Eliot Higgins has gone from playing World of Warcraft to setting the global news agenda
One of the world’s best investigative publishers runs out of a house in Leicester. After the birth of his first child, Eliot Higgins no longer had the time to play World of Warcraft, or for any other hobby. He started blogging as a flexible and engaging past time, implementing the problem-solving skills developed by gaming.
The end result is Bellingcat, a website publishing investigative journalism based on open source information and fact checking. Higgins and his team revealed the identities of the two Russian intelligence officers responsible for poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury. They also exposed the use of cluster bombs in Syria and, now, those who shot down passenger flight MH-17 over Ukraine.
Higgins is gaining traction embarrassing the Russian government. He even forced the country’s ministry of defence to retract a press release, after showing imagery it said was irrefutable evidence of American collaboration with ISIS to be lifted from a computer game.
Is he worried about a couple of Russian tourists turning up in Leicester to check out the cathedral spire? How far is Putin prepared to go to impede justice for the families of the 298 people murdered on MH-17? Eliot Higgins answers those questions in an exclusive interview with JOE.co.uk.
