Bellingcat – Truth In A Post-Truth World (formerly The Bellingcat Method)

In the feature documentary ‘The Bellingcat Method’ we follow the rise of the first-ever known civil online investigation group named Bellingcat. The collective began in 2014 with the blogger Eliot Higgins. From his Leicester home, it expanded into an international network of civil researchers, investigating current international conflicts, putting news agencies and governments to the test. Being an online-collective, Bellingcat effectively uses new digital research techniques and crowdsourcing, making them faster and more innovative than traditional research journalism. Since its start four years ago, Bellingcat has produced a remarkable amount of news and facts. Meanwhile, they have gained international recognition and journalistic appreciation. How does a voluntary group of investigators gain such a prominent status in Western media? The film follows Bellingcat’s members in their search for facts and the open-source internet methods they use in their world conflicts investigations. It explores their motivations to stand up against world powers and to make people and governments accountable for the crimes in a web of lies and propaganda. The filmmaker’s journey takes us on a quest of understanding their innovations and the views held by their critics, thus challenging our aspirations for the future of journalism. The Digital Almanac Like Bellingcat does, ‘The Digital Almanac’ will empower every citizen to take control of his/her own digital life and to consciously use technology. The Digital Almanac is a platform on which subscribers will have access to a ‘tip a day’ behavioral advice or recommendation. Each tip of the day will be simple to use, proactive or reflected upon. Each will be written and offered as a stand alone little story. All previous tips of the year will be archived in an online platform, with all links activated for permanent reference. It will hand over practical tools for creating awareness and responsible behaviour patterns around our digital consumption.