You're listening to a stage talk titled Building
Environmental Investigations. This week we were
joined by Costanza Gambarini, an award -winning
environmental journalist from the outlet Source
Material. Costanza walked us through some of
her previous investigations and the obstacles
she faced along the way, providing key insight
into what it's like to uncover information linking
governments and major multinationals to environmental
harm. You can find links to all the resources
mentioned in the talk in the podcast description.
This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Marr, on
Thursday the 16th of July, 2026, in the Bell
and Captage Discord server. Thanks for coming,
all, to another Stage Talk. Environmental stories
often involve complex supply chains, hidden corporate
structures and impacts that cross borders. Investigating
them requires persistence, careful reporting
and increasingly digital research techniques
that can uncover evidence hidden in plain sight.
Today's guest is Costanza Gambarini, an investigative
journalist at SourceMaterial and the Press Awards
Environmental Journalist of the Year. Congratulations
again. Her reporting focuses on uncovering environmental
wrongdoing and holding powerful actors to account
through rigorous evidence -based investigations
on everything from unregulated tankers leaking
oil at sea to big data centers consuming water
in the driest of areas. In this conversation,
we'll explore how she finds stories, builds investigations
from the ground up, combines digital research
with traditional reporting, and the lessons she's
learnt throughout her career. Whether you're
an experienced investigative reporter or just
starting to explore environmental journalism,
there should be plenty of practical insights
to take away. As usual, you can place your questions
in the chat accessible on the right hand corner
of your screen. But please remember that this
is being audio recorded for the podcast, so if
you don't want me to mention your username, please
add that as a note in your question. Okay, Koz,
over to you. Tell us about yourself and how you
work and I'm going to mute myself. Thanks, Charlie,
for the intro. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having
me. My name is Costanza. I am an environmental
journalist at SourceMaterial. Just a couple of
words about me and SourceMaterial. So SourceMaterial
is a small independent newsroom based in London.
It's only six of us. And we do work around climate
corruption and democracy, which is quite a big
brief, but it gives us a lot of freedom to pursue
investigations that we find interesting. And
I would say like how source material work is
very much centered around collaboration. So both
internally with my colleagues and then externally
with our partner organizations. So we always
publish with a larger media outlet here in the
UK or in Europe and the rest of the world. So
that's kind of how we work. That's also a little
bit of a disclaimer for me that obviously All
the stories that I do are very much in partnership
with amazing other journalists, from a couple
to like 40 journalists spread around Europe.
So if I can't answer a question, it's probably
because I didn't do that little bit of reporting
that the question is about. And that's important
to say, and also like one of the joys of journalism,
I guess. And then just a bit about me. I was
a broadcast journalist for a few years. I worked
at the BBC in current affairs. and then I moved
to source material three years ago. My work has
really spawned a lot of different topics, but
it's covered a lot of Russia -related things,
especially the shadow fleet, like Charlie mentioned.
And then I've done quite a bit of work on the
impact of passive fuel companies in various different
places from Indonesia. to Mozambique, Kenya and
others. So that's been another relatively new
beat for me, but I produced a lot of work in
that area. So Charlie told me that the focus
on my talk would be on three things. How do I
come up with stories? What kind of methodologies
I use? And then what are the risks associated
to environmental journalism? So I will try to...
briefly go through those three things and then
opening up to questions. How do I come up with
stories? It's obviously very different every
time. Two examples that I think can be interesting
for specifically this group are a story called
Indonesian exporters in palm oil probe supplied
European fuel majors. I think Charlie will put
the link in the chat if you want to have a look.
So this story was about how there was a bunch
of arrests in Indonesia a few months back. And
the RSCs were basically palm oil producers that
were suspected of being involved in fraud. And
the fraud was specifically presenting crude palm
oil as Pome, which is a waste product. is treated
differently in terms of taxation and also importing
into the European Union. That story started because
an NGO that we sometimes use as a source had
access to interesting trade data showing that
any Italian oil giant was importing crude palm
oil whilst they had previously said that they
hadn't been doing that for years. And they went
on importing Palme, which is the waste product
I was talking about. We then tried to substantiate
that data from these trading platforms by getting
costume documents from the Italian customs. That
was a six -month project that ended up an absolute
failure. I spent an absurd amount of money phoning
Italy. I sent somebody to their... their offices
in Rome that were empty, aside for this one security
guard who kindly asked us to leave. So then we
kind of gave up and we tried the Indonesian customs
and we actually got the documents. And the documents
showed that the imports were vomit, the waste
product. So we kind of killed the story. only
a few months later for this arrest to happen
and showing that these same companies that were
named in our documents were indeed accused of
exactly doing that kind of fraud. So we then
published the story with AFP and I think it's
a good reminder of how one source of data is
never enough and you should really try to corroborate
corroborate the data that you have, even though
it's coming up in a really nice format from a
reputable trading platform. But then if we didn't
have this Indonesian customs data, we wouldn't
have had the names of these other companies that
ended up being involved in this investigation.
So it was really... It was really interesting
how getting multiple sources of data, of the
same data really landed to us being able to publish
the story. And then the other one I wanted to
talk in terms of how do I come up with story
was Seeds of Doubt, a story about biofuel, biofuel
production in Kenya. again involves any, maybe
I have something against Italian art majors being
Italian. But again, this story came from data.
So we had this trade data showing that there
was this large amount of rapeseed imports from
South Africa to Kenya, and then from Kenya to
Italy. And again, went against what any were
saying at the time, which was that they weren't
using food crops to produce their biofuels, but
they were actually using all this like caster
from the graded land, helping loads of Kenyan
farmers having a better life. And just seeing
this data led us to think like, okay, maybe that...
that there is more to it, the story is quite
different. And then, which then led us to travel
to Kenya to see it for ourselves and then found
out that, you know, the whole program was a joke,
basically, and did an investigation about that.
But again, that started with, with data. Oh,
and an interesting, sorry, just like, so my own
note, how we, we actually confirmed the trade
data in, in this case was quite funny. We found
On Instagram, a company that was doing tank of
humigation in Cape Town. And they videoed themselves
doing tanker fumigation. And in the videos, you
could see this rapeseed, there's loads and loads
of rapeseed on board these tankers. And the name
of the tanker was mentioned, obviously Instagram
had the date at which that post was posted. So
we could compare the name of the tanker and the
date to the trade data that we had and actually
see for ourselves that the rapeseed was indeed.
on board these tankers in Cape Town, which then
went to Mombasa and then to Italy. So that was
quite funny. Moving on to the methodologies,
the investigative techniques, I guess, that I
use for my investigations. Again, loads and loads
of different ones. So it really depends on what
the investigation is about. I'm going to talk
about dark water, which was my first shadow fleet
investigation. That one looked at the environmental
impact of the shadow fleet. In particular, we
were looking at oil slicks that were left around
the world. We tried to map all the oil slicks
left around the world by shadow fleet tankers.
Shadow fleet being I'm sure everybody knows what
a shop is, but it's just the tankers that move
Russian oil and might be selling it above the
price cap despite sanctions basically. For that
one, we actually again partnered with an amazing
NGO called Skytruth who'd been mapping oil slicks
for all sorts of other reasons. They used Sentinel
-1 data, which is the European Space Agency program,
to basically map the leaks and then they would
review them manually. What we basically got them
to do was to cross -reference those leaks with
the paths taken by shadow fleet vessels to identify
cases where it was shadow fleet tankers that
were responsible for leaving those leaks. And
then what we did after, so we basically created
a worldwide map of those lakes. And then we looked
into the vessels that were responsible and the
companies that owned those vessels. And that
was like, you know, a whole lot of online research,
as you can imagine, using, you know, companies'
accounts. We used Orbis a lot. We are lucky enough
to have access to that, although it's expiring
in August and I think it's not being renewed.
It's going to be in... the end of my investigations.
So that was kind of like the basis of that story
and the techniques we used. And then I guess
the other one I can talk about is the data center
story. And then if you have any questions about
any other investigations I did, please ask in
the Q &A. So this story was the big data center's
push will take water from the world's driest
areas. pretty self explanatory title, but we
looked at water consumption for data centers
belonging to Amazon, Microsoft and Google specifically.
That was the first story that we did about data
centers. So we didn't have any specific access.
Later on, based on that story, we actually got
a a leaked bunch of data from Amazon, from a
whistleblower, which was great. But at that point,
we didn't have access to any leaked data or anything
specific, so we just used what was publicly available.
There was a company called Baxter that had a
public facing map of data centers belonging to
these three companies. We then asked another
company called Data Center Map. if they could
provide us with some more data, which they did.
And then we just analyze a whole bunch of local
reports about data centers being developed or
already operational. And we combined all the
sources in a big spreadsheet of, I think it was
632 data centers that were either active or under
development. And then we... overlapped the locations
of those data centers with a worldwide map of
water scarcity, which we got from Volcom, which
is a UN backed initiative. And then basically
we used that map to look at how many of these
data centers were located in area that were already
considered of water scarcity. Just to say like,
to give you an idea of how much we missed. When
we then got the whistleblower to give us the
Amazon data, we then found out that Amazon alone
already had 924 data centers that were operational.
We had 632 for the three companies altogether.
So it was quite a few that we missed, which kind
of adds it to the point of how secretive companies
are about their data centers. So skipping through
to the risks associated to environmental journalists.
I really thought about this one. I think a worthy
mention as although maybe beyond the point of
this talk, is really the risk taken by our sources
when they talk to us. And that's physical risk,
but also legal and financial risk. And I think
this is my second little disclaimer of my speech,
but as much as digital techniques are really
important and we do a lot of data work, I would
say that at least half, if not more, of my job
is still very much source -based and there's
still a lot of field work. I think it's easy
to get excited about all the new tools that you
can use to find out things and forget about the
human element of the stories. I think that's
beyond the scope of this talk, but if you want
to ask questions about it, of course, I'm happy
to answer, but I just want you to highlight that
it's quite... It's still a very important part
of my job. But other risks, I think the legal
risk is probably the one that comes to mind.
I'm based in the UK, so we have very strict libel
laws. I think the most interesting thing with
legal risk, and we've received our fair share
of legal letters. My top one being for my Mozambique
story, I received a letter from Schilling and
specifically from the lawyer that defended Johnny
Depp in his trial, which was quite funny. But
I guess the interesting stuff about legal risk
is how do you account for that and what do you
do to make sure that... that you've got your
bases covered. And I think that the main thing
to think about is what can I do that would show
a judge, you know, if we did get to like a court
case that I behaved as a responsible journalist.
And I do think that anything that you can do,
it's worth doing because the risk is so big,
even if it's like, you know, unlikely. And things
like, you know, and that might mean, you know,
a lengthy write to reply process or sending your
more risky articles to lawyers to have a look
at. There's been a lot of cases where we tried
to contact especially companies in very far away
jurisdictions and we send them a letter and then
they never replied. But then if you can, make
another phone call, find another email address,
find another physical address. I always think
it's worth doing. even though you know that 99
% they're not going to reply to you, I think
it's just like one of those things that it's
a bit annoying, but definitely worth doing. And
that's, I think the biggest risk, especially,
you know, I work for a very small company, so
a lawsuit would be potentially ending for us.
So I think that's the main thing to think about.
And then one last thing, when I think about risk
is With environmental journalists or climate
journalists, you are bound to work with NGOs
and activists. And I think that the risk there
or like the thing that I do think about a lot
is how can I use their amazing knowledge and
access in a way that keeps me editorially dependent
from you know, whatever their opinion or agenda
is. So it's like really treating NGOs as sources
for stories rather than partners while at the
same time not putting them off working with you
because, you know, that's a fundamental part
of my job. And I think that that, you know, line
between journalism and advocacy, it's something
that I didn't have to think about when I was
back at the BBC, but it's definitely something
I think about a lot now that I work as source
material. And I don't know if others have had
the same experience or what you guys work, but
I think it was something that came to my mind
when I thought about risk. And I think that's
it for me. I'm on 80 minutes. So happy to open
up. You are so punctual. I love that you are
continuously checking the clock. Bless you. Thank
you so much for going through all those amazing
investigations and giving us the lowdown really
quickly as well on those. And yeah, pointing
out some of the risks involved with your work.
For example, as you just mentioned, the NGO sector
can be a wealth of information for source contacts
as well, connecting you with the people that
have lived experience of what you're reporting
on. But that can also turn into quite an exploitative
relationship if you're not careful as well. And
there is actually, we did have a stage talk on
that a couple of months ago, which I'll link
in the chat in a second, if you want to hear
a little bit about how you kind of navigate that
space. I wanted to start off and ask you, and
I know I'm taking you back through the points
that you just covered, but I wanted to ask you,
where do good environmental investigations come
from in your opinion? What are you paying attention
to? What are you monitoring regularly? as part
of your work, maybe a little bit further away
from kind of sources bringing it directly to
you. Is there anywhere that you regularly monitor
as an environmental journalist, just looking
for stories? I would say that I, and I think
maybe that's more personal taste, but I definitely
read more analysis and feature journalism as
opposed to straight off news. So like that, is
often an inspiration. I think something that
had led, for example, to my first Shadow Feet
piece was, can we take something that is topical
and look at it through a climate lens or an environment
lens? Has the environment or climate story on
the Shadow Feet been done when... There was already
a lot being published about the shadow fleet,
but maybe not through that lens. So I think that's
a good way to find topics that have been discussed
a lot. And same with maybe data centers, although
the climate connection was a bit more immediate.
But again, it was talked already from maybe electricity
or emission point of view, maybe not a water
one. So is there like, amongst things that have
already been talked about, an angle that hasn't
been explored that has that lens? Always looking
for unique angles is basically what you're touching
on, right? We had a question earlier from an
audience member. They were asking, with your
reporting, what piece is the most successful
in leading to government action or changing public
opinion? Did the framing of the story or the
facts verification matter more? I think maybe
the most successful piece that I produced has
been my Mozambique work. So this was stories
about Butal Energies LNG project in Northern
Mozambique that had really worrying, a really
worrying human rights track. could and exposing
that. I think that brings me back a bit to what
I was saying about the human angle and how that
helps to give a data story. That story was initiated
by a bunch of documents that we obtained through
FOI in Italy, but how making a story more personable
by doing the field work really helps to bring
it home with an audience and then hence, you
know, give it more, you know, giving it a better
chance of an impact. So in that case, you know,
we got several, several governments to drop out
from financing the LNG project. I think, sorry,
I don't know if there was a question about presentation.
Like I think, I think the data has to be strong.
But I think that it has to be delivered in a
way that is understandable to an audience that
is not an audience of experts. And I think that
really helps the fact that we work with partners
that are usually through mainstream media in
terms of like, you know, our website could be
super nasty because nobody reads it that is not
already interested in environmental journalism.
And so it's probably quite an expert audience
in that sense, but we try to make our stories
not aimed at an expert audience. And that's why
we're quite successful in partnering with mainstream
media, which is why then we have a better impact.
And I think that's a very important part of being
an environmental journalist, because as any type
of journalist, you do care about your stories
having an impact because you care about the issues
that you're writing about. I really want to touch
on that collaboration part in a second, but just
while we're on the Mozambique piece. As you mentioned
earlier, risks are a real risk in environmental
journalism. And particularly in this case, for
example, some of the larger multinationals that
you're reporting on, the gas company, for example,
have troops on their paywall. What does your
risk assessment look like before you start an
investigation? Are you aware of the kind of powers
of the companies that you're investigating have
ahead of the investigation being commenced? Like
what does the risk assessment look like for your
team? I think we started, we're sort of a work
in progress to be honest. We've been doing some
of the riskier things more recently and I think
we've definitely have had some lessons learned.
I think like one of them, for example, was when
we've been doing all this like work on Russia.
I know a lot of that for a couple of stories
involved as being on telegram channels. And then
we sort of realised like sort of halfway through
that we were just using our normal phone numbers
and you know, our password ones. And like, you
know, just like logging into these conversations,
like these group chats with, you know, who knows
who. And, you know, there was quite a few of
these things that I guess came from naivety that
we did to begin with. And then now maybe we're
a bit more careful with how we proceed with things,
got VPNs and things. But I think the two things
that we always think about before an investigation
starts is where is going to be the legal risk?
And surprisingly, although some of these big
companies are very good at sending legal letters,
once the story is published, unless they really
have strong grounds, they rarely pursue it. Or
that's been our experience, but sometimes it's
the individuals that get really pissed off. So
actually we do pay a lot of legal attention to
all the cases where we name specific individuals
rather than just companies. And so that's one,
the legal risk. And then the other thing that
we think about a lot is the physical risk if
we're going to report from places that we're
going. So that's the most amazing example is
a really good example for that. We had like a
security companies that was basically monitoring
us from a distance and was ready to extract us
at 20. I hope not 24 hours, actually. I hope
it was shorter than that. We did hostile environment
training. There was a whole lot of things that
had to go in place. Also working to guarantee
the security of the people that we were going
to talk to and what the aftercare was going to
look like for the months after publication, what
the anonymization was going to look like in order
to avoid sort of... cross identification by saying,
for example, which village something happened
or something like that. So that's, I think, source
protection and our own physical protection is
probably the thing that we think about the most
and then legal risk. Yeah, you have to be pretty
confident, I think, in your reporting and what
you're going to find as well, if you're going
to take that much resource and that much risk
to travel over and hire a security company and
everything like that. It's a big gamble, but
pays off a lot of the time. You talked about
collaboration earlier, and obviously a lot of
the time in environmental investigations, the
investigation often crosses borders and disciplines.
How do you work with other journalists and experts?
And in your opinion, what makes an effective
collaboration on environmental peace? I mean,
as you said, that collaboration is kind of bread
and butter of source material. I don't think
necessarily every investigation needs to go to
journalists from seven different countries. There
is definitely like an argument that that very
much complicates matters. But I do think that
the projects where I did work with a very large
group of and cross -border that are those projects
that are more international in nature themselves.
shadow fleet projects, it was very helpful to
have people distributed in different European
countries that were dealing with the shadow fleet
issues in different ways and could access different
sorts of documents and intelligence sources and
all other sorts of sources and look at different
data that was country specific. So that very
much helps to build a more complete picture of
an issue that is an international issue. that
would have been possible if we were only tackling
the issue from a UK perspective. For example,
I would say even more important is to work with
people, and that's both journalists and experts
from the countries that you're talking about
if you're not talking about your own country.
And that's, I mean, I hope self -explanatory,
but like, I can't stress enough how much of that
and added value. Someone who's local and has
lived experience of the issues that you're talking
about is to do an investigation. So if I'm doing
an investigation about plastic pollution in Ghana
or the investigation I did on Mozambique or Indonesia,
Kenya, they all relied on very good journalists
from there and very good experts from there that
had been spending the past 20 years looking at
Tunisia was able to spend the last five minutes.
So I think being able to acknowledge your limitations
and ask for help from people who are more knowledgeable
than you is very much a big part of being an
environmental journalist. And I think that's
because you are tackling such a broad range of
topics. No one is an expert. Like I never really
knew anything about the shadow fleet before something
writing about it or human rights in Mozambique.
And I think, but I think that shouldn't discourage
us from tackling these issues and bringing them
to the attention of European readers, because,
you know, very often edit or, you know, Western
readers, because very often we're kind of the
source of some of these issues being going on.
But I think that that also requires a bit of
like, being a bit humble about exactly how much
we understand a topic. In data journalism, in
environmental journalism, sorry, you're often
dealing with huge amounts of data as well, right?
So like having lots of newsroom eyes as well
can be really useful for just dissecting that
volume of data as well. It can be absolutely
overwhelming. And if you are interested in working
on environmental stories, We do have a space
in the Discord called environment and wildlife
and that's where we talk about those kinds of
things. We have quite a few people talking about
data centers in the chat. As you can imagine,
it annoys a lot of people that the world is being
taken over by data centers. Subtle Knife, our
moderator said earlier that there was a report
the other day that there's one in the Netherlands
that uses 1 % of the entire country's energy,
which is crazy. We've had a question specifically,
and I don't know if you're familiar with it,
on the Stargate project. Somebody is asking for
your opinion on it. I don't know if you are familiar
with it or can speak a little bit about your
experience maybe reporting on data centers in
general. Yeah, I'm familiar with the Stargate
project, but I think the main thing, this story
has been like... It blew up when it was published.
It's been one of our most successful stories
and we followed it up with a few other stories
that actually wasn't involved in. And it's obviously
a really important topic just because of like,
it just magnated of, you know, this data center
boom happening all over the world. And also,
as I said before, how secretive companies have
been about it. I've done since quite a few speeches
and I try always to steer away from giving my
own opinion about data centers because I feel
like it's kind of beyond the point of what my
personal opinion is on them. And it's just the
fact that it's an undeniable fact that this is
happening. So I think an interesting question
was actually talking about, how about this with
my colleague, Luke, who by the way, Luke Barrett,
who's been working on our data center stories
throughout. And if you're interested in data
centers, he's your man. So you can contact him
and look at sourcematerial .org. And he, I'm
sure will be loving having a conversation about
data centers. But I think an interesting thing
would be like, how do we meet? We've now sort
of exposed the scale of the energy consumption,
all the problems that the water consumption,
all the problems that come with data centers
and still data centers are happening. And so
it's like what, for me, an interesting question
could be like what does and can it exist a sustainable
data centers? Like what would be like a good
data center? Can we, what are the solutions?
And I think that's maybe something that has been
partially covered, but But that is worth looking
at just because I don't know what other people
think, but to me, it almost felt like an inevitability
of how we're consuming AI now that data centers
are being developed all over the world. Yeah,
I'd love to read a solutions -based journalism
piece on data centers and see what alternatives
are out there. That would be really interesting.
I am also not familiar with. a story like that.
If anyone has come across any, please pop them
in the chat. I'd love to read that. Flicking
slightly back again to collaborations, somebody
asked a question while you were talking through
that. They said, how do you manage multiple languages
in this work? Or how do you ask for experts to
pass data or teach you to pass data yourself?
Like, do you pay them to help you or ask for
in -kind help? I think the question is really
kind of like, how do you get that expertise?
How do you approach people about that expertise?
So with our partners, we don't, well, first of
all, we don't sell our stories. So we are philanthropically
funded and we offer our expertise for free. It's
basically like, we kind of offer investigative
capacity. I guess the newsroom set might not
have as much investigative capacity as they should.
to focus on these kinds of stories. In terms
of managing different languages across different
regions, if there is a language barrier, we usually
have translators or we find the way around it.
It's never been a limiting issue in terms of
whether we would decide to work or collaborate
with an individual or an organization. And then
obviously everybody publishes their stories in
their own language. In terms of the expertise,
we absolutely do not pay sources or experts who
are quoted in our stories or provide expertise
that goes into the story. We credit them, Julie.
In the stories, we never claimed that any data
that didn't belong to us would belong to us.
We credit the organizations that provided us
with the data as sources. We are very transparent
about our process for crediting and how people
are credited and we agree on everything in advance
so that it's perceived as a fair exchange for
everyone. I don't know, I really feel like there's
very few instances where we've paid somebody.
We obviously pay lawyers for their expert opinion,
but anyone who could be even remotely perceived
as a source, we wouldn't pay for ethical editorial
reasons. So yeah, we have had also a lot of no's,
especially from satellite companies that never
want to give their data for free. But yeah, usually
we find a way. And there's amazing organizations
around that really like a lot of people that
really do a lot of work with us. Like Data Desk
is one that comes to mind. Loads of like SkyTree
that I mentioned earlier. There's so many organizations
that really do great work. Yeah. And that's exactly
how Bellingcat works with our collaborations
as well. very similar formats, I think, in terms
of exchanging resources and exchanging knowledge.
Sometimes we don't even co -publish. For example,
sometimes we might just be helping out a newsroom.
Most occasions we do try to aim for co -publication.
And on that point, as we're talking about collaboration,
Jane asked earlier, when you have a finding that
you want the public to know about, How do you
go about spreading that to the general public?
My outlet has struggled with that. You mentioned
earlier about how your site doesn't have much
traffic. So how do you get your stories out there?
How do you make an impact with them? Yeah, as
I said before, unfortunately, not really through
our website. Although I think our website does
fulfill an important purpose, which is to showcase
our work to the wider community of journalists,
investigative environment, or whatever that can,
you know, when we, we have some established partnerships
because with, you know, media outlet that we've
published multiple investigations with, and like,
when we go to them with a new thing, you know,
already know who we are and trust us to do, to
do solid work. But when we approach new partners,
having our website, showcasing our previous work,
it definitely helps to get that partnership going
and build trust. I would say that our website
is meant for a more specialized audience of journalists.
I think the partner publication is the place
where the impact happens and where you know,
the public is reached. And that's why for us
is a hard rule. Like we do not publish anything
without an media partner on board. Like we're
not, we might begin like this and like sort of
scoping around, but it's, we, we try to get a
partner on board as early as possible, both because
we think it's important to develop a story with
a partner because different partners will have
an interest in different angles. They will, you
know, they very often is not always able to provide
their own expertise, access, and everything else.
So they're very much a core part of the reporting
process. They're not just publishing partners
in the vast majority of cases, but also because
we believe that that's where the impact happens.
That's an interesting hard line to take that
you don't publish anything as an independent
newsroom. And Jane's followed up with that and
said, how do you go about reaching out to potential
partners? And says, we've never had one long
term. So what does that initial outreach look
like? Is it a cold email? Is it a phone call?
It really depends. Like my editor always says
that we are not allowed to use the word pitching.
So we do not send pitches and we do not pitch
our stories. Which basically means that we don't
try to hard sell ourselves at all. We usually
try to go for reporters because we really want
our partners to be hands on and we find that
sometimes going to editors means that the thing
either needs to be already ready or they're very
busy doing lots of different things. So we try
to go to reporters that we think Sometimes we
already know them because we're all journalists
that worked at different newsrooms beforehand.
But even if we don't know them, we try to find
somebody who has been publishing stuff about
the topic that we are aiming to tackle and that
we think would genuinely be interested in the
investigation. And we have a contact we can find,
but we usually just say like, oh, we're source
material. This is our website. This is what we
do. And we have like a story that we think could
be interesting for you. Do you want to have a
chat? We don't really send anything more than
that most of the times. And then, you know, if
they say, yeah, I'm curious, let's have a chat.
And we have a chat, you know, about the story.
And if they're interested, we kind of crack on
from there. We're trying to be a little bit more
systematic now with sort of laying out maybe
like in just an email, we don't have any like
sort of form. or specific NDAs or anything like
that. But we tried to lay out a little bit of
the collaboration and the aim of the collaboration,
how we collaborate in writing now after a few
experiences that didn't go quite as well. But
I think the overarching thing that we say is
that we're pulling all the resources or all the
knowledge that any partner has at any point needs
to be pulled in. Uh, everybody has access to
everything at all times. Uh, beyond that, we
sort of agree on who's doing what on a daily
or on a sort of like weekly basis, whatever it
is. But, um, but then like, we're very free to
publish whatever we want to publish. So we don't
just do copies of this, like, we don't just publish
the same copy. If, if, you know, our partner
wants to like publish it, you know, 5 ,000 words
piece with a specific focus. We don't have to
publish the same equally if they want to publish
a news piece of 150 words. That's what they want
to do. That's fine as well. So we're then very
free to kind of do our own thing beyond that.
Yeah. At Bellingcat it's called a Memorium of
Understanding, MOU. That's usually the document's
name. Yeah, it's super super useful to kind of
just plot out each partner's responsibilities.
In regards to environmental investigations, often
you can start an investigation and have impact,
but you're not necessarily going to solve the
environmental issue that you're reporting on
because it's just too massive. What do you...
source material declare as, thank you Sussan
and I if you're right, memoranda of understanding
is exactly the wording. What do you kind of mark
as impact in regards to a successful investigation?
What would you deem a successful investigation
when it comes to environmental? I think what
we count as impact is really not in the sort
of like viewing stats and sort of how many social
media likes we get. Also because being published
with partners that we don't really have access
to any of that information, but we try to focus
on real world impact. So whether that's like
policy change or investment not going anymore
to the company that we exposed. We've had quite
a bit of success since early on. Before I even
joined my company, we did a lot of work on carbon
offsetting. We did that for a story with The
Guardian that basically broke the carbon offsetting
market. We tried to, after that, continue to
do to do the sort of investigation that really
can lead to change. My editor mentioned the other
day some figure about how many millions of dollars
of impact we've had, which is a very crude way
to describe our impact, but also very effective
if you think about how much money... at a very
basic level these companies have and these industries
are worse. So yeah, I think the two things are
really like policy change and just an astral
impact. Thanks for that insight. We've got about
10 minutes left. So if anyone has any questions,
now is the time to ask them. We had a question
earlier about opportunities for applying environmental
OSINT methods in conflict settings, like Sudan.
I can say from Bellingcat's side, there's absolutely
opportunities for applying environmental OSINT
methods in those settings. It's needed in lots
of different conflicts around the world. But
in terms of your experience, Costanza, where...
Does the way that you report and the way that
you approach stories differ if the area that
you're reporting on is hard to access, insecure
in general? Have you done stories where accessing
on the ground is just impossible and how do you
adapt to that problem? We take risks, I guess,
when we think that the story is worth taking
those risks and we try to mitigate for them as
much as possible. So a lot of people would have
said that it's impossible to go to Cabo Delgado
for a journalist. And indeed we were probably
one of, you know, I was probably one of a handful
of journalists who've been to Cabo Delgado in
the last few years. But I think that there is
other, it's about How can you tell the story?
So I think what you said about, you know, using
digital tools to investigate and with the invalid
cut work, right? Like I haven't never done anything
that comes even close to be as good, but you
know, that's definitely like a method that that
is worthwhile using because nobody wants to go
and die or be kidnapped. Of course, we should
use any method that is available. I think there
is a value in gathering testimonies on the ground.
But I think there has been cases of stories that
I'm currently working on. And then we have published
a specific one that comes to mind. about Nigeria
is based again in a very insecure area with a
lot of violence going on. And in those cases,
we can think about, can we outsource the work
in a safe way? What can we do? Because it's obviously
the risk for us, but if we send somebody else,
it's the risk that they are taking. and our duty
of care towards them. And if we're involving
sources on the ground, then they are taking our
duties of care towards them. So I think all these
conversations need to be had and there is no
right answer. It's very much case by case. But
I think that all should be done that is possible
to be doing safely without having to go to the
places. I think all these digital tools should
be used to their fullest. And then when they
fail, let's say, or when you reach that limitation,
then I think that's when you start thinking about
how can I do the work on the ground in a way
that safeguards myself and everyone else who
is involved. And I think those are very hard
questions to answer sometimes and require months
of work. And I cannot stress enough how we took
a year before we went to Mozambique just to organize
the trip and make sure that we were doing it
in a safe way. It's not like a one -off risk
assessment sort of checklist that you do in a
couple of days. Yeah, it takes work and time.
You mentioned earlier the Sentinel satellites
that you've used. Obviously we often use satellites
when access on the ground is difficult. And sometimes
there's no satellite coverage, which makes reporting
really digitally really hard. And you do have
to have those conversations about, okay, so How
do we gain eyes? How do we find a way to find
out what's happening there? And those can be
some hard questions to answer. In regards to
tools, and we've only got time for about two
more questions. In regards to tools and techniques,
digital ones, what are your go -to tools and
techniques that you use when you are doing the
digital side of your reporting? Yeah, I think
it really depends on the topic, but for example,
with Yeah, I'm sure lots of people here are going
to be familiar with ship tracking website, but
there's some really great open tools like Global
Fish and Watch. I use it a lot to track vessels.
It's very good. Some of the organisation I mentioned
before, I was just going through my story, Shadow
Cruise. I think that was about the sailors that
work on Shadow Fleet vessels. So we tracked them
down through Telegram, but then we used a website
called crewdata .com, which is kind of a LinkedIn
for Russian speaking sailors mostly. We got loads
of information from that website. I don't know
if it's still available, maybe you need a VPN.
But that was like, we got loads of information
from there. For that, we use like all sorts of
company's house or like company registries from
a variety of different countries. I mentioned
earlier Orbis is obviously very useful to find
out about companies and people. It kind of like,
I guess, yeah, satellite as I mentioned SkyTruth.
Yeah, trade companies like Kepler and we'll do
15 ,000 companies that do kind of the same job.
I think what I try to do, and every time I do
a new investigation, I kind of find new tools
that are new companies that are keen to help
out with different things. And they have got
their very niche specialism. I'm literally booked
in with another company that does ship tracking
that I'd never heard of in a couple of days to
check out there. their platform. So I almost
think like every time I've got a new beat or
like a new topic, I kind of try to like Google
or find companies that provide data that is relevant
for that specific topic, the forestation. Obviously
we've got the amazing Santara Atlas that covers
Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia, I think in
a few other countries. loads of other like a
differentiation platforms. So it's really dependent
on what topic you're looking at. And then we
do like a lot of Google search and a lot of social
media search, like just to find like, you know,
when we had the dark guard story, the story about
mercenaries working on shadow feed tankers, we
got the original crew data from like a lot of
different, the original crew data was like obtained
by the dossier center, and I can't really go
into how they got it. But we got loads, like
thousands and thousands of sailors that worked
on each other's feet. But then we just like used
Google and social media to try and find them.
And that was, you know, kind of unforgiving,
extremely boring, and extremely like a low rate
of success work. Yeah. And oftentimes that's
kind of the work that we do. I just spent two
hours this morning going through different vessels
on Global Fishing Watch and a big spreadsheet
to try and find sailors that worked on them.
So it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of not that
fancy. I'm going to have to push us a little
bit over time because I want to ask a final question.
But just as a quick aside on the tools, we had
a talk from Christian Panton, who's amazing.
He made a little tool called Sketchy Boats, which
you might like, which is a list of boats that
you probably need to be aware of, including some
of the ones in your investigation that he monitors
via a little tool. It's called Sketchy Boats,
the tool. So definitely check that out. Also
in this space, we have hashtag tools and sites,
which is a list of tools and sites that might
be useful. And we have the Bellingcat toolkit,
which is not just Bellingcat tools. It is a list
of open source tools, sorted by category. We
have a category on environment and have a little
look at that. There's lots of open source tools
in there, including many of the ones that you
just mentioned. So please do check that out.
Final question to wrap. because we've had, obviously
you're from source material. So we've had a lot
of questions about sources. And there's quite
a few, a bit of interest in how you get sources
to feel comfortable to talk to you and what aftercare
looks like when an investigation is about to
come out with those said sources. So perhaps
we can end on a little, a small overview of how
you. maintain source relationship? Um, I think
like something that is really helpful, um, for
me is that I don't work for a daily newspaper.
So I have plenty of time to develop relationships,
uh, with sources. My investigation take, you
know, from three months to a year and a half.
So, um, that time is, is probably the main thing
when it comes to building relationship with sources.
I think. It's kind of the usual thing when you're
interacting with another human being, be open
and honest about what you're trying to achieve.
I think there is no point promising things that
you can't deliver. You will not know if their
lives will be improved from you publishing the
article. It's not something you can promise and
it's very misleading. I think being clear on
your objectives and why you're trying to talk
to them and what their values are. what the value
is of talking to them. I think all those conversations
need to happen before you start having a conversation
about the story and the stuff that you want to
learn from them. I think that's kind of the basics.
And then just jumping to the aftercare, I think
that when I leave a place, let's say I've done
a reporting trip or even if I've done it all
digitally, There is usually quite a long time
between that and when the story gets published.
So it's important to maintain that relationship.
It's not like, oh, once I got what I want, I'm
out. It's kind of like, now we're staying in
contact, I keep you updated on what's going on.
If there is a delay, I'm explaining why there
is a delay. At the same time, once you do that,
you're kind of checking in on what's going on
with them because their situation might have
changed and it happened to us that you know someone's
situation might have changed and all of a sudden
it wasn't safe for them to be involved in even
anonymously in the in the piece so we just moved
them out and and I think just being I think a
lot of like it's very cultural as well I think
it's important to appreciate that not everybody
responds the same way to things like you know
people might be very blasé about the risks that
they're taking, or people might be very afraid.
So it's about judging as well, like, you know,
trying to get to know somebody enough that you
can judge when they respond in a certain way
to a certain question about their safety or their
wellbeing, what that actually means. Again, being
a kind of human being. And then, yeah, once we
publish, we usually inform them that the article
is about to be published, that there might be
like, you know, conversation around it. And then
once we've published, we check in. And then I'm
not going to pretend and say that, you know,
I'm in touch with all my sources. I've done all
my stories where it's of course not like. slowly
things move on and relationships come to a natural
end or there's a couple of cases where I'm still
friends or acquaintance with some of the source
I worked with. So it's just like a sort of naturally,
once you've sort of made sure that there's not
been any negative repercussions on them and all
is good, then that's it. I hope that answers.
Absolutely. And if you want to dive deeper into
that, as I mentioned, we had that amazing talk
with Eliza from the Fuller Project earlier this
year. I linked it in the chat. I'll link it in
the description of the podcast. It's called Protecting
the People Within Your Research, and she covers
a lot of this kind of source relationship stuff.
So please do check that out. So much love for
you in the chat, because thank you so, so much
for coming in and just... enlightening us with
your knowledge and your experience in this space.
As I mentioned in the chat, if you're interested
in talking about environment and wildlife stories,
we have hashtag environment, wildlife, and we
also have hashtag maritime. If you want to dig
into ship tracking, there's lots of experts in
that space as well, if you're ever looking for
sources cause. And I have linked the contact
email for source material if you want to get
in touch with Cassandra and I've tagged her within
the Discord as well in case you want to reach
out here. But yes, thank you so much for your
time and we'll be back in two weeks with another
stage talk. Thank you so much. It was fun. Thank
you for listening to the stage talk. If you'd
like to catch a stage tour live where you can
ask the guests questions, join the Bellingcat
Discord server by visiting www .discord .gg slash
Bellingcat. The music you've heard is titled
Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy of Artlist.