Mark Scheffler, The New York Times ; How We Determined That Minneapolis Videos Contradicted Federal Officials
"The first viral video from Minneapolis last Saturday morning told only a partial story: Federal agents skirmish in the street with several civilians. Officers bring a man to the ground. Gunshots go off.
What were the federal officers doing? What preceded the confrontation? What went on in the scuffle? Who fired? Who was the man? Was he alive or dead?
There are often more questions than answers in the work of the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. Our job is to assemble and analyze visual material — including video footage taken by both witnesses and security cameras — to piece together chaotic events and present as full a picture of what happened as we can.
Our goal isn’t to establish guilt or innocence. We aren’t a court of law. Instead, we establish what we call ground truth: what happened, how it happened and who might be responsible. We follow the visuals wherever they take us, not to a predetermined conclusion. In doing so, this work can start to establish accountability."
