The intrepid basement newsroom crew of the K-Landnews will not claim that our more than 2000 posts are free of errors. Even our resident perfectionist acknowledges that the many spelling and grammar errors we have produced over the years hide factual errors, too.
Of course, life in the basement is easy if you don't have a big staff to feed and keep happy, no advertisers to satisfy, and no reputation to maintain - because you don't have one in the first place.
Still, some reporting in the paid for, professional media is so sloppy that our "let off steam mouse" is more battered than planned. In case you don't know, we have an old computer mouse, its cord trimmed to a few inches to prevent workplace injuries when hurled across the room towards an imaginary lava lamp. When news become too upsetting, the mouse flies and calm returns.
One such occasion was the German uptake of the latest Bellingcat report on Ukraine: the Russians faked satellite images, the news said on Monday, 1 June 2015.
To be perfectly clear, Bellingcat is an interesting venture, and they have produced some verifiable results before.
What should worry you as a German news consumer is not the fact that Bellingcat says their of report: "These claims, representing the majority of information publicly
presented by the Russian government since the downing of Flight MH17,
are a clear attempt by the Russian government to deceive the public,
global community, and the families of the Flight MH17 victims, only days
after Flight MH17 was shot down."
What should worry you it that the major German outlets Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine gave the Bellingcat report top billing without even a modicum of verification by their own journalists.
Der Spiegel was gung ho about the Bellingcat piece, calling Bellingcat "an independent investigative platform" and their contributors "experts".
This elevated level of credibility is not - yet - substantiated by facts. As a semi-pseudonymous blog, the K-Landnews understands reluctance on the part of contributors, but Bellingcat could alleviate issues though one simple measure:
Write a report that acknowledges the assumptions, processing and limits.
Not acknowledging even the most basic issues described on the Fotoforensics site used to create the ELA images, is a negative point for Bellingcat but inexcusable for Der Spiegel. If you cannot send an intern to read a few web pages, you have a problem.
The Spiegel title, by the way, included "How Russia manipulated MH17-proofs".
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung did modestly better while professing the same conclusions as Der Spiegel. The Frankfurter headline "Russia allegedly faked satellite images" is stronger than "manipulated" but adds "allegedly" to cover their behinds. In the article, they make abundant use of quotes and point to the internet roots of Bellingcat while pointing out "good reputation" in previous instances.
But just as Der Spiegel, they did not find it necessary to do any further research.
Finally, Die Zeit went Kremlin with their headline "Kremlin manipulated with Photoshop" on the Bellingcat report. While they write "An independent analysis now shows: The images were faked", they make sure that enough quotes and "should", "could", "allegedly" (or rather their German equivalents) are used to maintain a minimum of integrity.
But - but, just as Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine, they did not find it necessary to do any further research.
On June 3, Der Spiegel demonstrated how to get the best of both worlds by publishing an interview with a professional photo forensics person, appropriately entitled: "Bellingcat reads tea leaves" (in German that's coffee grounds).
We will see if ZEIT and Frankfurter Allgemeine will follow through.
One more thing:
We do not generally tout credentials but will lift the veil a little for this post. Let's just say we have impeccable academic credentials, specialist journal publications, an odd software patent and coding skills down to messing with individual pixels of images/videos.
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