This week’s “Listening Post” on Al Jazeera (viewable here <https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2019/09/xinjiang-story-china-world-forget-190907080927464.html>) talks, in the latter part, about this new phenomenon of “open source” journalism. My understanding is, the meaning of “source” here is not that of “source code” familiar to software developers, but “source of information” as understood by journalists. That means getting information from public sources available to all. Even a tightly-controlled society like China makes a surprising amount of information freely available online--more than it really wants to make available, sometimes. And this information can be pieced together like a puzzle by perceptive investigators, to point to conclusions which can be directly at odds with public pronouncements from Government officials.
On Wed, 11 Sep 2019 19:22:52 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
This week’s “Listening Post” on Al Jazeera (viewable here <https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2019/09/xinjiang-story-china-world-forget-190907080927464.html>) talks, in the latter part, about this new phenomenon of “open source” journalism. My understanding is, the meaning of “source” here is not that of “source code” familiar to software developers, but “source of information” as understood by journalists.
A followup episode <https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2020/01/science-art-open-source-journalism-200102224849578.html> recaps the China story and also adds one about Syria along similar lines, where researchers using publicly-available information were able to penetrate the “fog of war”, and uncover at least some of the truth that those providing the information were trying to hide. An example detailed in the story is the April 2018 chemical-weapon attack on Douma. Russian journalists very quickly went in to try to claim that this was some kind of “false-flag” operation perpetrated by the White Helmets themselves (the group of volunteers risking their lives helping civilian victims of bombing attacks). However, the researchers, using the footage provided by that same Russian media, were able to show that the bomb casing was deformed in the way you would expect from being dropped from an aircraft. And the only aircraft operating anywhere near that area were from the Syrian government or its ally Russia. By the way, note the prominent use of Blender 3D software in their analysis.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro