24/Bellingcat: Fact-Checking in a Post-Truth World (with Eliot Higgins)

This is a conversation with Eliot Higgins, founder and executive director of Bellingcat, an online open-source investigation collective.

Bellingcat rose to prominence over its team's investigation of the  downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July of 2014 by Russian-backed  separatists in eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers on  board. The evidence, which linked that group to the Russian army's 53rd  Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, was later confirmed by the joint investigation team (JIT) which includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, Australia, and Malaysia.

So I spoke to Eliot about that case and about some of the many  investigations that Bellingcat has done in the past six years. Among the  cases mentioned are: the Latamneh and Ghouta chemical attacks by the Assad regime in Syria in 2017 and 2013 respectively; ISIS' oil  refineries and the environmental and humanitarian catastrophes they've  caused; the US bombing of Al-Jineh Mosque in Aleppo in 2017; the Skripal  Affair in the UK; the Saudi bombings in Yemen; and Europol's #StopChildAbuse campaigns.

One thing I wanted to focus on is how Bellingcat's investigative  techniques can be used in both human rights and journalism worlds. So  while this episode features a lot of concrete examples, we also spoke  about how anyone listening to this podcast can take part in these  investigations following well-established and always-developing tools  and techniques.

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