Cool! Is there someplace you can apply for CIA funding? (I'm only partially joking.)
the tragedy of all cyber reporting is that there can be no neutral party. the moment you need to call out your own camp you'll lose support/protection and legitimacy to exist (e.g. imagine Bellingcat being vocal of anything that happens within FVEY. Unthinkable!)
Yes, imagine if they covered things in the US:
https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/usa/
Ex: "US Law Enforcement Are Deliberately Targeting Journalists During George Floyd Protests"
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...
Give me something of the same magnitude that got exposed by Manning, Snowden or Assange and I will be happy to believe that they are "neutral". But oh wait - they'd be in exile or dead. So my point stands.
One of the strongest messages the US sends abroad is that the 1st amendment is sacrosanct. Highlighting law enforcement violently suppressing that is extremely damaging to America's reputation.
Nobody is moving any goalposts. Your assertion that they are independent but also are unable to highlight crimes committed by the US then they are simply not independent.
FWIW I'm not highlighting any side being bad or good but that the claim of independence needs to be viewed in relation to their alliances.
They still are a citizen journalist type of outfit, they don't take direct funding from government orgs. But they have to suspect some of their anonymous analysis contributors are working with a state agenda and resources.
As a result, Bellingcat unlikely to go after Israelis in Gaza, but more likely to go after ISIS terrorists, Syria, Russia. WikiLeaks more likely to focus on US politics and NATO, than to look at Putin's finances or Russian banks.
But then all of advanced journalism becomes murkey, as you can be independant, while only looking at what your anonymous sources give you. Is NYT or WP independant when it runs an article on national security by the CIA or DoD for censorship, and securing those future juicy leads?
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2017/02/20/tracking-n...
Bellingcat (despite the great work they do IMHO) certainly does not get Russian passport details simply by hacking or by asking some "corrupt" Russians working for the state for help. So you can probably trust most of what they say but not how they get their info or that they are simply a "hacktivist / citizen jorno" outfit (they'd be dead since long time if that would be all)
At least until I've seen them uncover something as big as Skripal or the MH17 (within the FVEY) I wouldn't believe their claims of being "independent". Which will never happen because you don't bite the hand that feeds. Anyone playing in that league will not survive very long (quite literally) unless they get security benefits needed (which requires affiliation).
There doesn't have to be a conspiracy. That protection comes at a cost of bias (it's not required when everyone around you and most importantly yourself believes you're part of the good guys).