WEBVTT 00:00:04.779 --> 00:00:07.679 You're listening to a stage talk titled protecting 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:10.699 the people within your research. This week we 00:00:10.699 --> 00:00:12.919 were joined by the Fuller Projects editor -in 00:00:12.919 --> 00:00:16.519 -chief Eliza Inyangwe. Eliza provided invaluable 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:20.359 tips for speaking to potential sources and ways 00:00:20.359 --> 00:00:22.940 to ensure your reporting does more good than 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:26.019 harm. Join us as we discuss the people at the 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:28.960 centre of your story and the editorial decisions. 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:31.559 that should be taken to protect them. This talk 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:34.060 was hosted by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:37.579 the 22nd of May 2025 in the Bellingcat Discord 00:00:37.579 --> 00:00:52.939 server. Welcome to this week's stage talk. I'm 00:00:52.939 --> 00:00:55.520 fascinated by today's topic. It's something that 00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:58.820 I hold quite dear to my heart. Building on the 00:00:58.820 --> 00:01:01.560 wonderful talk by Dr. Alexa Konig, and if you 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:03.659 haven't listened to that, please check out our 00:01:03.659 --> 00:01:06.659 RSS feed where you can find all of our stage 00:01:06.659 --> 00:01:09.659 talks, previous ones including the one by Dr. 00:01:09.739 --> 00:01:12.939 Alexa Konig. We wanted to revisit the issue of 00:01:12.939 --> 00:01:15.819 consent when it comes to reporting on sensitive 00:01:15.819 --> 00:01:19.000 subjects like gender -based violence. Today, 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:21.760 we're joined by the Fuller Project's editor -in 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:24.780 -chief, Eliza and Yang Wei. The Fuller Project 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:27.719 is a newsroom dedicated to reporting on issues 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:30.120 that affect women with a mission of enacting 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:32.400 positive change for women and I will drop the 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:36.379 link to the reporting in a second in the chat. 00:01:37.859 --> 00:01:40.819 It is a unique setup to have a newsroom with 00:01:40.819 --> 00:01:43.060 such a sole focus and within this sole focus 00:01:43.060 --> 00:01:45.640 the team work on an array of topics from labour 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.439 rights to health to climate change. Eliza is 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:51.180 not here today to look at a singular topic, Carla. 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:54.579 She's here in her editorial role capacity to 00:01:54.579 --> 00:01:56.799 give an insight into how her team has garnered 00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:59.500 a reputation of trust and transparency when it 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:02.599 comes to sharing individual stories. We're going 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:04.780 to explore what preserving the dignity of those 00:02:04.780 --> 00:02:07.439 featured in your reporting looks like, both in 00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:09.379 a traditional journalism sense and when it comes 00:02:09.379 --> 00:02:12.080 to open source research, which many of you in 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:15.439 this room practice. What questions should you 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:18.139 be asking yourself when you're looking to engage 00:02:18.139 --> 00:02:20.460 with testimonies or coming to publish a story 00:02:20.460 --> 00:02:23.500 on a sensitive subject? Hopefully we'll be covering 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:27.620 that today. Before I pass on to Eliza, a little 00:02:27.620 --> 00:02:30.199 reminder that while we'll be taking questions 00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:32.300 in the chat, which you can find on the top right 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:34.759 -hand side of your screen, it's important to 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:37.199 note this is being audio recorded. So if you 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:41.960 do not want me to mention your name when I bring 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:44.409 up your question in the discussion, please note 00:02:44.409 --> 00:02:48.229 that within your question. All right, okay Eliza 00:02:48.229 --> 00:02:50.750 the floor is yours and we'll come back in a little 00:02:50.750 --> 00:02:56.800 bit for Q &A. Hey, hi, Charlie. Hi, everyone. 00:02:57.319 --> 00:02:59.960 Nice to meet you all and to be invited into your 00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:03.960 community for this conversation. I'm hoping very 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:07.919 much to make it a conversation. So I will talk 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:12.780 for as little time as I can so that perhaps in 00:03:12.780 --> 00:03:15.740 the Q &A and in the conversation with you, I 00:03:15.740 --> 00:03:19.780 might not just share more details, but also learn 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:23.379 from all of you as well, because part of the 00:03:23.379 --> 00:03:25.479 reason I was very excited to do this is I'm so 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:29.500 admiring of the work of OSINT investigators, 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:33.400 obviously in journalism spaces for the last several 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:36.900 years. The sense that we can hold power to account 00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:39.879 in different ways. We can reveal truths that 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:43.780 have been obscured by getting granular and piecing 00:03:43.780 --> 00:03:46.520 together big data or other forms of open source 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:50.439 information has been something that I have really 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:52.860 admired. And so it is a real privilege also for 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:54.780 me to learn from this community as well as to 00:03:54.780 --> 00:03:59.240 share from my own experiences to it. In the introduction, 00:03:59.620 --> 00:04:01.500 I will just tell you a little bit more about 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:05.280 myself. This is very much part of my journey 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:08.419 to doing this work and has helped inform some 00:04:08.419 --> 00:04:10.439 of the perspectives that I have developed over 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:14.599 the years. and in working with other folks. I 00:04:14.599 --> 00:04:18.800 didn't actually study journalism. I was born 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:21.480 in Cameroon. I won't give you the whole bio. 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.120 I'm sure that information is all online. So you 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:29.040 can find that pretty easily. But grew up in a 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.720 context where a lot of the reporting on whether 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.019 it's Cameroon or any part of Africa is around 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:37.139 sort of like patriarchy. And women are usually 00:04:37.139 --> 00:04:42.079 presented as victims in stories and never have 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:44.620 any agency. And so when I eventually started 00:04:44.620 --> 00:04:47.860 working in journalism, my first role was at The 00:04:47.860 --> 00:04:52.199 Guardian where I was for many years. I got really 00:04:52.199 --> 00:04:55.860 fed up of seeing women from the African continent 00:04:55.860 --> 00:04:59.019 reflected in a very sort of two -dimensional 00:04:59.019 --> 00:05:01.680 way and tried to set up my own platform focusing 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:03.959 on African women's stories. And I've spent the 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:06.579 entirety of my career, I think, really just kind 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:09.100 of like nerdishly obsessing around two things, 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:12.420 trying to broaden what we consider a story, the 00:05:12.420 --> 00:05:14.560 types of subjects that are worth reporting on, 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:17.540 interesting for audiences, as well as trying 00:05:17.540 --> 00:05:20.459 to change who we think of as storytellers, who 00:05:20.459 --> 00:05:23.040 gets to tell the story who gets to determine 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:25.939 what the narrative is. And that is the work that 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:28.120 I've continued at the Fuller project, which I 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.339 joined in January, I run their newsroom from 00:05:30.339 --> 00:05:33.879 Amsterdam, where I moved to be managing editor 00:05:33.879 --> 00:05:35.819 of a member funded journalism platform called 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:38.100 The Correspondent. And so I've worked for a range 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:39.920 of different news organizations, including the 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:41.839 Bureau of Investigative Journalism, where I had 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.040 a very funky role called community organizer, 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.959 which is not usual in newsrooms, right, to have 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:50.639 community organizers. And I think at the at the 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:53.019 heart of my career is always about thinking about 00:05:53.019 --> 00:05:56.079 the relationship of people to the media. And 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.720 I think, of course, being a product of coming 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:03.319 into the newsroom at the height of sort of... 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:06.120 social platforms and thinking about how they 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:09.199 could really rethink our relationships with subjects 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:12.379 in our stories has been very much something that 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:14.420 I've explored in our work. The Fuller Project 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:17.060 itself is 10 years old, started off first by 00:06:17.060 --> 00:06:20.379 focusing on the missing voices in conflict. So 00:06:20.379 --> 00:06:23.019 it was often the voices of women. And every time 00:06:23.019 --> 00:06:25.699 I say women, I mean that expansively. So women, 00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:29.339 genderqueer folks, gender diverse communities, 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:32.980 and has also then broadened its journalism. to 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:36.439 think about the under -reported stories, whether 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:38.579 it's in conflict situations or other contexts. 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:44.180 So we know that only 0 .02 % of mainstream international 00:06:44.180 --> 00:06:46.660 reporting focuses on issues that disproportionately 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.300 affect women. And so the Fuller Project exists 00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:51.899 to try and bridge that gap in coverage. We also 00:06:51.899 --> 00:06:55.319 know that a lot of audiences, particularly young 00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:58.759 people and people who identify as women, are 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:01.500 less interested in the traditional subjects that 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:03.420 journalism and journalists have been obsessed 00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:07.199 with. And so again, it's trying to sort of serve 00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:11.120 those audiences also. I have worked on investigations 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:13.279 and stories that I've had to do with, you know, 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:17.319 that had required mining sex worker data. We 00:07:17.319 --> 00:07:19.920 did a very sensitive investigation at the Guardian, 00:07:20.180 --> 00:07:22.920 sorry, at CNN. I've just noticed that the video 00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:25.319 component of that is up for an Emmy. I'm no longer 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:27.459 there, so if we win, there will be no statuette 00:07:27.459 --> 00:07:31.959 in my house. But it was an investigation on sexual 00:07:31.959 --> 00:07:34.579 violence against Rohingya hydras, and hydras 00:07:34.579 --> 00:07:38.779 are a gender minority in that region. of South 00:07:38.779 --> 00:07:44.519 Asia. We've looked at the experiences of children 00:07:44.519 --> 00:07:48.819 as they're being sort of exploited online, as 00:07:48.819 --> 00:07:52.170 well as Last year, I believe I did an investigation 00:07:52.170 --> 00:07:55.189 with a reporter in India following an Afghan 00:07:55.189 --> 00:07:59.250 family that fled Afghanistan and crossed illegally 00:07:59.250 --> 00:08:02.550 into Pakistan. And the reason I named these examples 00:08:02.550 --> 00:08:05.870 is that they're all examples of sensitive where 00:08:05.870 --> 00:08:10.670 there's either sensitive data, underage characters, 00:08:11.170 --> 00:08:14.129 people who if their stories were to come to light, 00:08:14.129 --> 00:08:16.889 as much as we want to hear them so that we can 00:08:16.889 --> 00:08:19.889 empathize with their experience, it can put them 00:08:19.889 --> 00:08:23.810 in greater danger. We spent a long time thinking 00:08:23.810 --> 00:08:25.990 and talking about how we presented the story 00:08:25.990 --> 00:08:28.389 of the Afghan sisters who fled with their little 00:08:28.389 --> 00:08:30.750 brother and what the repercussions would be, 00:08:30.810 --> 00:08:33.090 not just for them as they were undocumented in 00:08:33.090 --> 00:08:35.629 Pakistan, but also for other people who might 00:08:35.629 --> 00:08:39.590 be using the same essentially illegal or informal 00:08:39.590 --> 00:08:42.169 migratory routes and whether the Taliban might 00:08:42.169 --> 00:08:45.710 take retaliatory action to then close down those 00:08:45.710 --> 00:08:49.019 routes following their departure. involved at 00:08:49.019 --> 00:08:51.200 some point, multiple phone calls with the US 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:53.980 State Department. But that is a story over a 00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:57.639 beer and not for now. So those are the kinds 00:08:57.639 --> 00:09:00.100 of ranges of things that we've worked on. And 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:02.139 in preparing for this call, thinking about how 00:09:02.139 --> 00:09:04.220 to protect the people in your investigation, 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:06.980 I thought it might be useful to sort of establish, 00:09:06.980 --> 00:09:09.200 and forgive me if I'm starting with the basics, 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:11.320 but not knowing who is in the room, I think it 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.779 might just be useful to establish an answer. 00:09:13.980 --> 00:09:16.340 Why is it important to protect people? I think 00:09:16.340 --> 00:09:20.980 a lot of us get into this work. because we are 00:09:20.980 --> 00:09:24.019 either social justice minded like think that, 00:09:24.019 --> 00:09:26.620 you know, systems and processes are really unfair 00:09:26.620 --> 00:09:29.700 and want to expose them. We want to see things 00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:32.039 change or we might be interested in the technology, 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:35.419 the approach, you know, less about the people, 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:37.659 less even about the systems change and just more 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:40.519 about how far can I go using this tool or this 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:44.389 approach? But I think it is also important to 00:09:44.389 --> 00:09:47.309 remember that I think the difference to my mind 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:52.049 between journalism and academic research is that 00:09:52.049 --> 00:09:54.169 we don't, journalists don't see ourselves as 00:09:54.169 --> 00:09:56.330 just providing information, we tell stories. 00:09:56.690 --> 00:09:58.610 And the difference is that stories are meant 00:09:58.610 --> 00:10:00.850 to connect emotionally with people and human 00:10:00.850 --> 00:10:03.909 beings connect with the experience. of other 00:10:03.909 --> 00:10:06.090 human beings more than they connect with data 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:09.549 or information, right? It's really hard to conceptualize 00:10:09.549 --> 00:10:13.090 how many people have died in an explosion and 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:16.129 much more impactful when you hear the experience 00:10:16.129 --> 00:10:18.830 of one person whose life was lost in that explosion 00:10:18.830 --> 00:10:21.450 to think about the sort of relative harm. And 00:10:21.450 --> 00:10:24.690 we sort of have this great capacity for empathy 00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:27.389 to then multiply that across the large numbers 00:10:27.389 --> 00:10:30.309 and don't so much register emotionally when we 00:10:30.309 --> 00:10:35.480 just hear the large numbers. And so it's. Often 00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:37.759 important to think about, well, it's important 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.340 to think about why to protect the people in your 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:42.580 research and your investigations because often 00:10:42.580 --> 00:10:45.000 doing so is a matter of life and death for them. 00:10:45.659 --> 00:10:48.379 That might not be immediately apparent. They 00:10:48.379 --> 00:10:51.240 might not be currently in a situation where their 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:54.700 lives are at risk, but we never can fully think 00:10:54.700 --> 00:10:58.820 about the repercussions and the retribution that 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:02.960 might come for exposing and revealing harm. As 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:05.159 I mentioned with the Afghan story, example that 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:08.659 I gave. It's often also the case that if we're 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:11.960 speaking truth to power, power has power that 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:15.460 it can use against people and oftentimes depending 00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:19.519 on where we ourselves are situated, if that harm 00:11:19.519 --> 00:11:21.379 or that power might not be exercised against 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:23.600 us, but against the people who have worked with 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:26.299 us to help report the story. And so thinking 00:11:26.299 --> 00:11:29.080 about it in a sort of networked way, not just 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:33.720 about me as the storyteller, me as the investigator 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:35.899 and the reporter, but who had any touch points 00:11:35.899 --> 00:11:38.759 with this reporting and might be a bit more vulnerable 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:41.399 in terms of their nationality, in terms of their 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:44.240 gender, in terms of lots of different identifiers 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:47.000 and the ways in which the ways in which we show 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:49.639 up means that we are exposed to different types 00:11:49.639 --> 00:11:53.340 of harms. Right. So we're not all. share the 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:55.179 same sort of privilege of safety in all different 00:11:55.179 --> 00:11:59.820 spaces that we might be in. Mental trauma is 00:11:59.820 --> 00:12:03.159 often as bad as physical trauma. And so oftentimes 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:06.179 when we've collected the data that we may have, 00:12:06.379 --> 00:12:08.220 and we then need a character and we're thinking, 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:10.480 okay, I just need someone to tell me their story, 00:12:10.740 --> 00:12:14.059 asking them to rehash their lived experiences 00:12:14.059 --> 00:12:17.519 is probably going to be and or can be re -traumatizing 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:19.899 for them. And it is a question not just on whether 00:12:19.899 --> 00:12:23.480 if or how we ask, if we ask rather, but how we 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:26.240 ask them to do so. It's often about also thinking 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:29.340 in sort of a trauma -informed way, which is that 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:32.799 people who have experienced trauma are not going 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:35.100 to give you a sort of blow -by -blow sequential 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:38.100 event, sequential retelling of the events of 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:40.659 their lives, and oftentimes it does mean that 00:12:40.659 --> 00:12:44.000 we have to go back multiple times or that In 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:46.759 the work of journalism or journalistic investigation 00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.159 and research, having to sort of what I would 00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:51.679 say, bring the receipts right when someone tells 00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:56.519 you a story, we both have to assume that people 00:12:56.519 --> 00:13:00.460 are trustworthy because that. making that assumption 00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:03.159 builds trust with them, but at the same time, 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:06.500 we have to prod because we need to substantiate 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:09.080 anything that they've said, right? And so there 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:11.940 is a way in which we can do this that can either 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:15.460 break trust or build it, that can re -traumatize 00:13:15.460 --> 00:13:19.490 people. that can actually cause further harm 00:13:19.490 --> 00:13:21.789 to them aside from the harm that they initially 00:13:21.789 --> 00:13:25.110 experienced. And that every journalist or investigator 00:13:25.110 --> 00:13:27.429 is representing not just themselves, but the 00:13:27.429 --> 00:13:30.269 wider industry. And oftentimes you might not 00:13:30.269 --> 00:13:32.470 be thinking about this, but if you're in marginalized 00:13:32.470 --> 00:13:34.610 communities, really anywhere in the world, right? 00:13:34.629 --> 00:13:39.519 I lived in London, if you are in... Migrant communities 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:42.759 in central London, they have a distrust of the 00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:46.279 media as much as folks who live in Liverpool, 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.659 where I went to university, because of how someone 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:52.860 some time ago went about doing their reporting, 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.120 went around doing their journalism, and that 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.000 breaks trust that is often very, very difficult 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.559 to repair. And so when folks parachute into a 00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:05.159 community, get the quotes that they need, leave 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:07.840 and report it, when any of our work is seen as 00:14:07.840 --> 00:14:11.220 extractive, it might not harm us directly, but 00:14:11.220 --> 00:14:13.500 it definitely impacts on the capacity of other 00:14:13.500 --> 00:14:15.600 researchers and other journalists and investigators 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:18.440 that come after us to be able to work with that 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:21.610 same community. And the fact is... that especially 00:14:21.610 --> 00:14:24.529 if you're looking at systemic issues, we might 00:14:24.529 --> 00:14:27.809 want to revisit a community over and over again, 00:14:28.009 --> 00:14:29.809 right? We might want to speak to people who have 00:14:29.809 --> 00:14:33.049 been harmed, maybe not the same characters. If 00:14:33.049 --> 00:14:35.710 you're doing work on sort of like sexual, I don't 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:41.700 know. grooming gangs, for example, the chances 00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:43.580 are that if that is place -based, you might be 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:46.320 coming back to a same community over and over, 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:48.659 and that lots of journalists may have walked 00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:50.879 that path before you. And so the ways in which 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:56.179 we treat people, establish trust, protect them 00:14:56.179 --> 00:15:00.480 is going to be impactful beyond your reporting. 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:03.179 And so that's kind of just the setting of the 00:15:03.179 --> 00:15:06.059 scene. So then, well, what do we now do? How 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:08.019 can you approach this work? And there are lots 00:15:08.019 --> 00:15:11.759 of approaches, lots of information online. But 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:13.659 from my own experience, there are a few things 00:15:13.659 --> 00:15:17.480 that we have done that have worked. The first 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:21.740 is, and none of these are in order, so not necessarily 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:26.610 approaching them sequentially. try to build in 00:15:26.610 --> 00:15:29.049 time, particularly I would imagine that folks 00:15:29.049 --> 00:15:31.610 who are in the OSINT community are like folks 00:15:31.610 --> 00:15:34.909 in the slow journalism community or investigative 00:15:34.909 --> 00:15:37.110 reporting in other ways, which basically means 00:15:37.110 --> 00:15:39.649 we have got more time. We've got much more time 00:15:39.649 --> 00:15:42.610 than folks who are working on breaking news, 00:15:43.070 --> 00:15:45.950 sort of just chasing stories down. And so to 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:50.350 be honest, as an editor, I often think that we 00:15:50.350 --> 00:15:53.269 have fewer excuses to not build in some of these 00:15:53.269 --> 00:15:55.710 sort of like care practices into our work because 00:15:55.710 --> 00:15:58.850 often our work is very laborious and takes time. 00:15:58.909 --> 00:16:01.850 It takes time to go from hunch to, you know, 00:16:02.110 --> 00:16:04.250 reporting, co -publishing, whatever our approach 00:16:04.250 --> 00:16:07.169 is. And so really, what was our excuse to not 00:16:07.169 --> 00:16:12.070 build into that time some steps to make sure 00:16:12.070 --> 00:16:14.169 that the people we're working with, the people 00:16:14.169 --> 00:16:17.230 we're reporting on feel safe, trust us, are involved. 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.200 Um, so when I think about listening, I often 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:24.559 think about that because, um, we tend to have 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:28.379 a very hierarchical view of expertise, right? 00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:31.879 So it's often people who have, um, degrees of 00:16:31.879 --> 00:16:34.679 some sort to have researched a subject that we 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.200 consider experts and that the people who tell 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:39.559 us our stories oftentimes let's talk about whether 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:41.100 it's, you know, gender -based violence or just 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:43.929 victims. I would like to argue, and I'm not the 00:16:43.929 --> 00:16:47.129 first to do so, that experiencing gender -based 00:16:47.129 --> 00:16:51.269 violence makes you an expert in lots of things 00:16:51.269 --> 00:16:53.649 that have to do with gender -based violence. 00:16:53.889 --> 00:16:56.210 And so considering those people, considering 00:16:56.210 --> 00:16:59.230 experience as a form of expertise, the two are 00:16:59.230 --> 00:17:01.730 not equivalent, but it is a form of expertise. 00:17:01.970 --> 00:17:04.789 So it changes how you think about your characters 00:17:04.789 --> 00:17:06.930 and the people who talk to you. They're just 00:17:06.930 --> 00:17:09.250 not there solely for the color, right? They're 00:17:09.250 --> 00:17:11.980 not just there solely for the kind of like, bringing 00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:16.099 to life the data, bringing to life the information 00:17:16.099 --> 00:17:18.720 that you have, they might be able to inform your 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:21.460 reporting in many more ways if given the opportunity 00:17:21.460 --> 00:17:23.940 to do so. And so that's why one of my thoughts 00:17:23.940 --> 00:17:26.660 is actually, if ambitious, if you have a newsroom 00:17:26.660 --> 00:17:30.380 or an editor or a time to do so, are there ways 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:33.180 in which you can imagine collaborating with people 00:17:33.180 --> 00:17:35.140 you are reporting on so that they're not just 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:38.200 characters in your story but actually might share 00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:40.480 a byline with you because actually they're much 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:42.720 more invested in the reporting. I think this 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:44.559 is going to open up some questions for folks 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:48.259 about sort of objectivity and wonky word positionality, 00:17:48.539 --> 00:17:51.440 perhaps. But actually, there are many instances 00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:53.519 where that has been done, where people have gone 00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:57.000 into prisons and have made incarcerated people 00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:00.140 and co -reporters and stories, perhaps, you know, 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:02.019 from one investigation to the next, it might 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:03.720 not work, but it's definitely something to think 00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:07.819 about. And again, you have time. Ask people on 00:18:07.819 --> 00:18:10.619 a very sort of small but important point, ask 00:18:10.619 --> 00:18:13.480 people how they self identify, whether that is 00:18:13.480 --> 00:18:16.200 survivor or victim, whether that is you're doing 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:21.380 reporting on something to do with the LGBT community. 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:24.579 We find in our work, particularly if it is you 00:18:24.579 --> 00:18:27.200 try and report on issues that are globalized, 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:29.619 that the language in one community is not the 00:18:29.619 --> 00:18:31.480 same as the other. I can't remember what country, 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:35.380 but I remember we did reporting on trans people 00:18:35.950 --> 00:18:39.269 somewhere in Latin America, and the word they 00:18:39.269 --> 00:18:43.529 used just wouldn't be the word we would use in 00:18:43.529 --> 00:18:46.450 the West and in English at the moment. I think 00:18:46.450 --> 00:18:49.569 it was transvestite or may have translated as 00:18:49.569 --> 00:18:52.069 that, which might seem very dated, but that was 00:18:52.069 --> 00:18:54.690 the word used in that community. And so I think 00:18:54.690 --> 00:18:56.769 in terms of making people feel safe and in terms 00:18:56.769 --> 00:18:59.390 of making sure that you represent them in the 00:18:59.390 --> 00:19:02.529 ways that they see themselves. It's also about 00:19:02.529 --> 00:19:05.690 asking them what language they use, right? And 00:19:05.690 --> 00:19:08.269 if you then need to do the work as, you know, 00:19:08.269 --> 00:19:10.529 this is going from research to reporting now 00:19:10.529 --> 00:19:12.349 when you're then presenting it to audiences. 00:19:12.829 --> 00:19:15.369 If your audience are not in the community that 00:19:15.369 --> 00:19:18.069 you reported on, it's about providing that extra 00:19:18.069 --> 00:19:20.569 detail and saying, hey, this person chose to 00:19:20.569 --> 00:19:22.630 refer to them as this. Right. So don't come at 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:25.609 me. Yes, I know that we like to think of people 00:19:25.609 --> 00:19:28.289 as survivors, but actually this character, this 00:19:28.289 --> 00:19:30.470 person very much sees themselves as a victim. 00:19:30.569 --> 00:19:33.490 Right. And they and it's about honoring that 00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:36.109 and then explaining why you have chosen to use 00:19:36.109 --> 00:19:38.349 that language. If you're reporting, for example, 00:19:38.349 --> 00:19:40.430 on racialized issues and you're reporting in 00:19:40.430 --> 00:19:43.730 South Africa, there is a category of people who 00:19:43.730 --> 00:19:46.410 are who self identify as colored. If you're in 00:19:46.410 --> 00:19:48.210 America, that language will get you punched in 00:19:48.210 --> 00:19:51.369 the streets. However, it's about reflecting on 00:19:51.369 --> 00:19:54.190 the language of the people who you're reporting 00:19:54.190 --> 00:19:56.150 on and not necessarily of the audience you're 00:19:56.150 --> 00:19:58.750 reporting to and then acting as a bridge builder 00:19:58.750 --> 00:20:04.480 to kind of then explain the context. Explain 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:08.380 the extent of visibility. So when you are at 00:20:08.380 --> 00:20:10.240 the stage where you are now talking to people 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:12.900 about an investigation and you want them to consent 00:20:12.900 --> 00:20:15.950 to be in your reporting, Is it already going 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:18.529 to be placed somewhere? And do they have the 00:20:18.529 --> 00:20:20.829 full understanding of the reach of that work? 00:20:21.210 --> 00:20:23.349 Particularly when we are dealing with people 00:20:23.349 --> 00:20:26.970 who might not consume the media we consume, do 00:20:26.970 --> 00:20:29.190 not take it for granted that they understand 00:20:29.190 --> 00:20:32.289 how long their information is going to last to 00:20:32.289 --> 00:20:36.049 live online, right, in perpetuity, or how what 00:20:36.049 --> 00:20:37.789 the reach of that reporting is going to be and 00:20:37.789 --> 00:20:40.829 how it might come back at them. If you are collaborating 00:20:40.829 --> 00:20:43.970 with multiple newsrooms and their story is going 00:20:43.970 --> 00:20:45.970 to be translated, into multiple languages. Do 00:20:45.970 --> 00:20:47.730 they understand this? Do they understand that 00:20:47.730 --> 00:20:50.210 it is going to be reported beyond their local 00:20:50.210 --> 00:20:52.349 context? Sometimes maybe in it, right? Sometimes 00:20:52.349 --> 00:20:54.250 someone might feel comfortable to talk to you 00:20:54.250 --> 00:20:57.829 because you represent foreign media. But actually, 00:20:57.950 --> 00:21:00.390 if you're like, we have a local co -publishing 00:21:00.390 --> 00:21:03.109 partner or want to disseminate that journalism 00:21:03.109 --> 00:21:06.420 locally. Do they know that that is going to be 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:09.940 the case? So really asking people to fully consent, 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:13.160 to be sure that they understand what they're 00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:17.859 participating in, and also providing them with 00:21:17.859 --> 00:21:23.160 multiple opportunities to change their minds. 00:21:23.690 --> 00:21:26.710 It makes me nervous to say even now because there 00:21:26.710 --> 00:21:29.009 have been many times when in many of the examples 00:21:29.009 --> 00:21:31.269 that I set out at the start of this talk, we 00:21:31.269 --> 00:21:34.089 have provided people, you know, you've got a 00:21:34.089 --> 00:21:36.250 story, you think it can be really impactful, 00:21:36.329 --> 00:21:39.170 it can shift the dial in some way. And the last 00:21:39.170 --> 00:21:42.190 thing, there's a sort of knot in my stomach when 00:21:42.190 --> 00:21:44.049 I think, oh, we have to go back to this person 00:21:44.049 --> 00:21:46.910 and find out if they're still okay with us reporting 00:21:46.910 --> 00:21:49.170 their story because it's often been many months 00:21:49.170 --> 00:21:51.230 since we started on this journey. Do they still 00:21:51.230 --> 00:21:53.069 want to talk to us? Do they still want their 00:21:53.069 --> 00:21:55.259 story? to go out there. And there is always the 00:21:55.259 --> 00:21:57.579 risk that they won't. But actually, if we're 00:21:57.579 --> 00:21:59.640 trying to live our values and to do journalism 00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:01.400 differently to how it's been traditionally done, 00:22:01.420 --> 00:22:03.640 we just have to take that risk. And it has indeed 00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:06.839 happened that at the 11th hour, somebody decides, 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:08.980 actually, I don't wish to be part of this anymore. 00:22:09.019 --> 00:22:11.240 I don't want to be involved in your reporting, 00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:13.359 and we have to take them out. On the instances 00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:16.420 where we make people or invite people to be collaborators 00:22:16.420 --> 00:22:19.200 with us, really thinking about the distribution 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:21.819 of power, right? So that that is not just symbolic. 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:25.059 but that actually they have some kind of say 00:22:25.059 --> 00:22:28.759 is really important. It is very exceptional. 00:22:29.079 --> 00:22:32.019 It's unusual, not the practice traditionally 00:22:32.019 --> 00:22:35.880 in journalism that we would give somebody our 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:38.839 reporting to read once it's been done. And so 00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:40.900 it's not like we go back to folks with the entire 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:44.519 story, but we often take back to them. their 00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:49.420 quotes, snippets of text or the audio to make 00:22:49.420 --> 00:22:51.839 sure that they feel comfortable. If it is accompanied 00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:53.819 by video to make sure that they feel comfortable 00:22:53.819 --> 00:22:56.339 with how they are seen, particularly if it is 00:22:56.339 --> 00:22:59.160 sensitive, particularly if they run a risk of 00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.339 being revealed in ways that we haven't thought 00:23:01.339 --> 00:23:05.829 about. Again, thinking about identifying features. 00:23:06.490 --> 00:23:09.049 It is not enough, and I'm sure this is things 00:23:09.049 --> 00:23:12.549 you all know, to retract names. There are other 00:23:12.549 --> 00:23:15.009 identifying characteristics of folks, particularly 00:23:15.009 --> 00:23:17.329 in tight -knit communities, that you have to 00:23:17.329 --> 00:23:19.390 think about in order to protect the people in 00:23:19.390 --> 00:23:24.430 your investigation. And then finally, check when 00:23:24.430 --> 00:23:27.589 it's safe to publish. Oftentimes, a big investigation 00:23:27.589 --> 00:23:29.470 doesn't need a news hook, right? Because you're 00:23:29.470 --> 00:23:32.609 not trying to ride the news wave, you're trying 00:23:32.609 --> 00:23:35.730 to make the news yourself. So you set your own 00:23:35.730 --> 00:23:39.150 timelines. But oftentimes there might be a reason 00:23:39.150 --> 00:23:41.549 to go at a specific moment, not another, right? 00:23:41.829 --> 00:23:45.049 We did, while I was still at CNN, an investigation 00:23:45.049 --> 00:23:51.650 into how pro -democracy actors in Myanmar were 00:23:51.650 --> 00:23:55.910 being doxed and trolled on Telegram. That required 00:23:55.910 --> 00:23:58.309 a lot of data research to sort of go through 00:23:58.309 --> 00:24:01.180 and to identify that It was gendered because 00:24:01.180 --> 00:24:03.440 the ways in which women in that culture were 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:06.859 being targeted for being pro -democracy was very 00:24:06.859 --> 00:24:08.440 different to how men were being targeted. It 00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:12.019 was often sexualized. It often involved trying 00:24:12.019 --> 00:24:16.200 to present them as promiscuous because of the 00:24:16.200 --> 00:24:19.299 social and cultural meaning of that and not directly 00:24:19.299 --> 00:24:22.240 related to the politics in any way. And so we 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:24.940 did this big investigation on it. And we looped 00:24:24.940 --> 00:24:27.940 in the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar to try 00:24:27.940 --> 00:24:30.480 and increase the impact. of our investigation 00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:32.700 and they wanted to put out a letter and so you 00:24:32.700 --> 00:24:35.660 start to feel pressure for when to publish but 00:24:35.660 --> 00:24:37.859 it is often important that you should go back 00:24:37.859 --> 00:24:40.380 to the people who have been the sort of bedrock 00:24:40.380 --> 00:24:43.160 of your reporting to ask if it is safe for them 00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.079 for the story to come out now. Another example 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:49.980 I will give is when we were doing reporting on 00:24:50.299 --> 00:24:54.519 I think it was in Slovenia and it was how sort 00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:56.779 of power, I think it was the former president 00:24:56.779 --> 00:24:59.240 and other powerful political forces were trying 00:24:59.240 --> 00:25:03.980 to build movements online to dox specific people, 00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:06.579 particularly women, and how they were responding 00:25:06.579 --> 00:25:09.440 to that. And because that the main character 00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:12.579 continues to live in the country that we're reporting 00:25:12.579 --> 00:25:16.599 on, because the man who is being accused of harm 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:22.150 and mobilizing other to cause harm was still 00:25:22.150 --> 00:25:24.549 very powerful. I don't remember if he had already 00:25:24.549 --> 00:25:27.819 lost his... the presidency at that point. But 00:25:27.819 --> 00:25:30.500 it was very important that we thought very carefully 00:25:30.500 --> 00:25:32.579 about when we release that reporting so that 00:25:32.579 --> 00:25:34.680 she could get to safety, so that she could make 00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:37.480 sure that she deleted her social apps so that 00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:39.980 she didn't expose herself to the vitriol that 00:25:39.980 --> 00:25:42.839 might come online. And then for her to re -emerge 00:25:42.839 --> 00:25:45.180 when she felt safe and really just being diligent 00:25:45.180 --> 00:25:48.980 about, you know, the needs of the characters 00:25:48.980 --> 00:25:51.500 in your story and how to ensure that the people 00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:54.240 who give you so much that makes your journalism 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:57.359 is are able to feel sort of taken care of through 00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:00.880 to the end. Okay, that's my sort of introductory 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:04.660 presentation, and I'm very happy to take questions 00:26:04.660 --> 00:26:08.619 from any of you. Thanks, Eliza, so much. I mean, 00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:11.240 you're speaking from your own personal experience 00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:14.160 and best practices in your newsroom, but what 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:16.799 you're saying resonates with my experience completely 00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:19.819 at various newsrooms as well, doing investigative 00:26:19.819 --> 00:26:22.380 journalism. I can see some questions already 00:26:22.380 --> 00:26:25.440 coming in. someone's just put this is absolutely 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:27.640 fascinating information. So I think a lot of 00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:31.500 people are enjoying your tips and tricks. Thank 00:26:31.500 --> 00:26:33.480 you. I want to say that person is not a relative 00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:44.299 of mine. I also wanted to note that obviously, 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:48.529 when it comes to Bellingcat, we often don't interview 00:26:48.529 --> 00:26:51.190 sources. We often don't actually have voices 00:26:51.190 --> 00:26:53.230 like the Fuller Project has in their pieces. 00:26:53.289 --> 00:26:56.450 They're not central to our work. That doesn't 00:26:56.450 --> 00:26:58.769 mean that we aren't thinking about the human 00:26:58.769 --> 00:27:02.029 element in our investigations as well. For example, 00:27:02.210 --> 00:27:05.869 and this is a bit more of a different kind of 00:27:05.869 --> 00:27:09.630 example, when you're looking at if you're monitoring 00:27:09.630 --> 00:27:12.049 a particular far right account, for example, 00:27:12.049 --> 00:27:17.029 and you've found out who this prolific far for 00:27:17.029 --> 00:27:21.430 right activist is, and you're willing to possibly 00:27:21.430 --> 00:27:25.849 reveal a little bit about about their name and 00:27:25.849 --> 00:27:28.009 identity, you also have to think about all the 00:27:28.009 --> 00:27:31.029 other people around them. For example, though, 00:27:31.569 --> 00:27:34.789 they might have a wife, a girlfriend, family 00:27:34.789 --> 00:27:38.210 members. So even when you're thinking about the 00:27:38.210 --> 00:27:40.400 human element in your story, it's not always, 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:43.359 you know, there's victim or survivor in the central, 00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:46.259 central part of your story. It's also about the 00:27:46.259 --> 00:27:49.420 humans that are linked to whatever you are researching, 00:27:49.859 --> 00:27:52.920 whether it's the humans behind the big data that 00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:56.299 you've collected, or the people related directly 00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:58.680 to the subject matter that you're talking about. 00:27:59.059 --> 00:28:01.019 So I think it's really important that everyone 00:28:01.019 --> 00:28:03.519 also thinks about it in these contexts when we're 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:07.599 talking about it as well. Going back though to 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:11.079 the survivor kind of testimony and speaking to 00:28:11.079 --> 00:28:13.680 those with lived experience, I wonder if anyone 00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:16.420 in the audience has specific examples of when 00:28:16.420 --> 00:28:18.980 they've tried to cover something human -centric 00:28:18.980 --> 00:28:21.579 and have struggled to find someone to speak to. 00:28:21.619 --> 00:28:25.319 I'd love to hear your experiences in that. Eliza, 00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:27.960 what are your first points of contact when you're 00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:31.259 looking for a source for a story of any topic? 00:28:31.380 --> 00:28:33.440 Yeah, that's a good question. I also just want 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:35.599 to chime in to what you just said, which was 00:28:35.710 --> 00:28:37.690 which is really important. And to also think 00:28:37.690 --> 00:28:42.950 about this phrase, right, duty of care. It's 00:28:42.950 --> 00:28:46.849 really, really difficult. And I don't think this 00:28:46.849 --> 00:28:51.349 is a fixed static and immutable perspective. 00:28:52.829 --> 00:28:56.970 How do we understand our duty of care as investigators, 00:28:57.289 --> 00:29:00.430 researchers, journalists? And when does it start 00:29:00.430 --> 00:29:03.170 and stop? And who do we extend it to, right? 00:29:03.170 --> 00:29:08.349 To your point about if you expose someone in 00:29:08.349 --> 00:29:10.450 the far right, that person we can identify as 00:29:10.450 --> 00:29:12.390 a malicious actor, what about the people around 00:29:12.390 --> 00:29:17.650 them? My answer to that, because it can be so 00:29:17.650 --> 00:29:21.339 murky, is to remain is to acknowledge it and 00:29:21.339 --> 00:29:23.359 to have conversations about it, particularly 00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:26.799 if you're going from sort of like data research 00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:28.880 and investigation through to the reporting stage. 00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:33.640 Really be open and if your editor doesn't start 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:35.680 the conversation, I think you should start the 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:39.400 conversation with them because we don't know 00:29:39.400 --> 00:29:44.829 sometimes where to draw that line, right? And 00:29:44.829 --> 00:29:47.089 what you said just made me think of this and 00:29:47.089 --> 00:29:50.910 that there is no hard and fast rule every time, 00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:53.269 but I think we should always kind of be prepared 00:29:53.269 --> 00:29:56.670 when you are trying to reveal harm and when there 00:29:56.670 --> 00:29:58.450 are people at the center of your journalism in 00:29:58.450 --> 00:30:01.650 whatever capacity to actually ask about and think 00:30:01.650 --> 00:30:03.990 about the duty of care, particularly if you're 00:30:03.990 --> 00:30:07.950 the kind of one leading the work. The final thing 00:30:07.950 --> 00:30:10.589 I'll say also related to that is I didn't speak 00:30:10.589 --> 00:30:14.940 at all to you know, the subject of this conversation 00:30:14.940 --> 00:30:16.819 is protecting the people in your investigation. 00:30:17.180 --> 00:30:19.640 Those are also other researchers, other investigators 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:22.220 and other journalists, right? When the people 00:30:22.220 --> 00:30:24.720 on my team who had to sort of troll through, 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.250 I'm sorry for my French, the shit that was. in 00:30:29.250 --> 00:30:32.690 telegram groups. When we have looked at material 00:30:32.690 --> 00:30:34.990 that's being used to dox women or other types 00:30:34.990 --> 00:30:39.289 of violence, we also have to be mindful. Myself 00:30:39.289 --> 00:30:41.250 as an editor, I have to think about what the 00:30:41.250 --> 00:30:43.309 cost is to the people on my team for doing so, 00:30:43.529 --> 00:30:46.769 right? Much in the same way as content moderators 00:30:46.769 --> 00:30:49.269 might be exposed to harm. And so it's trying 00:30:49.269 --> 00:30:52.029 to think about our duty of care even to other 00:30:52.029 --> 00:30:54.009 people who we're working with and reporting on. 00:30:54.279 --> 00:30:57.839 So to your question then about how do we identify 00:30:57.839 --> 00:31:01.700 characters, if you have started with listening, 00:31:02.619 --> 00:31:06.099 we are now at the Fuller Project. trying to scope 00:31:06.099 --> 00:31:10.539 out a series around AI and gendered work. We 00:31:10.539 --> 00:31:14.299 know that we live in societies where women's 00:31:14.299 --> 00:31:16.440 work is different to men's work, though we know, 00:31:16.440 --> 00:31:18.420 of course, that women were the early computer 00:31:18.420 --> 00:31:22.059 programmers because that was seen as mind -numbing 00:31:22.059 --> 00:31:25.980 calculations. And once computer programming and 00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:29.039 data work became sexy, it became men's work and 00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:31.700 not women's anymore. Somebody said to me yesterday 00:31:31.700 --> 00:31:33.900 that women were the original computers because 00:31:33.900 --> 00:31:35.509 they were manually doing the sort of computing 00:31:35.509 --> 00:31:38.089 themselves. And now they're being replaced by 00:31:38.089 --> 00:31:40.930 computers. But I digress. We're doing the series 00:31:40.930 --> 00:31:44.400 and we're starting by organizing what we call 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:46.720 listening circles, where we bring together people 00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:50.019 with lived experience as well as sort of more 00:31:50.019 --> 00:31:52.259 academic expertise or other forms of knowledge 00:31:52.259 --> 00:31:55.039 to basically try and ask the questions around 00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:57.599 what should we be reporting, what's interesting 00:31:57.599 --> 00:32:00.940 and what's not. That often reveals to us communities 00:32:00.940 --> 00:32:04.000 of people. So somebody might suggest a really 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:07.200 strong idea. Hey, there is a community of garment 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:09.319 workers in Bangladesh who are doing X, Y, Z, 00:32:09.400 --> 00:32:12.759 and that is a way in. Other times, And in fact, 00:32:13.980 --> 00:32:16.819 often, reporters on my team, one of the kind 00:32:16.819 --> 00:32:19.900 of prized characteristics of the people I hire 00:32:19.900 --> 00:32:22.839 is how close are they to the ground in terms 00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:25.400 of having their ear to the ground, right? How 00:32:25.400 --> 00:32:29.039 many groups do they sort of belong to and discussions 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:32.279 do they follow? It's really, really hard to reverse 00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:35.839 engineer. community belonging, right? Like you 00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:38.480 have no contact with a group of people. And then 00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:41.119 once the story is out, then you try and immerse 00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:44.039 yourself. And that doesn't mean necessarily in 00:32:44.039 --> 00:32:47.859 a very sort of rudimentary way. You can only 00:32:47.859 --> 00:32:50.059 report on communities you belong to, but rather 00:32:50.059 --> 00:32:52.599 that if you're interested in a subject, you are 00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:55.579 more likely to know where to find characters 00:32:55.579 --> 00:32:57.299 who will speak to you if you've been following 00:32:57.299 --> 00:33:02.650 it over time. Right. And so. If you are in, I 00:33:02.650 --> 00:33:04.490 don't know, Facebook groups or other groups where 00:33:04.490 --> 00:33:06.390 people are discussing an issue, Discord channels 00:33:06.390 --> 00:33:09.329 where people are discussing a subject, you're 00:33:09.329 --> 00:33:11.990 more likely to know the people who are impacted 00:33:11.990 --> 00:33:14.730 by that issue as a way of trying to then find 00:33:14.730 --> 00:33:18.670 characters. There is a lot of what we would call 00:33:18.670 --> 00:33:21.470 background research and calls that you make to 00:33:21.470 --> 00:33:24.390 just try and find your character. We knew from 00:33:24.390 --> 00:33:28.730 data that... in Afghanistan, the number of women 00:33:28.730 --> 00:33:30.930 who were leaving through irregular and informal 00:33:30.930 --> 00:33:35.029 migratory routes almost peaked, almost surpassed, 00:33:35.170 --> 00:33:37.109 rather, the number of men for the first time 00:33:37.109 --> 00:33:40.089 in a very long time, I think in at least 20 plus 00:33:40.089 --> 00:33:42.890 years, which was very unusual, right, made even 00:33:42.890 --> 00:33:44.809 more challenging by the fact that the Taliban 00:33:44.809 --> 00:33:47.130 has banned women from traveling on their own. 00:33:47.329 --> 00:33:51.029 So we knew from the data that women were in large 00:33:51.029 --> 00:33:53.890 numbers trying to leave Afghanistan through informal 00:33:53.890 --> 00:33:56.970 routes. But to be able to tell a story, we needed 00:33:56.970 --> 00:34:00.029 to find a way in that involved human beings. 00:34:00.490 --> 00:34:03.269 And actually, the capacity to be flexible about 00:34:03.269 --> 00:34:06.029 how you think about who your characters can be. 00:34:06.250 --> 00:34:08.860 So sticking with that example. Of course, the 00:34:08.860 --> 00:34:11.579 first thing we were looking for were women who 00:34:11.579 --> 00:34:15.179 themselves have traveled on this path. But because 00:34:15.179 --> 00:34:17.199 they're informal, because it's undocumented, 00:34:18.019 --> 00:34:21.559 they're not exactly announcing themselves. And 00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:23.400 you cannot present yourself as a journalist on 00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:26.500 that border looking for people to speak to. And 00:34:26.500 --> 00:34:28.579 so one of the things that we did was we went 00:34:28.579 --> 00:34:30.940 to the people who collected the research, the 00:34:30.940 --> 00:34:33.619 IOM, the Institute of Migration, and other organizations 00:34:33.619 --> 00:34:37.320 that were trying to service and work with migrants 00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:39.840 to basically build relationships with them to 00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:43.840 find out if they would broker access for us to 00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:45.679 anyone. And that's often the ways in which we 00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:48.019 get access, right? Brokered relationships. You 00:34:48.019 --> 00:34:51.059 find someone who is a gatekeeper of some or in 00:34:51.059 --> 00:34:53.739 some way, whether they are a nonprofit organization, 00:34:53.860 --> 00:34:57.800 a charity, a membership group and you ask that 00:34:57.800 --> 00:35:01.699 organization to broker access for you to the 00:35:01.699 --> 00:35:04.920 people who belong to that group. Having that 00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:09.000 gatekeeper as a trusted bridge into that community 00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:12.079 helps. But the other way that we looked at it 00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:14.139 was that actually if we weren't going to be able 00:35:14.139 --> 00:35:16.880 to get women themselves who had made that journey. 00:35:17.289 --> 00:35:20.190 could we tell the story through the lens of the 00:35:20.190 --> 00:35:23.909 people who are at the borders, counting the undocumented 00:35:23.909 --> 00:35:27.230 or trying to do these surveys, right? Using their 00:35:27.230 --> 00:35:29.829 experience of reporting from the borders because, 00:35:30.789 --> 00:35:34.989 or documenting experiences at the border, because 00:35:34.989 --> 00:35:37.369 often there would be local hires from within 00:35:37.369 --> 00:35:40.159 that community and that there was. a capacity 00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:42.480 for there to be an interesting story there and 00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:45.179 a way into what the data was showing us but not 00:35:45.179 --> 00:35:47.900 in the most sort of linear idea. Now that was 00:35:47.900 --> 00:35:50.059 not possible also because there were political 00:35:50.059 --> 00:35:53.260 risks for them to speak to us in that way and 00:35:53.260 --> 00:35:55.099 so we went back to the first approach and kept 00:35:55.099 --> 00:35:59.079 working at it until an Afghan support organization 00:35:59.079 --> 00:36:02.840 in Pakistan put us in touch with the three people 00:36:02.840 --> 00:36:06.199 who then became our main characters. Yeah, as 00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:09.099 I said in the chat, charities and stacked organizations 00:36:09.099 --> 00:36:12.800 are your friends. They are often the protocol, 00:36:12.900 --> 00:36:16.760 but it's important also not to cold email them 00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:19.500 as well. You've got to give a clear reasoning 00:36:19.500 --> 00:36:23.079 as to why you are getting in touch, what purpose 00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:26.420 them brokering that relationship will give you 00:36:26.420 --> 00:36:30.039 both. And I think it's important not to see that 00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:32.690 as an extractive. relationship as well, which 00:36:32.690 --> 00:36:35.510 it can be in times in the journalism world particularly. 00:36:36.210 --> 00:36:38.090 And we've got quite a few questions coming through 00:36:38.090 --> 00:36:40.010 now, so I want to make sure that we have time 00:36:40.010 --> 00:36:43.070 for them. So I'll kick off with Sarah who asked 00:36:43.070 --> 00:36:46.050 a specific question about something that they've 00:36:46.050 --> 00:36:48.610 struggled with in the past. When evaluating the 00:36:48.610 --> 00:36:50.670 risk to the person you're interviewing slash 00:36:50.670 --> 00:36:52.989 going to publish about, I have a question about 00:36:52.989 --> 00:36:55.449 how to understand the possible repercussions 00:36:55.449 --> 00:36:58.389 they will face specific to their community. How 00:36:58.389 --> 00:37:00.710 do you learn about the culture they come from 00:37:00.710 --> 00:37:02.489 and the feelings of their community regarding 00:37:02.489 --> 00:37:05.349 survivors of sexual violence? Of course, asking 00:37:05.349 --> 00:37:07.550 them is important and they are the expert in 00:37:07.550 --> 00:37:10.630 their own life, but I want to do my own due diligence 00:37:10.630 --> 00:37:13.309 to make sure I'm reporting as best as possible. 00:37:13.809 --> 00:37:15.989 So what would you say to that kind of situation? 00:37:16.469 --> 00:37:19.409 Yeah. The first thing I would say is there is 00:37:19.409 --> 00:37:21.949 a fine line we walk between doing due diligence 00:37:21.949 --> 00:37:25.929 and being paternalistic, right? Which is not 00:37:25.929 --> 00:37:27.889 at all what I'm suggesting, but I think it's 00:37:27.889 --> 00:37:30.829 important to check ourselves as to how we do 00:37:30.829 --> 00:37:35.829 that. So to speak a bit more to that, it's about 00:37:35.829 --> 00:37:37.909 sort of when you've done your research and when 00:37:37.909 --> 00:37:40.289 you've asked the person and then you still conclude, 00:37:40.750 --> 00:37:43.849 hmm, I think it's, you know, actually this isn't 00:37:43.849 --> 00:37:48.280 best for you, right? And we have to often have 00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:50.500 conversations on my team about sort of making 00:37:50.500 --> 00:37:53.059 sure that people maintain their sense of agency 00:37:53.059 --> 00:37:56.780 because people who are often have suffered harm 00:37:56.780 --> 00:38:00.280 or are oppressed in some way, their story is 00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:02.619 the last sort of bastion of power that they have 00:38:02.619 --> 00:38:04.960 and wanting to tell that story is about sort 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:07.860 of reclaiming some kind of power and exercising 00:38:07.860 --> 00:38:12.480 that power. And so. Also worth saying, I guess, 00:38:12.659 --> 00:38:14.260 to your question, Sarah, that it's important 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:17.559 to just kind of think, OK, once I have done some 00:38:17.559 --> 00:38:22.460 research and asked them. Even if I'm uncomfortable 00:38:22.460 --> 00:38:24.559 with the risk, that's when we then do all the 00:38:24.559 --> 00:38:26.380 other steps that we've talked about, right? Consult 00:38:26.380 --> 00:38:28.639 them when we're trying to publish, send them 00:38:28.639 --> 00:38:30.579 snippets of the reporting to make sure that they 00:38:30.579 --> 00:38:32.780 are happy with how they're presented, ask them 00:38:32.780 --> 00:38:35.059 how they wish to identify all of these things. 00:38:35.519 --> 00:38:38.179 So then to your question itself, I think this 00:38:38.179 --> 00:38:41.940 is really the value in particularly if you are 00:38:41.940 --> 00:38:44.570 investing yourself in investigative work. in 00:38:44.570 --> 00:38:46.829 building relationships with the community before 00:38:46.829 --> 00:38:49.590 it comes time to report, right? This is really 00:38:49.590 --> 00:38:52.769 the difference between sort of what I would call 00:38:52.769 --> 00:38:55.449 parachuting in or not. It's not often sort of 00:38:55.449 --> 00:38:58.070 physically going to a community in a different 00:38:58.070 --> 00:39:00.630 country that you don't know, but actually trying 00:39:00.630 --> 00:39:03.809 to get under the skin of an issue if you've not 00:39:03.809 --> 00:39:06.739 been following it closely. And I think it is 00:39:06.739 --> 00:39:09.559 about then asking those questions of people beforehand. 00:39:09.679 --> 00:39:12.199 Now, if you're talking about communities in the 00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:13.800 more sort of traditional sense, right, you want 00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:16.500 to cover gender based violence. I don't know. 00:39:18.079 --> 00:39:19.800 I can't remember which country is it in the Pacific. 00:39:19.960 --> 00:39:22.079 I think maybe PNG, Papua New Guinea probably 00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:24.820 has the highest rates of gender based violence 00:39:24.820 --> 00:39:27.079 in any place in the world. And you become fascinated 00:39:27.079 --> 00:39:30.659 with this and you want to do a story there. Thinking 00:39:30.659 --> 00:39:33.480 about how you navigate that culture involves 00:39:33.480 --> 00:39:36.519 working with local journalists. I often say if 00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:39.260 I'm working with, if I'm hiring a researcher 00:39:39.260 --> 00:39:41.659 or an investigator who is not from the community 00:39:41.659 --> 00:39:43.880 they're reporting on, one of the questions I 00:39:43.880 --> 00:39:48.880 always add in the list of questions we check 00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:50.920 off when we're commissioning a story is, how 00:39:50.920 --> 00:39:53.380 willing are you to work collaboratively? If you're 00:39:53.380 --> 00:39:55.460 not willing to work collaboratively and you're 00:39:55.460 --> 00:39:57.119 working on an issue that you don't know all the 00:39:57.119 --> 00:39:59.559 sides to, which let's be honest, for most issues, 00:39:59.820 --> 00:40:02.699 that's most issues, then I don't want to work 00:40:02.699 --> 00:40:05.280 with that reporter because it suggests to me 00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:07.599 that they're not open to having the input of 00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:09.980 other people who might enrich their journalism 00:40:09.980 --> 00:40:13.260 or actually keep us from fucking up, you know, 00:40:13.420 --> 00:40:15.840 because they can see blind spots that we don't. 00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:18.380 And so thinking about who you are asking, right. 00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:22.920 So, for example, I've worked a lot. in sub -Saharan 00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:25.960 Africa, you can't just sort of go into a community 00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:29.139 and ask the head of the household, the man, which 00:40:29.139 --> 00:40:31.980 it usually is, about sexual violence. You can't 00:40:31.980 --> 00:40:34.079 even ask the woman, often in the presence of 00:40:34.079 --> 00:40:35.800 the man, right? So it's trying to think about 00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:38.639 how you navigate that. And the same organizations 00:40:38.639 --> 00:40:40.780 that brokered your access are really the first 00:40:40.780 --> 00:40:43.719 place to start by trying to learn what you can. 00:40:44.090 --> 00:40:46.349 Also, I would suggest reading other people's 00:40:46.349 --> 00:40:49.329 reporting because sometimes and not always as 00:40:49.329 --> 00:40:51.650 a sort of example of best practice, but what 00:40:51.650 --> 00:40:54.150 not to do. So I would look at stories sometimes. 00:40:54.170 --> 00:40:57.030 I've done a lot of sort of teaching journalism 00:40:57.030 --> 00:40:59.190 students about sort of. questions around power 00:40:59.190 --> 00:41:02.750 and agency. And we will look at the stories by 00:41:02.750 --> 00:41:05.269 some high flying New York Times reporter. And 00:41:05.269 --> 00:41:07.730 we will count the people who were quoted in the 00:41:07.730 --> 00:41:10.150 story for sharing their expertise and who is 00:41:10.150 --> 00:41:12.329 quoted for just sharing their pain and their 00:41:12.329 --> 00:41:15.250 experience. And, you know, usually if all the 00:41:15.250 --> 00:41:18.369 black and brown people have bad or the women 00:41:18.369 --> 00:41:20.550 have. terrible things happen to them and then 00:41:20.550 --> 00:41:23.269 everyone else then puts that experience in context. 00:41:23.369 --> 00:41:25.989 I also think that there is a problem there because, 00:41:26.050 --> 00:41:28.329 of course, as I said at the start, there are 00:41:28.329 --> 00:41:30.550 other people who can inform the reporting. So 00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:35.420 I would read widely and weirdly. I would speak 00:41:35.420 --> 00:41:38.599 to the NGO, the charity or the whoever that has 00:41:38.599 --> 00:41:40.880 brokered you access. I would ask people, but 00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:42.760 I would also think about the settings in which 00:41:42.760 --> 00:41:45.880 we ask them to make sure that you are mindful. 00:41:46.440 --> 00:41:50.059 And I would pair up with a local journalist and 00:41:50.059 --> 00:41:53.579 I would share bylines or credits with them beyond 00:41:53.579 --> 00:41:58.019 sort of fixers, because really those people are 00:41:58.019 --> 00:42:00.420 sometimes the sort of difference between whether 00:42:00.420 --> 00:42:03.719 what we just have is data or whether we have 00:42:03.719 --> 00:42:06.659 a human. centric stories, it's often a fixer. 00:42:07.099 --> 00:42:09.159 A local journalist who stands in that gap and 00:42:09.159 --> 00:42:11.260 sort of like elevating them to a role of core 00:42:11.260 --> 00:42:17.280 reporting is just just use. If you have any other 00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:19.860 questions on gender based violence, particularly 00:42:19.860 --> 00:42:24.599 in terms of the survivor approach, we will also 00:42:24.599 --> 00:42:27.000 have Leila Hussain coming in in a couple of weeks 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:30.119 time who has lived experience of FGM and works 00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:32.340 as a therapist who will be coming in to chat 00:42:32.340 --> 00:42:35.920 about how you might know how from the survivor's 00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:37.880 point of view what it's like to be approached 00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:41.659 by journalists and researchers and how best to 00:42:41.659 --> 00:42:43.800 kind of approach those situations. But we have 00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:46.059 kind of stumbled on the issue of informed consent 00:42:46.059 --> 00:42:48.679 and this kind of ties into Stephanie's question 00:42:48.679 --> 00:42:52.440 that she asked. Stephanie asked what do you do 00:42:52.440 --> 00:42:56.460 when your victim or the person the people that 00:42:56.460 --> 00:42:58.679 you're reporting on are children? Have you got 00:42:58.679 --> 00:43:01.780 any experience of working with child sources 00:43:01.780 --> 00:43:03.219 and what are the kind of things that you have 00:43:03.219 --> 00:43:07.300 to keep in mind when doing work with children? 00:43:08.300 --> 00:43:11.559 The Afghan family that we were talking about 00:43:11.559 --> 00:43:15.619 were two sisters and a brother and two of them 00:43:15.619 --> 00:43:20.400 were minors. In that context, and this is where 00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:22.840 I'm really grateful for newsrooms that, you know, 00:43:22.860 --> 00:43:25.119 it might be a pain in the ass when you're going 00:43:25.119 --> 00:43:27.679 through all the sort of like editing and verification 00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:30.679 processes, but really important when you're trying 00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:33.880 to protect people. And we had a long discussion 00:43:33.880 --> 00:43:36.260 because there was no adult to ask for consent 00:43:36.260 --> 00:43:37.980 to be able to speak to the kids, right? They 00:43:37.980 --> 00:43:42.400 had left on their own with finance and the blessing 00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.440 of their parents to try and get to safety and 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:47.239 to make a better life for themselves in Pakistan, 00:43:47.380 --> 00:43:51.320 which meant that the only people that we had 00:43:51.320 --> 00:43:55.679 direct access to was them. And so in that scenario, 00:43:56.639 --> 00:44:00.059 because of the ages involved, it was deemed that 00:44:00.059 --> 00:44:02.320 they can represent themselves. And so we were 00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:05.380 able to go ahead. But in other instances, I think 00:44:05.380 --> 00:44:07.699 we were looking at questions around child pornography 00:44:07.699 --> 00:44:16.489 in the Philippines. As a general rule, we have 00:44:16.489 --> 00:44:19.809 generally not done stories where we would need 00:44:19.809 --> 00:44:25.110 to work with child sources just because of, I 00:44:25.110 --> 00:44:30.590 think, some of the sensitivities around doing 00:44:30.590 --> 00:44:32.989 the kinds of due diligence and, you know, as 00:44:32.989 --> 00:44:34.670 I said at the start, like they're trying to get 00:44:34.670 --> 00:44:40.789 the receipts. So to substantiate the claims of 00:44:40.789 --> 00:44:45.230 a child and oftentimes thinking about who the 00:44:45.230 --> 00:44:50.570 trusted adult is, who you can go to, I think 00:44:50.570 --> 00:44:54.730 that is a very difficult situation. And I think 00:44:54.730 --> 00:44:58.329 particularly in contexts where you don't have 00:44:58.329 --> 00:45:05.250 protective services, where you don't have institutions 00:45:05.250 --> 00:45:08.780 that are there. with the child protection and 00:45:08.780 --> 00:45:11.960 child safety in mind. We have often gone through 00:45:11.960 --> 00:45:17.000 third parties, so not so much to get the views 00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:22.199 of children in situations where they've been 00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:25.639 harmed. I worked on, my God, it took us nearly 00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:28.739 a year, on a collaborative project that we did 00:45:28.739 --> 00:45:33.800 with an NGO to basically find the experiences 00:45:33.800 --> 00:45:37.739 of girls using the internet and using their phones. 00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.820 And of course, even trying to get consent from 00:45:42.820 --> 00:45:44.900 girls in lots of different countries, because 00:45:44.900 --> 00:45:46.659 this is the other thing that we want to avoid. 00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:49.639 You want to avoid creating archetypes, right? 00:45:49.719 --> 00:45:52.340 You want to avoid, if you speak to one person, 00:45:52.699 --> 00:45:56.000 one child or one woman or one whoever's experience 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:58.539 of an issue doesn't then represent the entire 00:45:58.539 --> 00:46:00.579 community of people who have had that experience. 00:46:00.980 --> 00:46:05.619 And so it is, again, very difficult trying to 00:46:05.619 --> 00:46:10.389 think about how do you presents the one character 00:46:10.389 --> 00:46:12.989 who's willing to talk to you without trying to 00:46:12.989 --> 00:46:15.610 extrapolate from that, the lived experience of 00:46:15.610 --> 00:46:17.969 lots of people. And so with this investigation, 00:46:18.449 --> 00:46:21.969 we tried to get the views of young women, so 00:46:21.969 --> 00:46:24.750 teenagers, in lots of different parts of the 00:46:24.750 --> 00:46:28.039 world. We couldn't figure out how to negotiate 00:46:28.039 --> 00:46:30.719 that access without working with an NGO that 00:46:30.719 --> 00:46:33.139 worked across all of those cultures and those 00:46:33.139 --> 00:46:35.780 communities rather, and already had a program 00:46:35.780 --> 00:46:38.460 in place. And so what we did was then craft a 00:46:38.460 --> 00:46:41.619 specific questionnaire with the NGO to ask of 00:46:41.619 --> 00:46:44.360 the young women questions that we were editorially, 00:46:44.579 --> 00:46:47.219 journalistically interested in. which is in part 00:46:47.219 --> 00:46:50.519 why it took so long, because it wasn't just survey 00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:52.559 results that would come from the types of things 00:46:52.559 --> 00:46:54.980 that the NGO usually surveyed them to find out. 00:46:55.460 --> 00:46:58.119 And so going through the NGO who has done all 00:46:58.119 --> 00:47:00.380 the due diligence in the community, who is known, 00:47:00.420 --> 00:47:02.199 who has gotten the consent of all the parents, 00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:04.699 and then putting our questions, crafting with 00:47:04.699 --> 00:47:07.139 them the types of questions to ask. There was 00:47:07.139 --> 00:47:10.079 another time we were working on doing something 00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:13.280 similar for women who had had postpartum depression 00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:16.679 and working with an NGO to think about the questions 00:47:16.679 --> 00:47:19.739 we ask, right? So again, the question of language. 00:47:19.940 --> 00:47:22.719 So for example, those of us who are kind of like 00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:25.239 chronically obsessively online might be thinking 00:47:25.239 --> 00:47:27.400 about sort of like trauma and postpartum depression, 00:47:27.460 --> 00:47:29.639 but in other contexts, people are not using that 00:47:29.639 --> 00:47:33.389 language when a woman might have. you know, postpartum, 00:47:33.469 --> 00:47:35.630 she might be talking about just being sad or 00:47:35.630 --> 00:47:39.690 being tired. And so working with clinicians in 00:47:39.690 --> 00:47:42.510 the country where the where we were trying to 00:47:42.510 --> 00:47:44.610 speak to people to find out what is the language 00:47:44.610 --> 00:47:46.949 they use, because just asking someone, have you 00:47:46.949 --> 00:47:49.389 experienced postpartum depression isn't going 00:47:49.389 --> 00:47:52.110 to get the answer because it is the wrong question. 00:47:52.730 --> 00:47:58.150 So really, I yeah. To be succinct specifically 00:47:58.150 --> 00:48:01.329 on children. You know, we have largely avoided 00:48:01.329 --> 00:48:03.469 situations where we've had to go to. Well, they've 00:48:03.469 --> 00:48:05.210 not they've not often come up or we've had to 00:48:05.210 --> 00:48:08.909 go directly to kids because of what it is to 00:48:08.909 --> 00:48:11.550 navigate working with minors and trying to get 00:48:11.550 --> 00:48:15.250 consent and have often instead opted for situations 00:48:15.250 --> 00:48:17.230 where we can go through sort of broker trusted 00:48:17.230 --> 00:48:22.789 networks to be able to solicit and get the views 00:48:22.789 --> 00:48:28.079 of young people. Yeah, thanks for that. I used 00:48:28.079 --> 00:48:32.719 to work for an organization that did speak to 00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:38.280 younger people and filmed younger people as well 00:48:38.280 --> 00:48:42.800 on their lived experience. So we covered subjects 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:46.719 from FGM to, you know, businesses that young 00:48:46.719 --> 00:48:49.239 people had set up as well. And even to cover 00:48:49.239 --> 00:48:51.820 that from from the basic level, we had to have 00:48:51.820 --> 00:48:54.460 several processes that happened from contacting 00:48:54.460 --> 00:48:57.139 them originally on social media where you know, 00:48:57.179 --> 00:49:00.440 a lot of young people are posting, whether people 00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:03.159 like it or not. And then going through different 00:49:03.159 --> 00:49:06.940 layers of guardianship and permissions and video 00:49:06.940 --> 00:49:09.860 interviews prior to the filmed video interview 00:49:09.860 --> 00:49:12.159 and making sure that everything, it was a huge 00:49:12.159 --> 00:49:14.900 process to go into a one two minute video that 00:49:14.900 --> 00:49:17.920 ended up on social media. So when you're entering 00:49:17.920 --> 00:49:21.429 in discussions, when it comes to child sources, 00:49:21.570 --> 00:49:23.670 you also have to think about the lengthy process 00:49:23.670 --> 00:49:25.570 that comes with that as well and how much time 00:49:25.570 --> 00:49:28.429 you have to invest in that can be really, really 00:49:28.429 --> 00:49:31.369 powerful when you pull it off. But it's really 00:49:31.369 --> 00:49:33.409 important to make sure that they have informed 00:49:33.409 --> 00:49:37.489 consent and they know that this could be a lasting 00:49:37.489 --> 00:49:40.469 thing that could impact them in the future particularly. 00:49:41.960 --> 00:49:44.039 OK, I want to get to more and more questions 00:49:44.039 --> 00:49:46.159 because we are running out of time. So as if 00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:48.019 I'll actually ask something related to this. 00:49:48.219 --> 00:49:50.619 I'm curious on the protection angle. What best 00:49:50.619 --> 00:49:52.840 practices does Eliza recommend if it does get 00:49:52.840 --> 00:49:55.000 to the point of potential recorded interviews 00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:57.199 with sources? One thing I've noticed a lot of 00:49:57.199 --> 00:49:59.519 people go to lengths to blur things like faces, 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.719 but leave backgrounds visible, for example. So 00:50:02.719 --> 00:50:05.239 what kind of protections do you put in place 00:50:05.239 --> 00:50:08.550 when you're videoing sources? Yeah, that's a 00:50:08.550 --> 00:50:11.630 great question. So it's thinking about identifiable 00:50:11.630 --> 00:50:13.690 locations. I mean, of course, folks who work 00:50:13.690 --> 00:50:17.329 on sort of like open source research, particularly 00:50:17.329 --> 00:50:21.010 if it's dealing with sort of geographical information 00:50:21.010 --> 00:50:23.750 and sort of like topography and thinking about 00:50:23.750 --> 00:50:27.260 sort of look. Locations probably think a lot 00:50:27.260 --> 00:50:29.599 about this much more so than sort of like other 00:50:29.599 --> 00:50:31.679 journalists, just features, reporters, et cetera. 00:50:32.420 --> 00:50:35.219 But really thinking about identifying features, 00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:38.360 thinking about also things like birthmarks. So 00:50:38.360 --> 00:50:41.639 oftentimes when we have tried to capture videos 00:50:41.639 --> 00:50:44.280 and we can't show a face, you might want to get 00:50:44.280 --> 00:50:47.190 a sense because again, that is able to stir emotion 00:50:47.190 --> 00:50:49.949 and make a connection with the viewer by just, 00:50:49.949 --> 00:50:51.949 you know, you're hearing a voice and you're seeing 00:50:51.949 --> 00:50:54.309 someone rubbing their hands together. If they 00:50:54.309 --> 00:50:58.030 have distinguishing features, I have dot tattoos 00:50:58.030 --> 00:51:01.929 on each of my fingers. Anybody who sees my hands 00:51:01.929 --> 00:51:07.179 will know that it is me. Maybe and so just thinking 00:51:07.179 --> 00:51:09.420 about stuff like that. So moving them out of 00:51:09.420 --> 00:51:11.800 their their their location Oftentimes actually 00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:14.039 when you're also going in particularly if you're 00:51:14.039 --> 00:51:17.539 doing video interviews And there is nothing subtle 00:51:17.539 --> 00:51:19.940 about it, right? And there are ways to make it 00:51:19.940 --> 00:51:25.500 more subtle, but it is much more visible than 00:51:25.500 --> 00:51:28.679 just going into a community with a notepad and 00:51:28.679 --> 00:51:31.679 a recorder or your phone and going into someone's 00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:33.559 home. Especially if you're reporting on tight 00:51:33.559 --> 00:51:36.119 -knit communities, anyone who is coming into 00:51:36.119 --> 00:51:38.760 that situation is going to be a very visible 00:51:38.760 --> 00:51:44.150 outsider. And so thinking about what you then 00:51:44.150 --> 00:51:48.409 do when you've got a camera with you and where 00:51:48.409 --> 00:51:50.949 you interview this person and where you record. 00:51:51.750 --> 00:51:53.730 There are many occasions where we've also had 00:51:53.730 --> 00:51:58.829 to sort of obscure someone's voice or do voiceovers 00:51:58.829 --> 00:52:03.030 because just running the risk of somebody being 00:52:03.030 --> 00:52:05.510 identified also by their voice. So yes, think 00:52:05.510 --> 00:52:07.730 about where you take them. Oftentimes when you're 00:52:07.730 --> 00:52:10.929 thinking about duty of care, it is often, you 00:52:10.929 --> 00:52:13.610 know, sometimes it's not the best thing to take 00:52:13.610 --> 00:52:15.929 people out of their communities. And, you know, 00:52:16.030 --> 00:52:19.289 let's say you book, I don't know, a hotel and 00:52:19.289 --> 00:52:20.570 you think, oh, this is nice. And you're going 00:52:20.570 --> 00:52:22.510 to put out a spread or something to try and make 00:52:22.510 --> 00:52:24.469 them feel comfortable. But oftentimes taking 00:52:24.469 --> 00:52:28.570 people out of their communities into a different 00:52:28.570 --> 00:52:32.090 area. might make them less comfortable but at 00:52:32.090 --> 00:52:34.050 the same time recording in their community might 00:52:34.050 --> 00:52:36.610 require you to be a bit more sort of like subtle 00:52:36.610 --> 00:52:39.110 in terms of how you approach that and mindful 00:52:39.110 --> 00:52:41.489 not just of their face but of other distinguishing 00:52:41.489 --> 00:52:44.210 features including the locations around them. 00:52:45.050 --> 00:52:46.809 Great tips. I actually was just writing in the 00:52:46.809 --> 00:52:48.909 chat that the BBC I used to hate having to go 00:52:48.909 --> 00:52:51.750 in with the massive camera and the boom mic when 00:52:51.750 --> 00:52:54.730 you're trying to get a sensitive story out of 00:52:54.730 --> 00:52:56.809 someone and you're coming in with this huge camera 00:52:56.809 --> 00:52:59.489 like this and saying, please tell me your story. 00:52:59.750 --> 00:53:04.849 You just see people kind of hide away. It's quite 00:53:04.849 --> 00:53:06.889 difficult. It's a quite difficult thing to have 00:53:06.889 --> 00:53:10.230 to have to do when you're working in broadcast 00:53:10.230 --> 00:53:13.650 newsrooms, for example. Soto Knife says even 00:53:13.650 --> 00:53:16.159 the old fashioned notebook. can be distracting. 00:53:17.519 --> 00:53:19.719 Absolutely. Absolutely. You're no longer making 00:53:19.719 --> 00:53:22.960 eye contact. You're now writing down. But just 00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:25.739 to think about whatever approach, particularly 00:53:25.739 --> 00:53:30.340 if you're not recording. make sure that your 00:53:30.340 --> 00:53:32.400 notes can be legible. There have been times when 00:53:32.400 --> 00:53:34.619 we have been co -publishing with another newsroom 00:53:34.619 --> 00:53:37.599 and they have wanted to see the reporter's notes 00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:42.219 as part of their fact -checking. So just think 00:53:42.219 --> 00:53:43.900 about that, right? In the ways in which you're 00:53:43.900 --> 00:53:45.880 organizing your data and your evidence when you're 00:53:45.880 --> 00:53:47.460 getting to the step where you're being sort of 00:53:47.460 --> 00:53:49.500 like, where the fact -checking is being done, 00:53:49.840 --> 00:53:51.579 make sure that someone can verify the things 00:53:51.579 --> 00:53:53.599 that you have written down, someone has said. 00:53:54.579 --> 00:53:56.900 And it's not just in some, you know, your own 00:53:56.900 --> 00:53:59.260 kind of version of shorthand or whatever it is. 00:53:59.820 --> 00:54:02.820 Because then it then the last thing you want 00:54:02.820 --> 00:54:04.920 to do when you're collecting sensitive information 00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:06.780 is go back to a character and say, I'm sorry, 00:54:06.880 --> 00:54:09.840 can I get this again? Yeah, Michael, my colleague 00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:11.940 is also put in the chat and in general on sensitive 00:54:11.940 --> 00:54:14.599 subjects with marginalized individuals and communities. 00:54:14.780 --> 00:54:16.780 I basically insisted on interviews and previous 00:54:16.780 --> 00:54:18.800 work being done in the person's native tongue 00:54:18.800 --> 00:54:21.179 or when they feel most comfortable speaking with 00:54:21.179 --> 00:54:23.340 a translator or fix it, even when they can communicate 00:54:23.340 --> 00:54:25.619 with me in English, which is another. I think 00:54:25.619 --> 00:54:28.380 really good points. And we had a question earlier 00:54:28.380 --> 00:54:32.960 about the risks of being an open source researcher 00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:35.920 when you're kind of removed from the topic and 00:54:35.920 --> 00:54:38.139 when you're looking at it kind of through a lens. 00:54:39.199 --> 00:54:41.480 I'm interested in your perspective when it comes 00:54:41.480 --> 00:54:43.500 to using imagery or videos of individuals in 00:54:43.500 --> 00:54:45.900 a traumatic setting. So for example, your team 00:54:45.900 --> 00:54:48.800 often cover labor abuses like your coverage of 00:54:48.800 --> 00:54:51.059 bad working conditions and sexual harassment 00:54:51.059 --> 00:54:54.280 at diamond sellers debiers. If a video or image 00:54:54.280 --> 00:54:57.219 appeared on your desk depicting abuses relevant 00:54:57.219 --> 00:54:59.320 to your story, how would you treat that video 00:54:59.320 --> 00:55:01.719 or image in order to be confident in the ability 00:55:01.719 --> 00:55:04.539 to publish it slash protecting those featured 00:55:04.539 --> 00:55:07.719 in your story? Would you reach out for consent? 00:55:08.119 --> 00:55:10.139 What kind of precautions would you put into place? 00:55:10.179 --> 00:55:13.019 Because that's a realistic example of something 00:55:13.019 --> 00:55:15.780 that many people in the audience would be encountering 00:55:15.780 --> 00:55:20.480 every day. And so this is a question of when 00:55:20.480 --> 00:55:22.900 you don't know the provenance of that video as 00:55:22.900 --> 00:55:24.980 opposed to you've asked someone to record a video, 00:55:25.019 --> 00:55:27.480 let's say. Exactly, exactly. For example, you've 00:55:27.480 --> 00:55:29.559 come across the video on social media, but it 00:55:29.559 --> 00:55:32.340 depicts something in the story that you're already 00:55:32.340 --> 00:55:35.550 writing. that's relevant to your case. Well, 00:55:35.650 --> 00:55:37.710 I think this is actually an example where I feel 00:55:37.710 --> 00:55:40.510 like this community might have many more examples 00:55:40.510 --> 00:55:42.670 of best practice than the rest of us do, right, 00:55:42.789 --> 00:55:45.309 in sort of like source verification. Because 00:55:45.309 --> 00:55:46.949 of course, there are ways, you know, whether 00:55:46.949 --> 00:55:48.989 it's looking at the metadata, trying to figure 00:55:48.989 --> 00:55:52.110 out when the video was taken, trying to understand 00:55:52.110 --> 00:55:56.769 who shared it. I'm also I'm interested, oftentimes, 00:55:56.869 --> 00:55:59.429 thinking about the motivations of the people 00:55:59.429 --> 00:56:01.489 who shared it. We've often had to have conversations 00:56:01.489 --> 00:56:05.570 about why could somebody have sent this to us? 00:56:05.929 --> 00:56:08.929 What might they want? sort of what the might 00:56:08.929 --> 00:56:10.809 ulterior motives be as we were talking about 00:56:10.809 --> 00:56:14.750 that sort of networked effect, right. But yes, 00:56:14.849 --> 00:56:17.550 I think that, you know, I think we would definitely 00:56:17.550 --> 00:56:20.769 particularly now Fuller, the Fuller project, 00:56:21.030 --> 00:56:23.429 while we're moving towards video is not necessarily 00:56:23.429 --> 00:56:25.150 a newsroom that has traditionally used a lot 00:56:25.150 --> 00:56:28.250 of video. And I'm thinking of in previous jobs, 00:56:28.369 --> 00:56:32.409 right, because there is no doubt that the Internet 00:56:32.409 --> 00:56:34.630 is an increasingly sort of like video led space. 00:56:34.650 --> 00:56:38.170 And so the appeal. if a video of harms that was 00:56:38.170 --> 00:56:40.869 appearing in my story landed on my desk of using 00:56:40.869 --> 00:56:45.190 it. The question of informed consent of the people 00:56:45.190 --> 00:56:48.840 in the video. I think it really depends on the 00:56:48.840 --> 00:56:51.000 access. If you have already established access, 00:56:51.099 --> 00:56:52.900 let's say you're working on, as you've said, 00:56:53.199 --> 00:56:57.400 harms in a factory and you've already reported 00:56:57.400 --> 00:56:59.039 your story or you're reporting your story, that 00:56:59.039 --> 00:57:01.360 means you have access to the community or maybe 00:57:01.360 --> 00:57:05.139 it is the labor rights group or the women's group 00:57:05.139 --> 00:57:07.579 that they belong to or whatever it is. And it's 00:57:07.579 --> 00:57:10.019 just also about checking with them, again, referring 00:57:10.019 --> 00:57:12.710 back to my point about. asking your characters 00:57:12.710 --> 00:57:15.389 or your sources to actually be co -reporters 00:57:15.389 --> 00:57:17.710 in some ways and bringing them into this and 00:57:17.710 --> 00:57:21.090 trying to find out what their thoughts of that 00:57:21.090 --> 00:57:23.250 content is, as well as the sort of due diligence 00:57:23.250 --> 00:57:26.250 we would do to make sure that the video indeed 00:57:26.250 --> 00:57:28.510 isn't doctored in any way, it shows what it shows, 00:57:28.630 --> 00:57:32.429 the timeline is accurate. What would you add 00:57:32.429 --> 00:57:34.929 to that as things that you would like to see 00:57:34.929 --> 00:57:38.550 done before that video could be used? Yeah, I 00:57:38.550 --> 00:57:40.389 think you've covered quite a few points. I think 00:57:40.389 --> 00:57:42.449 in some cases you might even want to consider 00:57:42.449 --> 00:57:46.050 blurring those features if you cannot find their 00:57:46.050 --> 00:57:51.130 identity. I think some people often may not think 00:57:51.130 --> 00:57:53.349 about the individuals depicted as much as they 00:57:53.349 --> 00:57:57.809 should, so making sure that if you can't verify 00:57:57.809 --> 00:58:00.690 the identity of those featured and make sure 00:58:00.690 --> 00:58:04.510 that they are happy to be broadcast to the world, 00:58:04.590 --> 00:58:06.429 it's quite important to make sure that you're 00:58:06.429 --> 00:58:09.489 not. kind of showcasing their face in such a 00:58:09.489 --> 00:58:12.630 traumatic event without permission. And I think 00:58:12.630 --> 00:58:15.309 this is what, again, Dr. Lezkovic went into quite 00:58:15.309 --> 00:58:18.530 a bit in our discussion last. I know we're running 00:58:18.530 --> 00:58:20.389 out of time, but I have one more question and 00:58:20.389 --> 00:58:25.429 I hope that's OK. I wanted to bring this up because 00:58:25.429 --> 00:58:28.289 it's something that I myself struggled with when 00:58:28.289 --> 00:58:30.929 I was first reporter. And I think if you are 00:58:30.929 --> 00:58:32.989 new to interviews, it's something that would 00:58:32.989 --> 00:58:36.159 be difficult when first working with sources. 00:58:36.599 --> 00:58:39.539 And that is when a source makes a claim. So, 00:58:39.639 --> 00:58:43.199 for example, if an individual that you've built 00:58:43.199 --> 00:58:46.000 up trust for has made a substantial claim within 00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:51.000 their testimony, how do you approach that when 00:58:51.000 --> 00:58:53.380 you need to kind of back up a statement with 00:58:53.380 --> 00:58:55.579 data? How do you navigate that relationship? 00:58:55.579 --> 00:58:57.360 Because that's quite a difficult thing to do. 00:58:57.400 --> 00:59:00.159 And I know from experience that it takes often 00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:03.039 years for reports to get into the kind of practice 00:59:03.039 --> 00:59:06.340 to be able to kind of have those difficult conversations 00:59:06.340 --> 00:59:08.679 with sources. So what's your best practices in 00:59:08.679 --> 00:59:12.199 your newsroom for that thing? And then we'll 00:59:12.199 --> 00:59:17.000 wrap up so everyone can enjoy that evening. Absolutely. 00:59:17.440 --> 00:59:20.000 So I think this just actually it's foundational, 00:59:20.159 --> 00:59:22.400 right? It goes back to you establishing who you 00:59:22.400 --> 00:59:24.579 are and what you do and how you do it. I think 00:59:24.579 --> 00:59:26.739 a lot of people who particularly sort of like 00:59:27.490 --> 00:59:29.829 traditional journalists assume that everybody, 00:59:29.989 --> 00:59:33.530 the public understands what journalists do and 00:59:33.530 --> 00:59:36.769 how they do it. And this is a completely incorrect 00:59:36.769 --> 00:59:41.050 assumption. Right. And so it is important once 00:59:41.050 --> 00:59:42.829 you are establishing a relationship with someone 00:59:42.829 --> 00:59:45.449 before you even sit down for the formal interview 00:59:45.449 --> 00:59:48.670 to really situate yourself and to say, this is 00:59:48.670 --> 00:59:51.389 what I'm doing. If I, you know, if we got to 00:59:51.389 --> 00:59:53.150 the place where you were telling me your story 00:59:53.150 --> 00:59:57.500 on record, I will need to ask you. you know, 00:59:57.539 --> 00:59:59.940 to think about what kinds of ways in which you 00:59:59.940 --> 01:00:02.559 can verify it. I often say to the reporters, 01:00:03.340 --> 01:00:06.619 build some sympathy with your source by telling 01:00:06.619 --> 01:00:09.639 them how laborious the editing process is, right? 01:00:09.980 --> 01:00:12.119 Like get them to feel for you because you're 01:00:12.119 --> 01:00:15.159 like, you know, make me the editor seem like 01:00:15.159 --> 01:00:17.420 an asshole because like, oh my God, my editor 01:00:17.420 --> 01:00:20.320 is going to need. to see this, this, this, and 01:00:20.320 --> 01:00:23.960 this, so that the person has some sense of both 01:00:23.960 --> 01:00:27.019 the time and the sort of breadth of evidence 01:00:27.019 --> 01:00:30.559 that they will need to show, right? Because even 01:00:30.559 --> 01:00:33.510 when there is a sense of there is a... we also 01:00:33.510 --> 01:00:35.530 have a duty of care to the people we're accusing 01:00:35.530 --> 01:00:39.190 of wrongdoing. So if we cannot verify the claims, 01:00:39.309 --> 01:00:45.190 if we cannot get a right to response, if we cannot 01:00:45.190 --> 01:00:48.789 show any sort of data, we did an investigation 01:00:48.789 --> 01:00:51.690 which was about women getting pregnant from having 01:00:51.690 --> 01:00:57.210 taken contraceptive pills that were faulty. We 01:00:57.210 --> 01:00:59.769 needed to confirm that these women were in fact 01:00:59.769 --> 01:01:01.570 indeed on the contraception that they said they 01:01:01.570 --> 01:01:03.769 were on. And so we could not work with the characters 01:01:03.769 --> 01:01:06.230 who had no sorts of proofs. We had to work with 01:01:06.230 --> 01:01:08.690 those who had their medical prescription, who 01:01:08.690 --> 01:01:10.849 maybe even still had the packet of the drugs. 01:01:11.090 --> 01:01:12.989 And then we took that picture, actually, and 01:01:12.989 --> 01:01:15.210 included it in the reporting to show people what 01:01:15.210 --> 01:01:19.469 the pills she was taking looked like. So my best 01:01:19.469 --> 01:01:22.730 practice for this is be granular and absolutely 01:01:22.730 --> 01:01:27.070 clear before someone enters into a relationship 01:01:27.070 --> 01:01:28.690 with you where they have committed to telling 01:01:28.690 --> 01:01:31.090 you their story because you have made them some 01:01:31.090 --> 01:01:33.349 promise. that it will be published or it will 01:01:33.349 --> 01:01:36.150 be shown. It's for them to understand what it 01:01:36.150 --> 01:01:38.989 will take to get from you speaking to them to 01:01:38.989 --> 01:01:42.170 the story going out. And then they become a sort 01:01:42.170 --> 01:01:44.570 of co -conspirator with you, trying to find these 01:01:44.570 --> 01:01:46.670 files, trying to get this evidence as opposed 01:01:46.670 --> 01:01:48.369 to you promising them that all they will need 01:01:48.369 --> 01:01:50.989 to do is tell their story and then they will 01:01:50.989 --> 01:01:52.750 never have to speak to you again. That's false 01:01:52.750 --> 01:01:54.730 because you're going to have to, you know, need 01:01:54.730 --> 01:01:59.000 to corroborate the story. Absolutely, and obviously 01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:00.900 communicate that all with your editors as well. 01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:03.480 If there is a problem, for example, if a migrant 01:02:03.480 --> 01:02:06.039 that you're speaking to doesn't have the paperwork 01:02:06.039 --> 01:02:09.079 that you need to tell the story, communicate 01:02:09.079 --> 01:02:12.599 that with your editor early on and problem solve 01:02:12.599 --> 01:02:15.280 it rather than kind of keeping it to yourself, 01:02:15.480 --> 01:02:17.500 trying to do the interview and then it becoming 01:02:17.500 --> 01:02:20.800 a problem later on. Eliza, thank you so much. 01:02:21.099 --> 01:02:23.889 It's been fascinating to speak. with you and 01:02:23.889 --> 01:02:25.630 thank you to everyone who's sat in the audience 01:02:25.630 --> 01:02:28.550 and listened and asked questions. We're going 01:02:28.550 --> 01:02:32.570 to continue this series on looking into these 01:02:32.570 --> 01:02:36.750 kinds of topics and ways to keep survivors and 01:02:36.750 --> 01:02:38.610 those at the centre of your stories protected. 01:02:39.380 --> 01:02:42.500 Sarah has mentioned in the chat as well. Before 01:02:42.500 --> 01:02:44.639 we all disperse, I wanted to point out that the 01:02:44.639 --> 01:02:46.800 Muro code is going through an update with guidance 01:02:46.800 --> 01:02:49.079 for open source research and the pilot is available 01:02:49.079 --> 01:02:51.480 till the end of June. So you can check that out 01:02:51.480 --> 01:02:53.199 at the Gender -Based Violence Massage and New 01:02:53.199 --> 01:02:55.800 Channel. Sarah's going through it. She's going 01:02:55.800 --> 01:02:57.699 to put some notes on there asking for feedback. 01:02:57.820 --> 01:03:00.599 So please have a look at that in your spare time. 01:03:00.980 --> 01:03:02.440 Thank you, everybody, for listening and thank 01:03:02.440 --> 01:03:04.980 you, Eliza, again for coming. Thank you for having 01:03:04.980 --> 01:03:07.340 me. Bye, everyone. Thanks for coming. Bye. Thank 01:03:07.340 --> 01:03:13.760 you, everyone. Thank you for listening to the 01:03:13.760 --> 01:03:16.599 stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage talk 01:03:16.599 --> 01:03:20.059 live where you can ask the guest questions, join 01:03:20.059 --> 01:03:23.380 the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www 01:03:23.380 --> 01:03:29.260 .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've 01:03:29.260 --> 01:03:33.119 heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy 01:03:33.119 --> 01:03:34.019 of Artlist.