Eliot Higgins looks at how the truth faces many battles and how overcoming lies is essential to support democracy.

In our age of contested truths, Bellingcat is an intelligence agency by the people, for the people. Higgins tells the story of how and why it was founded, what it does, and how it is redefining the way we think about news, citizen journalism, disinformation politics and the digital future.

From the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 over the Ukraine to the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War and the identification of the Salisbury poisoners, Higgins digs deep into some of Bellingcat’s most successful investigations. He explores the most cutting-edge tools for analysing data, from virtual-reality software that can build photorealistic 3D models of a crime scene, to apps that can identify exactly what time of day a photograph was taken.

Eliot Higgins’ We Are Bellingcat: An Intelligence Agency for the People is published by Bloomsbury. Buy a copy from Waterstones, our bookselling partners.

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Festival of Ideas: Eliot Higgins, How Can We Strengthen Democracy in the Digital Age?