Thank you for your super recommendations, I am super-excited to share my video review of our current read: We Are Bellingcat.
It’s such a gripping account of how author Eliot Higgins has reinvented consumer journalism in the internet age. He shares his investigations into the (Salisbury) poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal; the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and more – all under the important ethical question: Does our investigation concern people who may have committed a serious crime or who hold public positions of power and are threatening criminal acts?
Panel Discussion, recorded 23rd April 2021, with Herman Stewart, Paul Russell1 and Luan Wise, looking at the book through the tech, media, jobs security and corporate lenses.
Please share your feedback and questions below.
A book review like this sparks curiosity.
Let’s see how fast I can read before your LinkedIn Learning book club discussion on 23 April.
With so much data in the world and available at our fingertips, the team at We are Bellingcat have looked at some of the injustices of the world that are cloaked in secrecy to hide crimes against innocents and humanity and exposed them for what they are.
The team points out operational accountability and leaves it to others to build case cases against those that issue the orders in their name.
From a research perspective, they have a simple mantra -‘ identify, validate and then amplify.’
The team runs on the facts that there are many brilliant people out there in the ether who have skills and require a focus and the ability to use ingenuity. They receive images or video and then, using free tools, go about the hard aspect of validating the material. This is a bit like orienteering. Taking one point of reference indicates a potential location; to close that down, you need a secondary point to start to narrow that down. A third reference point will validate your position more accurately.
The We are Bellingcat team looking at cutting through the disinformation, usually state machinery, and using the data they assimilate to put facts out there. It is up to others to build that information and further knowledge to bring matters to the fore.
This is a great book showing that the rich mass of data requires a set of filters to sift and validate. The lessons learned from the book are simple and effective for students, undergraduates and anyone that research. Use the tools out there, create a community of practice, be creative, keep an open mind and remember. Identify, validate (and then proactively) amplify that data to those who can use it to build information into knowledge usefully engaged.
The last bit of being proactive is my aspect of a good book for researchers to read to help build a toolkit of thinking.