A great example of investigative journalism. Read this piece of "dead media" and consider how many blogs you know with similar quality of reporting.
It's interesting that his mention of "proprietary image-processing method" in the benign beginning did trigger an alarm in my head before I got to the second part.
The level of work that David Grann put in is a marvel. He generates an idea for a story, researches it, and has enough for an article. He has a queasy feeling about a subject of the piece (not unlike the art connoisseurs might have), and investigates further. He turns up lots of dirt on Biro, enough to put his claims into doubt. He has enough to write an article. But he doesn't! He investigates the fingerprints further, and finds expert analysis that indicates that the fingerprints are phony. Not writing the article yet, he takes all of his evidence back to Biro to examine his reaction.
The editor also deserves credit. This is a damning article, but there is no evidence of sidestepping or evading the truth. All of the extra research was extremely time consuming, and when the author yelled, "This guy is a fraud!", he wasn't told to publish what he had, he was told, "ok, show me the evidence."
"The man who keeps finding famous fingerprints on uncelebrated works of art" takes on a sinister tone after reading the article
Yes, my alarm was triggered when he said the camera was of his own design, I could not fathom a single person producing extremely high tech imaging systems.
But the writer pulled it off really well and I figured the guy maybe had the thing custom made by Nikon or something.
Talk about a story in two parts - they build Biro up as an inventor and maverick art-and-fingerprint expert who identified a new Leonardo, and then tear his credibility to shreds!
And I was glad that Gladwell's Blink didn't get a mention.
It's interesting that his mention of "proprietary image-processing method" in the benign beginning did trigger an alarm in my head before I got to the second part.