Following the creation of Bellingcat in 2014, the organization’s early years were dedicated not only to publishing groundbreaking investigations but also to running training sessions around the world. These workshops helped journalists, researchers, and activists learn how to harness open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques in their own work.
In December 2017, Christiaan Triebert, then a representative of Bellingcat and now a journalist at The New York Times, hosted one such workshop at the ARIJ 10th Annual Forum. The image below shows Christiaan during that event, at a table in a room with distinctive flooring and walls.
The challenge is to identify the name of the room seen in the photo.
Narrowing the Event
Searching for “ARIJ Network Christiaan Triebert 2017” quickly points to the ARIJ 10th Annual Forum, held in December 2017. That gave us the event context: a workshop hosted by Triebert as part of the forum.
Pinpointing the Avenue
Digging deeper into the forum details, we find references to rooms like Al Diwan 1 on Floor G. At first glance, this seemed promising; images of Al Diwan 1 showed similar flooring, but the walls didn’t quite match.
Confirming the Match
By expanding the search to other rooms in the same venue, we stumbled upon photos of *The Grand Ballroom* at the Mövenpick Resort Dead Sea, where Triebert hosted his workshop. The distinctive floor and wall design matched perfectly with the background in the ARIJ photo.
