Two Russian men on a cathedral-touring holiday of England. Photo by Metropolitan Police via Getty Images
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“Who is the real Bellingcat?” That was the question asked by journalist Mary Dejevsky in a recent article for UnHerd, and while I hope that the contents of the book We Are Bellingcat would go some way to answer this question, helped by our unusually open online methodology, I would like to tell our story.
In early 2012, I began the Brown Moses Blog, under a pseudonym I used on various forums, borrowed from the title of a Frank Zappa song. In the previous year, I had spent a lot of my free time arguing about the conflict in Libya on the Guardian Middle East Live Blog and posting, somewhat obsessively, the latest news and links on a thread on the Something Awful forums. Having my teenage years bookended by the Gulf War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, I developed an interest in conflict and the Middle East from what might be described as a leftist Western perspective, devouring books by the likes of Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger. So, in 2010, I gravitated towards discussions on forums and social media about the Arab Spring.
Several things frustrated me about those discussions. While information, videos and photos were being shared online, they were often the subject of much debate if they showed one particular side in a bad light. Usually the question was “how do you know it’s real?” or “how do you know they’re telling the truth?” These are, of course, reasonable questions. But in early 2011, when rebel forces in Libya shared a video of the town of Tiji, which they claimed had been captured, I stumbled across a way to at least show where videos were being filmed.
By using satellite imagery, freely available on Google Maps, it was possible to match features visible in the Tiji video, such as the dome of a mosque and its position in relation to a major road, to prove the video had been filmed there. I reviewed the footage over and over, looking at smaller and smaller objects, such as trees, walls and utility poles, and matched them to what was visible in the satellite imagery. This process, now a core skill of any online open source investigator, is known as geolocation, and became the basis of much of my initial work.
Because the satellite imagery and video was publicly available, I could demonstrate to those questioning the validity of the video not only the process I went through to locate it, but also the sources of evidence I was using. As I moved from arguing on internet forums to starting a blog in 2012, this transparency of both the process and the evidence became an integral part of my own writing, and what eventually became a common approach for the online open source community.
For some of the older generation of journalists, this form of radical transparency in both sourcing and methodology runs counter to the custom of keeping your methods and scoops to yourself. For me, it came from the understanding that I was no more credible than any other random internet commentator, so I could only demonstrate how I had come to my conclusions step by step, pointing to the evidence I was using, and sharing it as widely as possible.
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SubscribeI would suggest that part of the problem with jounalists and academics is the lack of knowledge and experience. The days when a journalist spoke several languages, had deep knowledge of history going back to Greece; lived in countries for decades ( as perhaps his family had ) , had served in combat or been say in the Foreign Office/ICS ( Toynbee ) are long gone. Examples of people with this breadth of knowledge and experience which are long gone are :- Gertrude Bell, T E Lawrence, A Toynbee, GM Trevelyan, John Glubb( RE Officer and had served in Iraq and Jordan from 1920 to 1955 ), Mark Tully( born in India, speaks several languages), Paddy Leigh Fermour, Charles Wheeler( Born in Germany to a father who worked in shipping, lived there and served in 30 Assault Unit ), Northcote Parkinson ( Historian and WW2 staff officer under Monty ).
When it comes to reporting on a riot, especially if there is gunfire, it is difficult to understand what is happening. However, a reporter who has led soldiers in street fighting can judge types of gun fire, distance and direction or know that buildings will cause noise to be altered. Wellington said one could not report on a battle. There is also the gut feeling. If one has certain sensitivity and lives in an area one can feel the change in atmosphere leading up to a disturbance. Good reporters will be picking clues; the waiter who goes from being friendly to civil to hostile over a few days.
The result is that Westerners become used in conflicts within families, between families, clans, tribes, religions, cast and and language. Conflicts can go back hunfdreds or thousands of years. When was the first conflcit recorded between India and Sri lanka? The conflicts between Croatia and Bosnia could be said to back to the divide in Roma in AD 325. The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen goes back to when tribesmen first started raiding northwards which is how many thousands of years ?
There is also the reality of people getting into positions of authority who are utterly clueless. It would be easy to construct a conspiracy theory that Chamberlain, Baldwin and the Labour Party were in the pay of Hitler based upon decisions made from 1933 to 1940.None of these people went to Germany and actually loooked at what Hitler was doing after 1933, understood the history and analysed war production data. There was a journalist from The Time who wrote a book( Insanity Fair, I think ) in about 1938 warning about the Nazis based on his travel but he was sacked and then mocked by everyone.
There are two views of history, the c**k up and conspiracy. The conspiracy hides the c**k up. When was the last time a politician, state employee, academic, reporter, lawyer, activist, etc admit to a c**k up ?
When it comes to a riot ask these questions: when did you start living in the area, do you know people from all walks of life( criminals included), do you speak the languages, understand the divides, where were you, can you identify types distances and direction of gunfire ( difference between 5.56mm, 7.62m AK47 and 7.62mm NATO, 9mm or 0.45 side arm ), cartridge cases found, what could you see at night, who was injured and how, when and where and how do you know, are there blood patterns. but no bodies |( bodies been removed ) Have parties tried to conceal the truth , if so how? If areas were washed evidence was destroyed. The reality is that even reporters with film and sound recording from top teams do not know what is happening, how can they, unless they are a Tully reporting from the Indian sub-continent?
Insanity Fair by Douglas Reed. First published April 1938, and by August was on its 16th impression. Reed lived in Vienna from 1937-38
Thank you. Read it many years agao and as far as I can remember, outlined nazi threat and was sacked by The Times : am I correct?
hundreds of incidents of police violence against Black Lives Matters protesters and journalists covering protests in the US,
Hundreds you say? That must be why, well, hundreds of cops have been hospitalized while the same cannot be said of either BLM protesters or journos. Andy Ngo is about the only journo I can think of who saw violence, but it wasn’t the cops who did it.
You mention hundreds of acts of violence against BLM. You’d kinda expect police to come out swinging billy cubs when BLM tries to burn city centres to the ground! What would the Gendarmarie do if “youths” attempted the same on the Champs Elysee?
Exactly. The police and the judiciary etc has been very tolerant of BLM/Antifa when you consider that they killed numerous innocent people and caused tens of billions of damage in terms or rioting, burning and looting etc.
I find reading many Bellingcat articles highly informative. However your coverage of the rioting in America just doesn’t come across as trustworthy and is written by journalists appearing to revel being a part of the riots on other social media instead of neutral commentary.
I certainly hold no candle for the kleptocratic and thuggish Russian government but it’s noticeable in it’s coverage of non-Russian targets where this organisation’s political bias lies. For example, It’s very keen on ‘exposing’ ‘far-right’ groups in the US but is totally silent on Antifa
I think their bias must make it pretty straightforward for intelligence services to “play” them. Something that the author completely failed to address. How can he be sure his Russian sources don’t work for MI6?
he said his ‘Russian sources’ were info bought on the Russian black market
Does the author not explain his bias when he writes, ‘the best results are produced when people are investigating topics that interest them’?
The statements on BLM/police violence undermine your claim of being disinterested…
Being fair to the guy he does admit to left wing bias in his article, so its no surprise he’s pro BLM, pro rioting etc etc. Regardless of his student type politics i think Bellingcat has overall been a force for good. Whether or not you have video or still photo evidence geo data can be very useful to corroborate or falsify a theory. You don’t have to agree with their politics to praise their methodology, though i can’t help wondering what the Bellingcat types make of the US election? Videos show official observers being thrown out of poll counts and testimony of the 47 missing USB drives in Delaware County, Penn.
I noticed this: ‘..as oppressive regimes use terror and violence to scare their opponents and get their way, our aim is to ensure that the whole world knows about it.’
Sounds like a pretty good description of the way the UK police forces are dealing with protesters against lockdown, backed by politicians who have found an excuse to turn our long-standing liberal democracy with its bedrocks of free association and free speech into a police state ruled by a cabal of politicians and a secretive set of so-called scientists.
“Think globally-act locally”. Fascinating and instructive how so many governments and regimes around the world have joined hands and jumped on this “never let a good crisis go to waste” opportunity.
Police state? You are doing a massive disservice and insult to North Korea, the old USSR, Cuba, Franco’s Spain. Secretive set of so-called scientists? Are you for real? What, in your mind is a ‘real’ scientist?
Bellingcat is a propaganda service for the intelligence agencies. They don’t do intelligence work. They do propaganda. HIggins is a complete fraud who peddles lies.
I see the St Petersburg troll factory is working overtime…
You rang?
https://www.mintpressnews.com/omidyars-intercept-teams-up-with-war-propaganda-firm-bellingcat/250477/
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bellingcat
https://www.stalkerzone.org/navalny-bellingcat-the-fifth-column-in-the-fsb/
Evidence?
Utter codswallop and not worthy of a read. Funded by the Atlantic Council and who knows how many 3-letter/numeral agencies. Higgins has been exposed since like forever. GTFOH