviewer becomes the supplicant and the source becomes the gate-keeper.

Classic Illustrations of the Open-Door Principle

• Hervé Liffran, Paris City Hall (1980s). Denied interviews, he sat in the municipal library, mined internal contracts and exposed overpriced water deals; the scoops later pried human sources loose.
• Same reporter – election fraud. Cross-checked open electoral rolls against addresses in public housing to show ghost voters.
• French National Front case (detailed later). Investigators deduced illegal “national preference” practices by mining campaign manifestos, municipal bulletins and citizen newsletters before they confronted party officials.

What Counts as an “Open Source”?

Open sources are virtually infinite; the investigator’s real task is classification and systematic retrieval. Categories mentioned include:

Freely Accessible Publications

• Mass-media archives (newspaper morgues, broadcast transcripts, online editions).
• Stakeholder or special-interest outlets – union bulletins, protest-group blogs, political-party newsletters, analysts’ notes, user forums.
– Example: Death notices locate family members; protest newsletters track litigation; party offices yield pamphlets and intra-party tracts.

Academic & Specialist Libraries

Public universities, teaching hospitals, business-school libraries often offer subscription databases such as Factiva, Lexis-Nexis, Dun & Bradstreet.
– Example: A boycott investigation used analyst reports stored only at INSEAD’s library to prove a major hit to market capitalisation.

Governmental Sources

• Incident, inspection and complaint reports produced under agency rule books.
• Government libraries, national archives, parliamentary records or “official journals.”
– Example: A Syrian reporter retrieved intelligence-service documents from the National Library; a French alcohol-lobby probe matched campaign-finance filings in the Journal Officiel to MPs’ pro-alcohol amendments.

Courts

Judgments, affidavits, evidentiary exhibits (especially in the U.S.). Ida Tarbell built her Standard Oil exposé almost entirely on lawsuits.

Promotional & Business-Registry Material

• Chambers of commerce studies, cadastre/property files, securities filings, annual reports, press releases, boards of directors’ rosters.
– Example: U.S. SEC filings revealed a secretive French financier’s billion-dollar bond portfolio and identified his associates.
– Example: French registry data unmasked a fake consumer-advocacy site as a front for a corporate intelligence firm.

International & Multilateral Institutions

Audits, aid-conditionality reports, country memoranda.
– Example: An Ivorian newspaper used an EU audit to prove tens of millions of aid dollars were diverted by the national government.

A Repeatable Open-Source Strategy

  1. Start with clues.

  2. Hypothesise the unknown (“the secret”).

  3. Test each element in open sources.

  4. Turn to human sources for gaps and confirmation.

The National Front Example in Four Steps

  1. Hypothesis: NF-run cities implement illegal “national preference” policies by exploiting grey areas in municipal law.

  2. Open documentation: party platforms define the measures.

  3. Corroboration: news items, municipal bulletins, citizen reports show measures applied.

  4. Interviews: party officials and legal specialists fill remaining gaps – and even volunteer new practices once they recognise the reporters’ knowledge.

Why Open Sources Increase Bargaining Power

Approaching a source with documented knowledge transforms the dialogue from “Tell me a story” to “Confirm this story.” Consequences:

  1. Demonstrates commitment of time/energy.

  2. Shows self-sufficiency; sources need not do your basic work.

  3. Removes your dependency – you cannot be stonewalled.

  4. Allows you to trade information, not just request it.

  5. Signals that refusal to talk will not kill the investigation.

Mapping the Subject (“Backgrounding”)

Tasks:
• Identify key actors (people & institutions).
• Identify key issues for those actors.
• Establish a timeline of pivotal dates/events.
Process: begin with one known element, branch outward via references. When blocked, step sideways: examine adjacent actors/events to pressure reluctant sources. Early organisation (see Ch. 5) prevents data chaos.

From General to Expert Sources

General sources orient you; expert sources enrich you. Obtain expert leads by asking practitioners where they get information:
• Civil servants know filing routines.
• Legislators know document trails within parliamentary procedure.
• Realtors know land offices.
• Investors decode company statements.
Pro-tip: always ask, “How did you find that out?” – store the method as well as the fact.
– Example: A gendarme found a pregnant witness by cross-matching first names with municipal birth registries.

Practical Habits for Source Utilisation

• Maintain up-to-date lists of databases and retrieval coordinates; revisit them so you don’t forget how they work (e.g., France’s \textit{societe.com} for corporate data).
• “Field harvesting”: whenever on location, collect every document on display.
– Example: Weekly visits to NF headquarters yielded obscure internal journals unavailable elsewhere, exposing local-level operations.

Interpreting What You’ve Collected

Obtaining a document ≠ understanding it. Official prose is often coded.
• Recruit neutral experts within the sector, absent conflicts of interest, to translate jargon or financial tables.
– Example: A former municipal accountant dissected a Front-run city’s subsidy ledger line-by-line, revealing how opposition funding was choked off.

Archivists: The Investigator’s Best Friends

Access obstacles vanish when you befriend archive staff. They are under-consulted specialists who respond well to sincere curiosity.
– Example 1: A Paris hospital librarian produced a complete pre-scandal bibliography on AIDS-era transfusion science in one afternoon.
– Example 2: A Culture Ministry clerk, while on the phone, live-searched a public subsidy database and guided reporters to the library housing it.

Start Fast, Start Easy – A Diagnostic Rule

Early verifications should be easy; if none of your hypothesis elements surface in open sources, reassess: either your premise is wrong or the secrecy effort is extraordinary. When early checks succeed, accelerate, extend the search, refine hypotheses and only then confront live sources.

Ethical & Practical Implications Discussed

• Relying on open data respects legality while placing investigators beyond intimidation tactics.
• It levels the field against institutional stonewalling.
• It fosters more honest interviews because sources know the reporter can detect lies.
• It creates a public audit trail, strengthening the story’s defence post-publication.

Numerical & Statistical References Recapped

• Open sources are estimated to cover about 90\% of usable factual material.
• Cadastre records in France disclose employee counts, revenues, debts, profits, margins and director identities – quantitative gold mines.
• Investor reports inside INSEAD tracked changes in market capitalisation (exact figures not cited but central to the boycott investigation).

Recurring Methodological Formula (Condensed)

\text{Clues} \rightarrow \text{Hypothesis} \rightarrow \text{Open-Source Validation} \rightarrow \text{Human Confirmation}

If mastered, this loop transforms the reporter from a passive recipient of leaks into an active constructor of provable narratives, able to open doors others still presume locked.