Fake News: How We Can Save Ourselves From Disinformation (Eliot Higgins)

Radical with Amol Rajan

BBC

Society & Culture

4.5 • 919 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Conspiracy theories have flooded the internet in recent years and a growing number of people are avoiding mainstream news.

Eliot Higgins, founder of the open source investigative organisation Bellingcat, thinks this is partly down to a lack of trust in institutions, which is leading to a crisis of democracy in Britain and elsewhere.

He discusses why we need to spend less time online, improve media literacy and how Bellingcat has built a community of open source investigators on Discord.

Eliot also explains how his team tracked down the Russian agents behind the Salisbury poisonings, took on Putin’s Kremlin and uncovered what really happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent. Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Izzy Rowley. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by James Piper. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:04.7	Hello, it's Amol here. Welcome to Radical. These are conversations about the trends changing our world and some pretty radical ideas that might help you win the future.
0:14.7	Today's conversation is, well, I think it's absolutely riveting. It's with someone who has occupied the new world of information and misinformation for just over a decade as the founder of a remarkable network really called Bellingat.
0:28.6	It was Bellingat that scooped the world on what really happened in that poisoning that we call the Scripal case.
0:34.5	It's Bellingcat that have gone further the most journalistic organisations
0:37.7	and indeed intelligence agencies often in revealing the truth of what might have happened in the
0:43.1	Syrian civil war or in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi. And my guest today is the remarkable
0:49.1	Elliot Higgins, an advocate for democracy, a public educator and someone who really does think that open source investigation
0:55.6	can save our democracy, can improve journalism,
0:59.2	and tell you a hell of a lot more about what you really need to know
1:02.9	on some of the most controversial stories and issues of our time.
1:06.7	Music Beautiful.
1:19.4	All right.
1:20.1	Welcome back to a studio with me.
1:24.0	Do you know the last time we got together,
1:25.3	which was like, I did you listen back to it?
1:27.1	A very good interview conducted by myself, with yourself, on the media show on Radio 4.
1:32.7	That was 2019.
1:34.4	It's a long time ago, when you have that kind of, those COVID months just seeming to still years from our lives,
1:39.5	2019 didn't seem that far away.
1:41.3	Yeah, but a lot has happened since then.
1:43.3	A lot has happened in the world, but a lot has happened for Bellingat and for your remarkable institute. Can we call it an institution now? Do we call it an institution or is it still a network? I think some people do, but not as a compliment. The Russian government calls you an institution. Oh yes, the Russian government thinks you're an institution embedded within the deep state.
	...

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