Getting the News in the Modern Era

There’s been a lot of news lately, as you might have noticed.

You might, too, have noticed that getting actual, accurate news coverage seems all but impossible. For instance, on Saturday, as the war between Israel and Iran was in a particularly critical stage, what was once correctly called Fox News Channel was now wall-to-wall with the birthday party Donald Trump threw for himself, hour after hour. This was followed by a repeat of the many hours of that “coverage.” Meanwhile, the once somewhat reliable Cable News Network was wall-to-wall with the demonstrations against Trump’s birthday party.

Each network covered its chosen event joyously. Fox News Channel is now entirely the channel of Trump supporters. Cable News Network has become utterly the channel of those who oppose Trump. Each seems like a Soviet military unit, with a political officer approving (or prohibiting) everything in the selection of stories and point of view.

They might be making money. I don’t know and I don’t care.

Nor is there a reliable overseas news source. The BBC has become as ridiculous as once-Great Britain itself has.

It was at one time possible to get a reliable sense of what’s going on in the world through the use of shortwave radio. I did this regularly and as a result was able to stay ahead of important world events. No one country’s broadcaster was completely reliable, but by listening to various countries’ official broadcasts it was easy to get a handle on the issues at play. Unfortunately, most countries have pulled the plug on their shortwave services. All that’s left, really, are China and Cuba. The latter is kind of a joke, but China has in its sights the many countries of the third world, where shortwave is still commonly used.

So where can we turn to find out what’s actually going on?

Two years ago next Monday, the infamous Wagner Group Russian mercenary outfit stopped fighting against Ukraine and turned back toward Moscow. What was going on? Was it a coup to overthrow Vladimir Putin? Should we worry or rejoice?

Turning to the traditional conventional news sources did not offer satisfaction. The above-mentioned “news” sources did their usual 30 seconds of a reporter on some scene somewhere saying that he or she had no idea what was going on, followed by here’s-cellphone-video-of-a-bear-in-a-swimming-pool anchored at the studio.

I whined about this online to friends who also share an interest in serious subjects, one of whom lives in the Baltics so his concern is more than academic. I’ve known him since the Johnson administration, and his younger brother as well. We’ve never made a formal accounting, but I think we agree on little politically. Still, we’re of that bygone day when disagreement didn’t automatically imply hatred.

The brother, Bobby, responded to my complaint by saying that he was following the unfolding Wagner Group events through a Twitter list. (Twitter would not become X for another month.) It was “Open Source Intelligence,” described as “OSINT feeds covering Israel & the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A service of @theaircurrent.” It is a group of 79 professional and competent amateur followers of the many disciplines involved in extracting from available information the things that are going on in the world, and what they suggest for the future. It was put together by Jon Ostrower. about whom I know nothing except that he has had at least one entirely brilliant idea.

I went there and was amazed. I have gone there every day since, and have every day been better for it. It is two things, both of which are tremendous accomplishments: It stays ahead of even the best reporting in the world due to the sheer number of eyes looking and brains analyzing, and it proves the tremendous power of open source, which is how those eyes and brains come together to produce such excellent results. I do not believe there is any better source for important international news.

That day I saw, in near-real time, what the Wagners and their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin were up to, often with pictures or video. The information was sourced; when it involved speculation, that was clearly stated. And the people on the list were like the old ladies at the church social who know everything about everybody. Oh, and what they said turned out to be right.

Over the following months I followed the list and learned things.

Some of the people included are high-end professionals. You might already know some of their names. For instance, there are Dmitri Alperovitch, Velina Tchakarova, Tyler Rogoway, Joe Truzman, Idrees Ali, Rob Lee, the always stop-and-read Michael A. Horowitz, Barak Ravid, and many others I’ve unfairly left out. There are military and international affairs correspondents from news organizations and broadcasters. There are various private intelligence concerns — it’s a big industry, because investors and funds want to make informed decisions, which today must often be done very quickly. There are dedicated hobbyists, who are as good as the pros.

They were carefully chosen for the list and as a result it is more reliable than most things on TwitteX. They are looking everywhere, all the time. When something happens, they’re on it not in hours or minutes but in seconds. They follow events from rumor to first reports, confirmed reports, and confirmed details — before the traditional media have issued their first bulletin that they’ve heard that something may have happened. I felt pretty smug the first time I saw a bulletin broadcast on commercial television that “revealed” (“BREAKING TONIGHT!”) video I’d seen on Open Source Intelligence 36 hours earlier.

On Monday, the list let us know that the Iranian government television building was soon to be blown up, and a couple of hours later it was. (And the video of the screeching Iranian harridan, which will never not be funny, was quickly available on Open Source Intelligence.)

They also do a better job of verifying and confirming everything than the television “news” people do. Again, they’ll specify the likelihood of an item being accurate, right through its evolution. Sources are provided. Where it’s appropriate the exact map coordinates of an event are provided. These guys are very good.

They discuss and sometimes argue their conclusions and predictions. There are people with all kinds of political and national allegiances, which put together means no overall political slant or special motivation. They follow the radar and as a result are able, as was done Sunday night, to show that there were more than two dozen U.S. military tanker planes headed one after another, across the Atlantic — something pretty unusual. From the planes’ course they were able to arrive at strong suggestions as to what they were up to. It was discovered and closely followed by the brilliant amateur at Evergreen Intel. Monday morning, Evergreen’s reporting was confirmed by the Department of Defense. (I wish I had space to list everyone; my leaving some out is not a criticism of them.)

And they can have an effect on international policy.

They also ferret out and call out those who are troll accounts, propagandists, and people of ill intent. On Monday, it was at Open Source Intelligence that we learned that the picture Iran was circulating in support of its claim that the ayatollah’s advisor Ali Shamkhan (reportedly blown to smithereens in the initial attack) was alive was in fact more than a year old. Another good example is Israel’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last July. They were on it instantly and their analysis was fascinating and instructive. Additionally, they were able to note the affiliations and biases of various reporters covering the story and therefore their credibility. Priceless stuff.

They are also very clever. I do not know if it was originated by a member of the list, but it was reasoned and has come to pass that sales at pizza restaurants near the Pentagon are monitored on the theory that when lots of pizzas are being ordered something is going on and it will be a late night at the Pentagon.

After you follow the list for awhile, you recognize those whose initial takes are especially likely to be accurate, not that anyone is often inaccurate. There is a zen to interpreting the list, but it’s easily acquired.

There are specialists. For instance, Alex Luck is eyeballs deep in submarines and other naval vessels (and pets and motorcycles). His posts on minor variations in submarine design and such do not always make compelling reading, but they come back later to illuminate events. Others, too, are into the markings of ships and planes, down to the hull and tail numbers. They are good to have around when, as last weekend, Iran released a picture with a claim that it had forced a British ship to turn away. It took a minute or two — they had to stop laughing first — for the experts on the list to point out that, well, actually the picture was of a completely different kind of ship that was from the United Arab Emirates.

I won’t get into their coverage of events in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, beyond saying that it has been just as good, with experts whose specialty is that war in addition to those whose knowledge applies everywhere. The regular media aren’t paying much attention to the atrocities Russia is committing — media policy tends to follow shiny things under their “oh look, a squirrel!” editorial policy — while the world’s eyes are turned to the Middle East. Russia has taken notice and advantage of this. The minute-by-minute coverage on Open Source Intelligence is the opposite of the dumbing down we get from the traditional media.

It can be hilarious, as a month ago when amid vast ceremony North Korea’s big new warship turned on its side and sank when it was launched. It was reported on Open Source Intelligence before Kim Jong Un even had time to order executions. (And it was on the list that we saw the before and after group pictures of the North Korean naval staff, so we could see who had been edited out, Stalin-style.)

The scholarship involved, as, for instance, people on the list follow China’s aviation and naval vessel development is beyond my imagining. Everyone there is passionate about it, and they all convert that passion to knowledge.

Thus it came to pass last Thursday that I saw a short post, to wit: “Explosions heard in Tehran,” followed seconds later by a post that said “It has begun.” (The quotes are from memory and I’m not going to scroll through literally thousands of posts to make sure they are precise, but that’s what they said.)

I sent a quick note to friends. An hour or so later, the news made the airwaves.

Since then, the coverage has been, as expected, brilliant. Everything that has happened, in great detail, very quickly, along with developing analysis. As well as the world’s other belligerencies, coverage of which which was not interrupted for a minute.

Sometimes the comments attached to posts are useful; sometimes they are either Trumpian or antisemitic nonsense. Or both. This is, after all, TwitteX. If that were what I’m after — it isn’t — I have the television, which usually provides little beyond gaseous blabbering by approved “experts.”

I must confess that I’d rather have actual news and the assumption that I have a working brain, than television personalities peddling their opinions And for real news, Open Source Intelligence is unsurpassed.