Causes to Celebrate: bell¿ngcat

Continuing in the vein of investigative journalism, I wanted to share with you a journalism site that I found sometime in late 2019 by way of a podcast.  The podcast had nothing to do with the site, but the person who did the podcast was also an investigative journalist for the site--and that site is Bellingcat; (the spelling above is their marketing version of their name.)

From its inception in July of 2014, Bellingcat has been a place where investigative journalists can work together and crowdsource information on a variety of things--from state-sponsored chemical warfare (Syria and Russia,) to our most recent failed coup here in America.  If something bad is happening somewhere in the world, Bellingcat seeks to help people and journalists uncover more information about it.

What started as a one-man operation by Elliot Higgins expanded to the company it is today.  It was first funded by a Kickstarter campaign and now receives numerous grants and gifts along with public donations.

The Columbia Journalism Review sat down to interview him in early 2015 shortly after his successful crowdfunding campaign and launch of the platform to talk to him about the work he was doing and the Bellingcat he was hoping to create.  Here's a small snippet of his hopes for Bellingcat's future:

What will the site become if it fulfills your ultimate ambition for it? Ultimately a huge global network of investigators exploring a wide range of topics, from conflict to corruption, with transferable skills and tools that can be quickly brought to bear, regardless of where a story is occurring in the world. I want the very idea of open-source information existing to put the fear of God into the sort of people who have something to hide, because they’ll know there’s a network of people primed to use it to expose what they’re trying to keep hidden.

And here is what the Bellingcat site of today says of their work:

Bellingcat is an independent international collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists using open source and social media investigation to probe a variety of subjects – from Mexican drug lords and crimes against humanity, to tracking the use of chemical weapons and conflicts worldwide. With staff and contributors in more than 20 countries around the world, we operate in a unique field where advanced technology, forensic research, journalism, investigations, transparency and accountability come together.

 All in all, their seven official years of operation have been a success earning them global recognition and awards.  But the appeal to Bellingcat, for me, wasn't simply the journalism that they do, but also their ability to use technology to investigate various sources of information--from pictures to videos, and even publicly available satellite data.  They also offer courses and training in how to do these things for anyone willing and able to pay for it, helping to defray some of their operating costs which allows them to use more of their income on conducting actual investigations.

This desire to share their knowledge is incredibly important to me--the idea of empowering citizen journalists (that's you and me,) to be part of creating information sources that could, potentially, be used for the good of all of us; that, to me, is pretty impressive.  And that's part of what has made Bellingcat so successful--their ability to crowdsource information, getting local people to share what they see, what they hear, and what they're being told.  All of this combined can help to tell a more truthful account of something than merely one person's view.  And that is the true beauty of what Bellingcat offers to its viewers and to fellow journalists and media organizations--a bigger picture.

As I have iterated all this week, it really is important for us to have a diverse and free press--to have local and cultural voices sharing with us their insight, knowledge, and understanding in the stories that they tell, and with Bellingcat's international collective of journalists, they help to add to our greater understanding of events all over the world.  Not only that, but they are also helping to hold accountable those parties that do bad things in the world and are also ensuring that sources of information are not destroyed, but preserved for the future--which is incredibly important for future cases and investigations which may be able to use their data to hold people accountable for their actions.  And that is why I believe Bellingcat is a cause worth celebrating.