WEBVTT 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:05.519 You're listening to a stage talk titled Building 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:08.919 Environmental Investigations. This week we were 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:11.859 joined by Costanza Gambarini, an award -winning 00:00:11.859 --> 00:00:14.320 environmental journalist from the outlet Source 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.019 Material. Costanza walked us through some of 00:00:17.019 --> 00:00:19.179 her previous investigations and the obstacles 00:00:19.179 --> 00:00:22.100 she faced along the way, providing key insight 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:24.780 into what it's like to uncover information linking 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:27.640 governments and major multinationals to environmental 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:30.359 harm. You can find links to all the resources 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:32.600 mentioned in the talk in the podcast description. 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.299 This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Marr, on 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:38.619 Thursday the 16th of July, 2026, in the Bell 00:00:38.619 --> 00:00:53.840 and Captage Discord server. Thanks for coming, 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:57.030 all, to another Stage Talk. Environmental stories 00:00:57.030 --> 00:01:00.390 often involve complex supply chains, hidden corporate 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:04.090 structures and impacts that cross borders. Investigating 00:01:04.090 --> 00:01:06.709 them requires persistence, careful reporting 00:01:06.709 --> 00:01:09.329 and increasingly digital research techniques 00:01:09.329 --> 00:01:12.030 that can uncover evidence hidden in plain sight. 00:01:12.790 --> 00:01:16.170 Today's guest is Costanza Gambarini, an investigative 00:01:16.170 --> 00:01:18.590 journalist at SourceMaterial and the Press Awards 00:01:18.590 --> 00:01:20.950 Environmental Journalist of the Year. Congratulations 00:01:20.950 --> 00:01:24.590 again. Her reporting focuses on uncovering environmental 00:01:24.590 --> 00:01:27.069 wrongdoing and holding powerful actors to account 00:01:27.069 --> 00:01:29.489 through rigorous evidence -based investigations 00:01:29.489 --> 00:01:32.790 on everything from unregulated tankers leaking 00:01:32.790 --> 00:01:36.150 oil at sea to big data centers consuming water 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:39.109 in the driest of areas. In this conversation, 00:01:39.250 --> 00:01:42.650 we'll explore how she finds stories, builds investigations 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:45.329 from the ground up, combines digital research 00:01:45.329 --> 00:01:47.989 with traditional reporting, and the lessons she's 00:01:47.989 --> 00:01:49.859 learnt throughout her career. Whether you're 00:01:49.859 --> 00:01:52.859 an experienced investigative reporter or just 00:01:52.859 --> 00:01:54.920 starting to explore environmental journalism, 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:57.439 there should be plenty of practical insights 00:01:57.439 --> 00:02:00.640 to take away. As usual, you can place your questions 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:03.219 in the chat accessible on the right hand corner 00:02:03.219 --> 00:02:06.180 of your screen. But please remember that this 00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:09.219 is being audio recorded for the podcast, so if 00:02:09.219 --> 00:02:11.560 you don't want me to mention your username, please 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:15.039 add that as a note in your question. Okay, Koz, 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:17.949 over to you. Tell us about yourself and how you 00:02:17.949 --> 00:02:21.629 work and I'm going to mute myself. Thanks, Charlie, 00:02:21.710 --> 00:02:24.750 for the intro. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:29.050 me. My name is Costanza. I am an environmental 00:02:29.050 --> 00:02:32.430 journalist at SourceMaterial. Just a couple of 00:02:32.430 --> 00:02:36.310 words about me and SourceMaterial. So SourceMaterial 00:02:36.310 --> 00:02:39.550 is a small independent newsroom based in London. 00:02:40.189 --> 00:02:46.449 It's only six of us. And we do work around climate 00:02:46.449 --> 00:02:49.289 corruption and democracy, which is quite a big 00:02:49.289 --> 00:02:53.250 brief, but it gives us a lot of freedom to pursue 00:02:53.250 --> 00:02:57.870 investigations that we find interesting. And 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:03.189 I would say like how source material work is 00:03:03.189 --> 00:03:07.750 very much centered around collaboration. So both 00:03:07.750 --> 00:03:12.180 internally with my colleagues and then externally 00:03:12.180 --> 00:03:15.259 with our partner organizations. So we always 00:03:15.259 --> 00:03:18.439 publish with a larger media outlet here in the 00:03:18.439 --> 00:03:21.759 UK or in Europe and the rest of the world. So 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:25.740 that's kind of how we work. That's also a little 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:29.689 bit of a disclaimer for me that obviously All 00:03:29.689 --> 00:03:32.569 the stories that I do are very much in partnership 00:03:32.569 --> 00:03:35.289 with amazing other journalists, from a couple 00:03:35.289 --> 00:03:38.430 to like 40 journalists spread around Europe. 00:03:39.069 --> 00:03:40.889 So if I can't answer a question, it's probably 00:03:40.889 --> 00:03:42.990 because I didn't do that little bit of reporting 00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:45.889 that the question is about. And that's important 00:03:45.889 --> 00:03:48.990 to say, and also like one of the joys of journalism, 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:53.729 I guess. And then just a bit about me. I was 00:03:53.729 --> 00:03:55.610 a broadcast journalist for a few years. I worked 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.389 at the BBC in current affairs. and then I moved 00:03:58.389 --> 00:04:02.810 to source material three years ago. My work has 00:04:02.810 --> 00:04:05.530 really spawned a lot of different topics, but 00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:10.169 it's covered a lot of Russia -related things, 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:13.550 especially the shadow fleet, like Charlie mentioned. 00:04:14.669 --> 00:04:18.730 And then I've done quite a bit of work on the 00:04:18.730 --> 00:04:23.069 impact of passive fuel companies in various different 00:04:23.069 --> 00:04:28.250 places from Indonesia. to Mozambique, Kenya and 00:04:28.250 --> 00:04:33.310 others. So that's been another relatively new 00:04:33.310 --> 00:04:36.350 beat for me, but I produced a lot of work in 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:40.129 that area. So Charlie told me that the focus 00:04:40.129 --> 00:04:43.649 on my talk would be on three things. How do I 00:04:43.649 --> 00:04:46.290 come up with stories? What kind of methodologies 00:04:46.290 --> 00:04:50.189 I use? And then what are the risks associated 00:04:50.189 --> 00:04:53.250 to environmental journalism? So I will try to... 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:56.579 briefly go through those three things and then 00:04:56.579 --> 00:05:00.180 opening up to questions. How do I come up with 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:03.439 stories? It's obviously very different every 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:08.000 time. Two examples that I think can be interesting 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.180 for specifically this group are a story called 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:16.399 Indonesian exporters in palm oil probe supplied 00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:19.220 European fuel majors. I think Charlie will put 00:05:19.220 --> 00:05:21.620 the link in the chat if you want to have a look. 00:05:23.259 --> 00:05:28.680 So this story was about how there was a bunch 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:34.279 of arrests in Indonesia a few months back. And 00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:36.920 the RSCs were basically palm oil producers that 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.459 were suspected of being involved in fraud. And 00:05:39.459 --> 00:05:42.639 the fraud was specifically presenting crude palm 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:48.180 oil as Pome, which is a waste product. is treated 00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:51.899 differently in terms of taxation and also importing 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:56.819 into the European Union. That story started because 00:05:56.819 --> 00:06:01.680 an NGO that we sometimes use as a source had 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:05.100 access to interesting trade data showing that 00:06:05.100 --> 00:06:09.519 any Italian oil giant was importing crude palm 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:13.500 oil whilst they had previously said that they 00:06:13.500 --> 00:06:15.519 hadn't been doing that for years. And they went 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:18.600 on importing Palme, which is the waste product 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:22.300 I was talking about. We then tried to substantiate 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:28.180 that data from these trading platforms by getting 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:31.439 costume documents from the Italian customs. That 00:06:31.439 --> 00:06:34.779 was a six -month project that ended up an absolute 00:06:34.779 --> 00:06:39.480 failure. I spent an absurd amount of money phoning 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:45.379 Italy. I sent somebody to their... their offices 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:48.540 in Rome that were empty, aside for this one security 00:06:48.540 --> 00:06:53.060 guard who kindly asked us to leave. So then we 00:06:53.060 --> 00:06:56.180 kind of gave up and we tried the Indonesian customs 00:06:56.180 --> 00:07:00.819 and we actually got the documents. And the documents 00:07:00.819 --> 00:07:05.220 showed that the imports were vomit, the waste 00:07:05.220 --> 00:07:08.329 product. So we kind of killed the story. only 00:07:08.329 --> 00:07:10.209 a few months later for this arrest to happen 00:07:10.209 --> 00:07:12.709 and showing that these same companies that were 00:07:12.709 --> 00:07:17.649 named in our documents were indeed accused of 00:07:17.649 --> 00:07:21.209 exactly doing that kind of fraud. So we then 00:07:21.209 --> 00:07:24.569 published the story with AFP and I think it's 00:07:24.569 --> 00:07:27.589 a good reminder of how one source of data is 00:07:27.589 --> 00:07:30.529 never enough and you should really try to corroborate 00:07:31.870 --> 00:07:34.269 corroborate the data that you have, even though 00:07:34.269 --> 00:07:37.209 it's coming up in a really nice format from a 00:07:37.209 --> 00:07:43.129 reputable trading platform. But then if we didn't 00:07:43.129 --> 00:07:46.290 have this Indonesian customs data, we wouldn't 00:07:46.290 --> 00:07:48.790 have had the names of these other companies that 00:07:48.790 --> 00:07:52.089 ended up being involved in this investigation. 00:07:52.790 --> 00:07:56.540 So it was really... It was really interesting 00:07:56.540 --> 00:08:00.360 how getting multiple sources of data, of the 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:03.019 same data really landed to us being able to publish 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:08.459 the story. And then the other one I wanted to 00:08:08.459 --> 00:08:11.740 talk in terms of how do I come up with story 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:19.379 was Seeds of Doubt, a story about biofuel, biofuel 00:08:19.379 --> 00:08:23.639 production in Kenya. again involves any, maybe 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:27.660 I have something against Italian art majors being 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:33.580 Italian. But again, this story came from data. 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.600 So we had this trade data showing that there 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:41.460 was this large amount of rapeseed imports from 00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:43.659 South Africa to Kenya, and then from Kenya to 00:08:43.659 --> 00:08:50.480 Italy. And again, went against what any were 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:52.259 saying at the time, which was that they weren't 00:08:52.259 --> 00:08:55.340 using food crops to produce their biofuels, but 00:08:55.340 --> 00:08:58.279 they were actually using all this like caster 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:02.799 from the graded land, helping loads of Kenyan 00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:08.059 farmers having a better life. And just seeing 00:09:08.059 --> 00:09:11.279 this data led us to think like, okay, maybe that... 00:09:11.179 --> 00:09:13.500 that there is more to it, the story is quite 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:17.539 different. And then, which then led us to travel 00:09:17.539 --> 00:09:19.919 to Kenya to see it for ourselves and then found 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:23.419 out that, you know, the whole program was a joke, 00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:26.080 basically, and did an investigation about that. 00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:30.700 But again, that started with, with data. Oh, 00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:32.820 and an interesting, sorry, just like, so my own 00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:35.879 note, how we, we actually confirmed the trade 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:40.000 data in, in this case was quite funny. We found 00:09:40.350 --> 00:09:44.789 On Instagram, a company that was doing tank of 00:09:44.789 --> 00:09:50.659 humigation in Cape Town. And they videoed themselves 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:53.940 doing tanker fumigation. And in the videos, you 00:09:53.940 --> 00:09:57.259 could see this rapeseed, there's loads and loads 00:09:57.259 --> 00:10:00.460 of rapeseed on board these tankers. And the name 00:10:00.460 --> 00:10:02.259 of the tanker was mentioned, obviously Instagram 00:10:02.259 --> 00:10:06.779 had the date at which that post was posted. So 00:10:06.779 --> 00:10:09.340 we could compare the name of the tanker and the 00:10:09.340 --> 00:10:12.139 date to the trade data that we had and actually 00:10:12.139 --> 00:10:15.440 see for ourselves that the rapeseed was indeed. 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:18.159 on board these tankers in Cape Town, which then 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:22.200 went to Mombasa and then to Italy. So that was 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:32.980 quite funny. Moving on to the methodologies, 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:35.539 the investigative techniques, I guess, that I 00:10:35.539 --> 00:10:40.980 use for my investigations. Again, loads and loads 00:10:40.980 --> 00:10:45.039 of different ones. So it really depends on what 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:47.179 the investigation is about. I'm going to talk 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:51.320 about dark water, which was my first shadow fleet 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:56.919 investigation. That one looked at the environmental 00:10:56.919 --> 00:10:58.980 impact of the shadow fleet. In particular, we 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:02.700 were looking at oil slicks that were left around 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:05.159 the world. We tried to map all the oil slicks 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:09.059 left around the world by shadow fleet tankers. 00:11:09.940 --> 00:11:12.669 Shadow fleet being I'm sure everybody knows what 00:11:12.669 --> 00:11:16.389 a shop is, but it's just the tankers that move 00:11:16.389 --> 00:11:22.370 Russian oil and might be selling it above the 00:11:22.370 --> 00:11:26.730 price cap despite sanctions basically. For that 00:11:26.730 --> 00:11:30.610 one, we actually again partnered with an amazing 00:11:30.610 --> 00:11:33.929 NGO called Skytruth who'd been mapping oil slicks 00:11:33.929 --> 00:11:39.120 for all sorts of other reasons. They used Sentinel 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:44.200 -1 data, which is the European Space Agency program, 00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:47.500 to basically map the leaks and then they would 00:11:47.500 --> 00:11:50.879 review them manually. What we basically got them 00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:54.759 to do was to cross -reference those leaks with 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:58.639 the paths taken by shadow fleet vessels to identify 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.240 cases where it was shadow fleet tankers that 00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:04.019 were responsible for leaving those leaks. And 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:07.620 then what we did after, so we basically created 00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:11.820 a worldwide map of those lakes. And then we looked 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:15.159 into the vessels that were responsible and the 00:12:15.159 --> 00:12:17.740 companies that owned those vessels. And that 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:20.500 was like, you know, a whole lot of online research, 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:22.759 as you can imagine, using, you know, companies' 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:26.940 accounts. We used Orbis a lot. We are lucky enough 00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:29.159 to have access to that, although it's expiring 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:31.340 in August and I think it's not being renewed. 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:35.009 It's going to be in... the end of my investigations. 00:12:37.029 --> 00:12:39.269 So that was kind of like the basis of that story 00:12:39.269 --> 00:12:42.690 and the techniques we used. And then I guess 00:12:42.690 --> 00:12:46.490 the other one I can talk about is the data center 00:12:46.490 --> 00:12:51.190 story. And then if you have any questions about 00:12:51.190 --> 00:12:54.889 any other investigations I did, please ask in 00:12:54.889 --> 00:12:59.470 the Q &A. So this story was the big data center's 00:12:59.470 --> 00:13:01.870 push will take water from the world's driest 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:04.629 areas. pretty self explanatory title, but we 00:13:04.629 --> 00:13:10.230 looked at water consumption for data centers 00:13:10.230 --> 00:13:14.110 belonging to Amazon, Microsoft and Google specifically. 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:17.690 That was the first story that we did about data 00:13:17.690 --> 00:13:21.269 centers. So we didn't have any specific access. 00:13:21.610 --> 00:13:24.389 Later on, based on that story, we actually got 00:13:24.389 --> 00:13:28.269 a a leaked bunch of data from Amazon, from a 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:30.450 whistleblower, which was great. But at that point, 00:13:30.509 --> 00:13:34.850 we didn't have access to any leaked data or anything 00:13:34.850 --> 00:13:37.909 specific, so we just used what was publicly available. 00:13:39.029 --> 00:13:42.350 There was a company called Baxter that had a 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:47.110 public facing map of data centers belonging to 00:13:47.110 --> 00:13:49.809 these three companies. We then asked another 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:52.750 company called Data Center Map. if they could 00:13:52.750 --> 00:13:55.210 provide us with some more data, which they did. 00:13:55.649 --> 00:13:58.049 And then we just analyze a whole bunch of local 00:13:58.049 --> 00:14:03.009 reports about data centers being developed or 00:14:03.009 --> 00:14:07.429 already operational. And we combined all the 00:14:07.429 --> 00:14:10.730 sources in a big spreadsheet of, I think it was 00:14:10.730 --> 00:14:14.889 632 data centers that were either active or under 00:14:14.889 --> 00:14:19.320 development. And then we... overlapped the locations 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:23.019 of those data centers with a worldwide map of 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:27.500 water scarcity, which we got from Volcom, which 00:14:27.500 --> 00:14:32.220 is a UN backed initiative. And then basically 00:14:32.220 --> 00:14:35.519 we used that map to look at how many of these 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:38.720 data centers were located in area that were already 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:44.080 considered of water scarcity. Just to say like, 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.360 to give you an idea of how much we missed. When 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.940 we then got the whistleblower to give us the 00:14:50.940 --> 00:14:54.240 Amazon data, we then found out that Amazon alone 00:14:54.240 --> 00:15:00.019 already had 924 data centers that were operational. 00:15:00.700 --> 00:15:04.409 We had 632 for the three companies altogether. 00:15:05.070 --> 00:15:08.450 So it was quite a few that we missed, which kind 00:15:08.450 --> 00:15:11.889 of adds it to the point of how secretive companies 00:15:11.889 --> 00:15:17.269 are about their data centers. So skipping through 00:15:17.269 --> 00:15:23.490 to the risks associated to environmental journalists. 00:15:25.730 --> 00:15:31.149 I really thought about this one. I think a worthy 00:15:31.149 --> 00:15:35.350 mention as although maybe beyond the point of 00:15:35.350 --> 00:15:38.870 this talk, is really the risk taken by our sources 00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:42.730 when they talk to us. And that's physical risk, 00:15:42.750 --> 00:15:46.350 but also legal and financial risk. And I think 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.230 this is my second little disclaimer of my speech, 00:15:50.129 --> 00:15:53.049 but as much as digital techniques are really 00:15:53.049 --> 00:15:57.950 important and we do a lot of data work, I would 00:15:57.950 --> 00:16:02.980 say that at least half, if not more, of my job 00:16:02.980 --> 00:16:06.799 is still very much source -based and there's 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:09.340 still a lot of field work. I think it's easy 00:16:09.340 --> 00:16:13.860 to get excited about all the new tools that you 00:16:13.860 --> 00:16:16.779 can use to find out things and forget about the 00:16:16.779 --> 00:16:19.759 human element of the stories. I think that's 00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:21.679 beyond the scope of this talk, but if you want 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:23.320 to ask questions about it, of course, I'm happy 00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.519 to answer, but I just want you to highlight that 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:30.500 it's quite... It's still a very important part 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:35.820 of my job. But other risks, I think the legal 00:16:35.820 --> 00:16:39.440 risk is probably the one that comes to mind. 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:42.639 I'm based in the UK, so we have very strict libel 00:16:42.639 --> 00:16:47.019 laws. I think the most interesting thing with 00:16:47.019 --> 00:16:50.340 legal risk, and we've received our fair share 00:16:50.340 --> 00:16:56.659 of legal letters. My top one being for my Mozambique 00:16:56.659 --> 00:16:59.519 story, I received a letter from Schilling and 00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:01.720 specifically from the lawyer that defended Johnny 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:07.279 Depp in his trial, which was quite funny. But 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.900 I guess the interesting stuff about legal risk 00:17:11.900 --> 00:17:15.480 is how do you account for that and what do you 00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:19.809 do to make sure that... that you've got your 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:21.970 bases covered. And I think that the main thing 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:25.390 to think about is what can I do that would show 00:17:25.390 --> 00:17:28.950 a judge, you know, if we did get to like a court 00:17:28.950 --> 00:17:32.490 case that I behaved as a responsible journalist. 00:17:32.569 --> 00:17:35.089 And I do think that anything that you can do, 00:17:35.569 --> 00:17:38.329 it's worth doing because the risk is so big, 00:17:38.670 --> 00:17:43.670 even if it's like, you know, unlikely. And things 00:17:43.670 --> 00:17:45.910 like, you know, and that might mean, you know, 00:17:46.029 --> 00:17:51.839 a lengthy write to reply process or sending your 00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:55.859 more risky articles to lawyers to have a look 00:17:55.859 --> 00:17:59.279 at. There's been a lot of cases where we tried 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.940 to contact especially companies in very far away 00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:06.119 jurisdictions and we send them a letter and then 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:09.019 they never replied. But then if you can, make 00:18:09.019 --> 00:18:11.619 another phone call, find another email address, 00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:14.700 find another physical address. I always think 00:18:14.700 --> 00:18:18.490 it's worth doing. even though you know that 99 00:18:18.490 --> 00:18:21.309 % they're not going to reply to you, I think 00:18:21.309 --> 00:18:23.890 it's just like one of those things that it's 00:18:23.890 --> 00:18:25.710 a bit annoying, but definitely worth doing. And 00:18:25.710 --> 00:18:27.930 that's, I think the biggest risk, especially, 00:18:28.069 --> 00:18:30.710 you know, I work for a very small company, so 00:18:30.710 --> 00:18:36.269 a lawsuit would be potentially ending for us. 00:18:36.730 --> 00:18:41.170 So I think that's the main thing to think about. 00:18:41.289 --> 00:18:44.710 And then one last thing, when I think about risk 00:18:44.710 --> 00:18:49.099 is With environmental journalists or climate 00:18:49.099 --> 00:18:55.019 journalists, you are bound to work with NGOs 00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:58.839 and activists. And I think that the risk there 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:01.980 or like the thing that I do think about a lot 00:19:01.980 --> 00:19:07.299 is how can I use their amazing knowledge and 00:19:07.299 --> 00:19:13.500 access in a way that keeps me editorially dependent 00:19:13.500 --> 00:19:16.329 from you know, whatever their opinion or agenda 00:19:16.329 --> 00:19:21.670 is. So it's like really treating NGOs as sources 00:19:21.670 --> 00:19:24.970 for stories rather than partners while at the 00:19:24.970 --> 00:19:27.650 same time not putting them off working with you 00:19:27.650 --> 00:19:29.490 because, you know, that's a fundamental part 00:19:29.490 --> 00:19:33.410 of my job. And I think that that, you know, line 00:19:33.410 --> 00:19:36.190 between journalism and advocacy, it's something 00:19:36.190 --> 00:19:38.809 that I didn't have to think about when I was 00:19:38.809 --> 00:19:40.410 back at the BBC, but it's definitely something 00:19:40.410 --> 00:19:43.309 I think about a lot now that I work as source 00:19:43.309 --> 00:19:45.670 material. And I don't know if others have had 00:19:45.670 --> 00:19:48.250 the same experience or what you guys work, but 00:19:48.250 --> 00:19:50.529 I think it was something that came to my mind 00:19:50.529 --> 00:19:55.450 when I thought about risk. And I think that's 00:19:55.450 --> 00:19:59.970 it for me. I'm on 80 minutes. So happy to open 00:19:59.970 --> 00:20:03.210 up. You are so punctual. I love that you are 00:20:03.210 --> 00:20:07.569 continuously checking the clock. Bless you. Thank 00:20:07.569 --> 00:20:10.309 you so much for going through all those amazing 00:20:10.309 --> 00:20:12.690 investigations and giving us the lowdown really 00:20:12.690 --> 00:20:15.809 quickly as well on those. And yeah, pointing 00:20:15.809 --> 00:20:18.509 out some of the risks involved with your work. 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:22.049 For example, as you just mentioned, the NGO sector 00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:25.890 can be a wealth of information for source contacts 00:20:25.890 --> 00:20:29.210 as well, connecting you with the people that 00:20:29.210 --> 00:20:31.250 have lived experience of what you're reporting 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:34.150 on. But that can also turn into quite an exploitative 00:20:34.150 --> 00:20:37.160 relationship if you're not careful as well. And 00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:39.220 there is actually, we did have a stage talk on 00:20:39.220 --> 00:20:41.440 that a couple of months ago, which I'll link 00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:44.980 in the chat in a second, if you want to hear 00:20:44.980 --> 00:20:48.160 a little bit about how you kind of navigate that 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:52.119 space. I wanted to start off and ask you, and 00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:54.059 I know I'm taking you back through the points 00:20:54.059 --> 00:20:56.579 that you just covered, but I wanted to ask you, 00:20:56.640 --> 00:20:59.359 where do good environmental investigations come 00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:02.420 from in your opinion? What are you paying attention 00:21:02.420 --> 00:21:05.650 to? What are you monitoring regularly? as part 00:21:05.650 --> 00:21:08.930 of your work, maybe a little bit further away 00:21:08.930 --> 00:21:11.789 from kind of sources bringing it directly to 00:21:11.789 --> 00:21:14.430 you. Is there anywhere that you regularly monitor 00:21:14.430 --> 00:21:16.950 as an environmental journalist, just looking 00:21:16.950 --> 00:21:22.609 for stories? I would say that I, and I think 00:21:22.609 --> 00:21:25.250 maybe that's more personal taste, but I definitely 00:21:25.250 --> 00:21:29.289 read more analysis and feature journalism as 00:21:29.289 --> 00:21:35.009 opposed to straight off news. So like that, is 00:21:35.009 --> 00:21:37.329 often an inspiration. I think something that 00:21:37.329 --> 00:21:41.130 had led, for example, to my first Shadow Feet 00:21:41.130 --> 00:21:46.529 piece was, can we take something that is topical 00:21:46.529 --> 00:21:52.609 and look at it through a climate lens or an environment 00:21:52.609 --> 00:21:57.069 lens? Has the environment or climate story on 00:21:57.069 --> 00:22:00.990 the Shadow Feet been done when... There was already 00:22:00.990 --> 00:22:03.269 a lot being published about the shadow fleet, 00:22:03.750 --> 00:22:08.490 but maybe not through that lens. So I think that's 00:22:08.490 --> 00:22:13.390 a good way to find topics that have been discussed 00:22:13.390 --> 00:22:17.569 a lot. And same with maybe data centers, although 00:22:17.569 --> 00:22:21.369 the climate connection was a bit more immediate. 00:22:22.890 --> 00:22:26.390 But again, it was talked already from maybe electricity 00:22:26.390 --> 00:22:28.309 or emission point of view, maybe not a water 00:22:28.309 --> 00:22:31.769 one. So is there like, amongst things that have 00:22:31.769 --> 00:22:33.890 already been talked about, an angle that hasn't 00:22:33.890 --> 00:22:39.769 been explored that has that lens? Always looking 00:22:39.769 --> 00:22:43.109 for unique angles is basically what you're touching 00:22:43.109 --> 00:22:48.109 on, right? We had a question earlier from an 00:22:48.109 --> 00:22:51.769 audience member. They were asking, with your 00:22:51.769 --> 00:22:54.089 reporting, what piece is the most successful 00:22:54.089 --> 00:22:56.650 in leading to government action or changing public 00:22:56.650 --> 00:22:59.589 opinion? Did the framing of the story or the 00:22:59.589 --> 00:23:07.609 facts verification matter more? I think maybe 00:23:07.609 --> 00:23:11.089 the most successful piece that I produced has 00:23:11.089 --> 00:23:14.809 been my Mozambique work. So this was stories 00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:19.289 about Butal Energies LNG project in Northern 00:23:19.289 --> 00:23:24.670 Mozambique that had really worrying, a really 00:23:24.670 --> 00:23:27.839 worrying human rights track. could and exposing 00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:31.240 that. I think that brings me back a bit to what 00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:34.619 I was saying about the human angle and how that 00:23:34.619 --> 00:23:41.000 helps to give a data story. That story was initiated 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:43.880 by a bunch of documents that we obtained through 00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:50.900 FOI in Italy, but how making a story more personable 00:23:50.900 --> 00:23:54.910 by doing the field work really helps to bring 00:23:54.910 --> 00:23:57.630 it home with an audience and then hence, you 00:23:57.630 --> 00:24:01.730 know, give it more, you know, giving it a better 00:24:01.730 --> 00:24:05.190 chance of an impact. So in that case, you know, 00:24:05.210 --> 00:24:08.690 we got several, several governments to drop out 00:24:08.690 --> 00:24:15.210 from financing the LNG project. I think, sorry, 00:24:15.269 --> 00:24:17.170 I don't know if there was a question about presentation. 00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:19.809 Like I think, I think the data has to be strong. 00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.140 But I think that it has to be delivered in a 00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:27.640 way that is understandable to an audience that 00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:30.420 is not an audience of experts. And I think that 00:24:30.420 --> 00:24:33.359 really helps the fact that we work with partners 00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:38.599 that are usually through mainstream media in 00:24:38.599 --> 00:24:41.420 terms of like, you know, our website could be 00:24:41.420 --> 00:24:44.259 super nasty because nobody reads it that is not 00:24:44.259 --> 00:24:46.279 already interested in environmental journalism. 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:48.440 And so it's probably quite an expert audience 00:24:48.440 --> 00:24:50.960 in that sense, but we try to make our stories 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:55.849 not aimed at an expert audience. And that's why 00:24:55.849 --> 00:24:58.509 we're quite successful in partnering with mainstream 00:24:58.509 --> 00:25:00.890 media, which is why then we have a better impact. 00:25:01.150 --> 00:25:03.470 And I think that's a very important part of being 00:25:03.470 --> 00:25:07.730 an environmental journalist, because as any type 00:25:07.730 --> 00:25:09.990 of journalist, you do care about your stories 00:25:09.990 --> 00:25:11.710 having an impact because you care about the issues 00:25:11.710 --> 00:25:14.150 that you're writing about. I really want to touch 00:25:14.150 --> 00:25:17.490 on that collaboration part in a second, but just 00:25:17.490 --> 00:25:21.369 while we're on the Mozambique piece. As you mentioned 00:25:21.369 --> 00:25:26.769 earlier, risks are a real risk in environmental 00:25:26.769 --> 00:25:29.170 journalism. And particularly in this case, for 00:25:29.170 --> 00:25:30.849 example, some of the larger multinationals that 00:25:30.849 --> 00:25:32.509 you're reporting on, the gas company, for example, 00:25:32.970 --> 00:25:35.849 have troops on their paywall. What does your 00:25:35.849 --> 00:25:38.390 risk assessment look like before you start an 00:25:38.390 --> 00:25:40.730 investigation? Are you aware of the kind of powers 00:25:40.730 --> 00:25:43.609 of the companies that you're investigating have 00:25:43.609 --> 00:25:48.119 ahead of the investigation being commenced? Like 00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.619 what does the risk assessment look like for your 00:25:50.619 --> 00:25:54.000 team? I think we started, we're sort of a work 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:56.440 in progress to be honest. We've been doing some 00:25:56.440 --> 00:25:59.140 of the riskier things more recently and I think 00:25:59.140 --> 00:26:02.119 we've definitely have had some lessons learned. 00:26:04.140 --> 00:26:07.380 I think like one of them, for example, was when 00:26:07.380 --> 00:26:11.799 we've been doing all this like work on Russia. 00:26:12.490 --> 00:26:15.329 I know a lot of that for a couple of stories 00:26:15.329 --> 00:26:19.029 involved as being on telegram channels. And then 00:26:19.029 --> 00:26:21.150 we sort of realised like sort of halfway through 00:26:21.150 --> 00:26:23.450 that we were just using our normal phone numbers 00:26:23.450 --> 00:26:27.309 and you know, our password ones. And like, you 00:26:27.309 --> 00:26:30.750 know, just like logging into these conversations, 00:26:31.009 --> 00:26:35.089 like these group chats with, you know, who knows 00:26:35.089 --> 00:26:39.509 who. And, you know, there was quite a few of 00:26:39.509 --> 00:26:44.029 these things that I guess came from naivety that 00:26:44.029 --> 00:26:49.329 we did to begin with. And then now maybe we're 00:26:49.329 --> 00:26:54.950 a bit more careful with how we proceed with things, 00:26:55.809 --> 00:27:02.509 got VPNs and things. But I think the two things 00:27:02.509 --> 00:27:04.910 that we always think about before an investigation 00:27:04.910 --> 00:27:07.529 starts is where is going to be the legal risk? 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:10.759 And surprisingly, although some of these big 00:27:10.759 --> 00:27:14.359 companies are very good at sending legal letters, 00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:19.380 once the story is published, unless they really 00:27:19.380 --> 00:27:23.559 have strong grounds, they rarely pursue it. Or 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:25.680 that's been our experience, but sometimes it's 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:29.599 the individuals that get really pissed off. So 00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:34.000 actually we do pay a lot of legal attention to 00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:37.180 all the cases where we name specific individuals 00:27:37.180 --> 00:27:41.200 rather than just companies. And so that's one, 00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:43.380 the legal risk. And then the other thing that 00:27:43.380 --> 00:27:46.259 we think about a lot is the physical risk if 00:27:46.259 --> 00:27:48.200 we're going to report from places that we're 00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:50.359 going. So that's the most amazing example is 00:27:50.359 --> 00:27:52.900 a really good example for that. We had like a 00:27:52.900 --> 00:27:56.299 security companies that was basically monitoring 00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:59.119 us from a distance and was ready to extract us 00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:03.670 at 20. I hope not 24 hours, actually. I hope 00:28:03.670 --> 00:28:06.930 it was shorter than that. We did hostile environment 00:28:06.930 --> 00:28:10.789 training. There was a whole lot of things that 00:28:10.789 --> 00:28:14.690 had to go in place. Also working to guarantee 00:28:14.690 --> 00:28:16.230 the security of the people that we were going 00:28:16.230 --> 00:28:19.190 to talk to and what the aftercare was going to 00:28:19.190 --> 00:28:21.529 look like for the months after publication, what 00:28:21.529 --> 00:28:24.089 the anonymization was going to look like in order 00:28:24.089 --> 00:28:30.369 to avoid sort of... cross identification by saying, 00:28:30.569 --> 00:28:32.990 for example, which village something happened 00:28:32.990 --> 00:28:36.470 or something like that. So that's, I think, source 00:28:36.470 --> 00:28:38.109 protection and our own physical protection is 00:28:38.109 --> 00:28:39.609 probably the thing that we think about the most 00:28:39.609 --> 00:28:42.470 and then legal risk. Yeah, you have to be pretty 00:28:42.470 --> 00:28:45.930 confident, I think, in your reporting and what 00:28:45.930 --> 00:28:47.569 you're going to find as well, if you're going 00:28:47.569 --> 00:28:50.450 to take that much resource and that much risk 00:28:50.450 --> 00:28:54.049 to travel over and hire a security company and 00:28:54.049 --> 00:28:57.670 everything like that. It's a big gamble, but 00:28:57.839 --> 00:29:01.680 pays off a lot of the time. You talked about 00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:06.039 collaboration earlier, and obviously a lot of 00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:08.220 the time in environmental investigations, the 00:29:08.220 --> 00:29:10.819 investigation often crosses borders and disciplines. 00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:14.319 How do you work with other journalists and experts? 00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:17.279 And in your opinion, what makes an effective 00:29:17.279 --> 00:29:20.940 collaboration on environmental peace? I mean, 00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:23.140 as you said, that collaboration is kind of bread 00:29:23.140 --> 00:29:25.440 and butter of source material. I don't think 00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:28.400 necessarily every investigation needs to go to 00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:31.779 journalists from seven different countries. There 00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:34.200 is definitely like an argument that that very 00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:38.880 much complicates matters. But I do think that 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:41.480 the projects where I did work with a very large 00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:45.400 group of and cross -border that are those projects 00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:48.240 that are more international in nature themselves. 00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:53.019 shadow fleet projects, it was very helpful to 00:29:53.019 --> 00:29:55.420 have people distributed in different European 00:29:55.420 --> 00:29:57.779 countries that were dealing with the shadow fleet 00:29:57.779 --> 00:30:02.000 issues in different ways and could access different 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:05.000 sorts of documents and intelligence sources and 00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:08.700 all other sorts of sources and look at different 00:30:08.700 --> 00:30:11.779 data that was country specific. So that very 00:30:11.779 --> 00:30:16.400 much helps to build a more complete picture of 00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:19.400 an issue that is an international issue. that 00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:21.640 would have been possible if we were only tackling 00:30:21.640 --> 00:30:24.180 the issue from a UK perspective. For example, 00:30:24.579 --> 00:30:28.759 I would say even more important is to work with 00:30:28.759 --> 00:30:34.500 people, and that's both journalists and experts 00:30:34.500 --> 00:30:37.059 from the countries that you're talking about 00:30:37.059 --> 00:30:38.980 if you're not talking about your own country. 00:30:40.460 --> 00:30:42.839 And that's, I mean, I hope self -explanatory, 00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:47.980 but like, I can't stress enough how much of that 00:30:47.980 --> 00:30:52.960 and added value. Someone who's local and has 00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:55.180 lived experience of the issues that you're talking 00:30:55.180 --> 00:31:00.259 about is to do an investigation. So if I'm doing 00:31:00.259 --> 00:31:05.059 an investigation about plastic pollution in Ghana 00:31:05.059 --> 00:31:10.140 or the investigation I did on Mozambique or Indonesia, 00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:16.220 Kenya, they all relied on very good journalists 00:31:16.220 --> 00:31:20.039 from there and very good experts from there that 00:31:20.039 --> 00:31:22.220 had been spending the past 20 years looking at 00:31:22.220 --> 00:31:24.539 Tunisia was able to spend the last five minutes. 00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:28.000 So I think being able to acknowledge your limitations 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:33.200 and ask for help from people who are more knowledgeable 00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:35.579 than you is very much a big part of being an 00:31:35.579 --> 00:31:37.059 environmental journalist. And I think that's 00:31:37.059 --> 00:31:39.599 because you are tackling such a broad range of 00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:43.519 topics. No one is an expert. Like I never really 00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:45.559 knew anything about the shadow fleet before something 00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.319 writing about it or human rights in Mozambique. 00:31:48.660 --> 00:31:51.440 And I think, but I think that shouldn't discourage 00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:53.960 us from tackling these issues and bringing them 00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:57.099 to the attention of European readers, because, 00:31:57.660 --> 00:32:00.500 you know, very often edit or, you know, Western 00:32:00.500 --> 00:32:03.099 readers, because very often we're kind of the 00:32:03.099 --> 00:32:05.099 source of some of these issues being going on. 00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:08.940 But I think that that also requires a bit of 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:13.420 like, being a bit humble about exactly how much 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:18.319 we understand a topic. In data journalism, in 00:32:18.319 --> 00:32:20.779 environmental journalism, sorry, you're often 00:32:20.779 --> 00:32:24.160 dealing with huge amounts of data as well, right? 00:32:24.359 --> 00:32:27.559 So like having lots of newsroom eyes as well 00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:30.799 can be really useful for just dissecting that 00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:33.619 volume of data as well. It can be absolutely 00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:36.960 overwhelming. And if you are interested in working 00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:40.319 on environmental stories, We do have a space 00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:43.140 in the Discord called environment and wildlife 00:32:43.140 --> 00:32:45.920 and that's where we talk about those kinds of 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:49.460 things. We have quite a few people talking about 00:32:49.460 --> 00:32:52.400 data centers in the chat. As you can imagine, 00:32:52.660 --> 00:32:56.000 it annoys a lot of people that the world is being 00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.619 taken over by data centers. Subtle Knife, our 00:32:59.619 --> 00:33:01.500 moderator said earlier that there was a report 00:33:01.500 --> 00:33:03.500 the other day that there's one in the Netherlands 00:33:03.500 --> 00:33:06.480 that uses 1 % of the entire country's energy, 00:33:06.619 --> 00:33:10.069 which is crazy. We've had a question specifically, 00:33:10.109 --> 00:33:11.569 and I don't know if you're familiar with it, 00:33:11.849 --> 00:33:15.329 on the Stargate project. Somebody is asking for 00:33:15.329 --> 00:33:17.670 your opinion on it. I don't know if you are familiar 00:33:17.670 --> 00:33:20.069 with it or can speak a little bit about your 00:33:20.069 --> 00:33:22.190 experience maybe reporting on data centers in 00:33:22.190 --> 00:33:26.789 general. Yeah, I'm familiar with the Stargate 00:33:26.789 --> 00:33:31.250 project, but I think the main thing, this story 00:33:31.250 --> 00:33:34.539 has been like... It blew up when it was published. 00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:36.799 It's been one of our most successful stories 00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:39.740 and we followed it up with a few other stories 00:33:39.740 --> 00:33:44.660 that actually wasn't involved in. And it's obviously 00:33:44.660 --> 00:33:46.900 a really important topic just because of like, 00:33:47.019 --> 00:33:49.579 it just magnated of, you know, this data center 00:33:49.579 --> 00:33:53.400 boom happening all over the world. And also, 00:33:53.579 --> 00:33:55.619 as I said before, how secretive companies have 00:33:55.619 --> 00:33:58.200 been about it. I've done since quite a few speeches 00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:01.119 and I try always to steer away from giving my 00:34:01.119 --> 00:34:03.319 own opinion about data centers because I feel 00:34:03.319 --> 00:34:06.079 like it's kind of beyond the point of what my 00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:10.980 personal opinion is on them. And it's just the 00:34:10.980 --> 00:34:12.980 fact that it's an undeniable fact that this is 00:34:12.980 --> 00:34:15.440 happening. So I think an interesting question 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:17.980 was actually talking about, how about this with 00:34:17.980 --> 00:34:21.159 my colleague, Luke, who by the way, Luke Barrett, 00:34:21.340 --> 00:34:24.599 who's been working on our data center stories 00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:27.619 throughout. And if you're interested in data 00:34:27.619 --> 00:34:31.599 centers, he's your man. So you can contact him 00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:35.960 and look at sourcematerial .org. And he, I'm 00:34:35.960 --> 00:34:38.239 sure will be loving having a conversation about 00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:41.219 data centers. But I think an interesting thing 00:34:41.219 --> 00:34:44.260 would be like, how do we meet? We've now sort 00:34:44.260 --> 00:34:47.380 of exposed the scale of the energy consumption, 00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:49.480 all the problems that the water consumption, 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:52.360 all the problems that come with data centers 00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:55.460 and still data centers are happening. And so 00:34:55.460 --> 00:34:57.760 it's like what, for me, an interesting question 00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:04.179 could be like what does and can it exist a sustainable 00:35:04.179 --> 00:35:10.519 data centers? Like what would be like a good 00:35:10.519 --> 00:35:13.920 data center? Can we, what are the solutions? 00:35:14.519 --> 00:35:17.500 And I think that's maybe something that has been 00:35:17.500 --> 00:35:23.170 partially covered, but But that is worth looking 00:35:23.170 --> 00:35:25.869 at just because I don't know what other people 00:35:25.869 --> 00:35:29.190 think, but to me, it almost felt like an inevitability 00:35:29.190 --> 00:35:36.170 of how we're consuming AI now that data centers 00:35:36.170 --> 00:35:39.869 are being developed all over the world. Yeah, 00:35:39.869 --> 00:35:42.030 I'd love to read a solutions -based journalism 00:35:42.030 --> 00:35:44.909 piece on data centers and see what alternatives 00:35:44.909 --> 00:35:47.489 are out there. That would be really interesting. 00:35:47.730 --> 00:35:50.929 I am also not familiar with. a story like that. 00:35:50.989 --> 00:35:53.989 If anyone has come across any, please pop them 00:35:53.989 --> 00:35:57.110 in the chat. I'd love to read that. Flicking 00:35:57.110 --> 00:36:01.170 slightly back again to collaborations, somebody 00:36:01.170 --> 00:36:03.050 asked a question while you were talking through 00:36:03.050 --> 00:36:05.789 that. They said, how do you manage multiple languages 00:36:05.789 --> 00:36:08.289 in this work? Or how do you ask for experts to 00:36:08.289 --> 00:36:10.510 pass data or teach you to pass data yourself? 00:36:10.610 --> 00:36:12.909 Like, do you pay them to help you or ask for 00:36:12.909 --> 00:36:15.710 in -kind help? I think the question is really 00:36:15.710 --> 00:36:18.610 kind of like, how do you get that expertise? 00:36:19.099 --> 00:36:21.480 How do you approach people about that expertise? 00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:29.139 So with our partners, we don't, well, first of 00:36:29.139 --> 00:36:34.000 all, we don't sell our stories. So we are philanthropically 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:39.579 funded and we offer our expertise for free. It's 00:36:39.579 --> 00:36:42.360 basically like, we kind of offer investigative 00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:45.199 capacity. I guess the newsroom set might not 00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:48.639 have as much investigative capacity as they should. 00:36:49.720 --> 00:36:54.320 to focus on these kinds of stories. In terms 00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:56.139 of managing different languages across different 00:36:56.139 --> 00:37:01.400 regions, if there is a language barrier, we usually 00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:06.019 have translators or we find the way around it. 00:37:06.219 --> 00:37:10.380 It's never been a limiting issue in terms of 00:37:10.380 --> 00:37:12.380 whether we would decide to work or collaborate 00:37:12.380 --> 00:37:16.889 with an individual or an organization. And then 00:37:16.889 --> 00:37:19.030 obviously everybody publishes their stories in 00:37:19.030 --> 00:37:22.929 their own language. In terms of the expertise, 00:37:24.110 --> 00:37:30.070 we absolutely do not pay sources or experts who 00:37:30.070 --> 00:37:38.590 are quoted in our stories or provide expertise 00:37:38.590 --> 00:37:42.349 that goes into the story. We credit them, Julie. 00:37:42.730 --> 00:37:45.909 In the stories, we never claimed that any data 00:37:45.909 --> 00:37:49.190 that didn't belong to us would belong to us. 00:37:49.590 --> 00:37:51.650 We credit the organizations that provided us 00:37:51.650 --> 00:37:56.329 with the data as sources. We are very transparent 00:37:56.329 --> 00:37:58.989 about our process for crediting and how people 00:37:58.989 --> 00:38:01.469 are credited and we agree on everything in advance 00:38:01.469 --> 00:38:08.250 so that it's perceived as a fair exchange for 00:38:08.250 --> 00:38:14.380 everyone. I don't know, I really feel like there's 00:38:14.380 --> 00:38:16.260 very few instances where we've paid somebody. 00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:20.059 We obviously pay lawyers for their expert opinion, 00:38:20.940 --> 00:38:24.420 but anyone who could be even remotely perceived 00:38:24.420 --> 00:38:30.539 as a source, we wouldn't pay for ethical editorial 00:38:30.539 --> 00:38:34.900 reasons. So yeah, we have had also a lot of no's, 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:37.760 especially from satellite companies that never 00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:44.159 want to give their data for free. But yeah, usually 00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:47.619 we find a way. And there's amazing organizations 00:38:47.619 --> 00:38:50.659 around that really like a lot of people that 00:38:50.659 --> 00:38:54.920 really do a lot of work with us. Like Data Desk 00:38:54.920 --> 00:38:58.760 is one that comes to mind. Loads of like SkyTree 00:38:58.760 --> 00:39:01.079 that I mentioned earlier. There's so many organizations 00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:05.119 that really do great work. Yeah. And that's exactly 00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:07.340 how Bellingcat works with our collaborations 00:39:07.340 --> 00:39:11.210 as well. very similar formats, I think, in terms 00:39:11.210 --> 00:39:13.510 of exchanging resources and exchanging knowledge. 00:39:14.230 --> 00:39:18.449 Sometimes we don't even co -publish. For example, 00:39:18.630 --> 00:39:20.929 sometimes we might just be helping out a newsroom. 00:39:21.590 --> 00:39:24.190 Most occasions we do try to aim for co -publication. 00:39:24.670 --> 00:39:26.949 And on that point, as we're talking about collaboration, 00:39:27.250 --> 00:39:30.289 Jane asked earlier, when you have a finding that 00:39:30.289 --> 00:39:32.679 you want the public to know about, How do you 00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:34.840 go about spreading that to the general public? 00:39:35.099 --> 00:39:37.440 My outlet has struggled with that. You mentioned 00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.519 earlier about how your site doesn't have much 00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:41.760 traffic. So how do you get your stories out there? 00:39:42.159 --> 00:39:46.400 How do you make an impact with them? Yeah, as 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.480 I said before, unfortunately, not really through 00:39:50.480 --> 00:39:54.760 our website. Although I think our website does 00:39:54.760 --> 00:39:59.719 fulfill an important purpose, which is to showcase 00:39:59.719 --> 00:40:02.500 our work to the wider community of journalists, 00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:05.679 investigative environment, or whatever that can, 00:40:06.019 --> 00:40:08.900 you know, when we, we have some established partnerships 00:40:08.900 --> 00:40:11.360 because with, you know, media outlet that we've 00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.000 published multiple investigations with, and like, 00:40:14.199 --> 00:40:18.199 when we go to them with a new thing, you know, 00:40:18.280 --> 00:40:22.400 already know who we are and trust us to do, to 00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:25.639 do solid work. But when we approach new partners, 00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:29.929 having our website, showcasing our previous work, 00:40:30.110 --> 00:40:34.650 it definitely helps to get that partnership going 00:40:34.650 --> 00:40:40.329 and build trust. I would say that our website 00:40:40.329 --> 00:40:46.050 is meant for a more specialized audience of journalists. 00:40:46.710 --> 00:40:51.050 I think the partner publication is the place 00:40:51.050 --> 00:40:53.559 where the impact happens and where you know, 00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:55.860 the public is reached. And that's why for us 00:40:55.860 --> 00:40:58.480 is a hard rule. Like we do not publish anything 00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:00.800 without an media partner on board. Like we're 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:04.739 not, we might begin like this and like sort of 00:41:04.739 --> 00:41:08.519 scoping around, but it's, we, we try to get a 00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:11.159 partner on board as early as possible, both because 00:41:11.159 --> 00:41:13.039 we think it's important to develop a story with 00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:15.340 a partner because different partners will have 00:41:15.340 --> 00:41:17.659 an interest in different angles. They will, you 00:41:17.659 --> 00:41:21.269 know, they very often is not always able to provide 00:41:21.269 --> 00:41:25.510 their own expertise, access, and everything else. 00:41:25.530 --> 00:41:27.630 So they're very much a core part of the reporting 00:41:27.630 --> 00:41:29.809 process. They're not just publishing partners 00:41:29.809 --> 00:41:34.190 in the vast majority of cases, but also because 00:41:34.190 --> 00:41:37.210 we believe that that's where the impact happens. 00:41:38.369 --> 00:41:40.969 That's an interesting hard line to take that 00:41:40.969 --> 00:41:43.909 you don't publish anything as an independent 00:41:43.909 --> 00:41:46.750 newsroom. And Jane's followed up with that and 00:41:46.750 --> 00:41:49.309 said, how do you go about reaching out to potential 00:41:49.309 --> 00:41:51.889 partners? And says, we've never had one long 00:41:51.889 --> 00:41:55.309 term. So what does that initial outreach look 00:41:55.309 --> 00:41:57.789 like? Is it a cold email? Is it a phone call? 00:41:59.369 --> 00:42:02.369 It really depends. Like my editor always says 00:42:02.369 --> 00:42:04.829 that we are not allowed to use the word pitching. 00:42:05.949 --> 00:42:08.429 So we do not send pitches and we do not pitch 00:42:08.429 --> 00:42:18.849 our stories. Which basically means that we don't 00:42:18.849 --> 00:42:26.250 try to hard sell ourselves at all. We usually 00:42:26.250 --> 00:42:28.989 try to go for reporters because we really want 00:42:28.989 --> 00:42:30.829 our partners to be hands on and we find that 00:42:30.829 --> 00:42:34.409 sometimes going to editors means that the thing 00:42:34.409 --> 00:42:36.969 either needs to be already ready or they're very 00:42:36.969 --> 00:42:39.570 busy doing lots of different things. So we try 00:42:39.570 --> 00:42:43.360 to go to reporters that we think Sometimes we 00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:44.920 already know them because we're all journalists 00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:46.679 that worked at different newsrooms beforehand. 00:42:47.139 --> 00:42:49.340 But even if we don't know them, we try to find 00:42:49.340 --> 00:42:52.239 somebody who has been publishing stuff about 00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:57.000 the topic that we are aiming to tackle and that 00:42:57.000 --> 00:42:59.500 we think would genuinely be interested in the 00:42:59.500 --> 00:43:03.619 investigation. And we have a contact we can find, 00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:06.460 but we usually just say like, oh, we're source 00:43:06.460 --> 00:43:09.260 material. This is our website. This is what we 00:43:09.260 --> 00:43:12.550 do. And we have like a story that we think could 00:43:12.550 --> 00:43:14.090 be interesting for you. Do you want to have a 00:43:14.090 --> 00:43:16.909 chat? We don't really send anything more than 00:43:16.909 --> 00:43:19.309 that most of the times. And then, you know, if 00:43:19.309 --> 00:43:21.610 they say, yeah, I'm curious, let's have a chat. 00:43:22.090 --> 00:43:24.949 And we have a chat, you know, about the story. 00:43:25.030 --> 00:43:28.389 And if they're interested, we kind of crack on 00:43:28.389 --> 00:43:30.809 from there. We're trying to be a little bit more 00:43:30.809 --> 00:43:33.670 systematic now with sort of laying out maybe 00:43:33.670 --> 00:43:35.730 like in just an email, we don't have any like 00:43:35.730 --> 00:43:39.690 sort of form. or specific NDAs or anything like 00:43:39.690 --> 00:43:43.050 that. But we tried to lay out a little bit of 00:43:43.050 --> 00:43:45.849 the collaboration and the aim of the collaboration, 00:43:45.969 --> 00:43:51.389 how we collaborate in writing now after a few 00:43:51.389 --> 00:43:57.230 experiences that didn't go quite as well. But 00:43:57.230 --> 00:44:00.369 I think the overarching thing that we say is 00:44:00.369 --> 00:44:03.329 that we're pulling all the resources or all the 00:44:03.329 --> 00:44:05.610 knowledge that any partner has at any point needs 00:44:05.610 --> 00:44:07.980 to be pulled in. Uh, everybody has access to 00:44:07.980 --> 00:44:13.119 everything at all times. Uh, beyond that, we 00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:15.780 sort of agree on who's doing what on a daily 00:44:15.780 --> 00:44:17.760 or on a sort of like weekly basis, whatever it 00:44:17.760 --> 00:44:20.360 is. But, um, but then like, we're very free to 00:44:20.360 --> 00:44:22.699 publish whatever we want to publish. So we don't 00:44:22.699 --> 00:44:25.260 just do copies of this, like, we don't just publish 00:44:25.260 --> 00:44:28.360 the same copy. If, if, you know, our partner 00:44:28.360 --> 00:44:32.159 wants to like publish it, you know, 5 ,000 words 00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:35.739 piece with a specific focus. We don't have to 00:44:35.739 --> 00:44:37.760 publish the same equally if they want to publish 00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:42.280 a news piece of 150 words. That's what they want 00:44:42.280 --> 00:44:45.579 to do. That's fine as well. So we're then very 00:44:45.579 --> 00:44:50.380 free to kind of do our own thing beyond that. 00:44:51.500 --> 00:44:55.380 Yeah. At Bellingcat it's called a Memorium of 00:44:55.380 --> 00:44:59.159 Understanding, MOU. That's usually the document's 00:44:59.159 --> 00:45:04.039 name. Yeah, it's super super useful to kind of 00:45:04.039 --> 00:45:06.920 just plot out each partner's responsibilities. 00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:10.360 In regards to environmental investigations, often 00:45:10.360 --> 00:45:14.460 you can start an investigation and have impact, 00:45:14.539 --> 00:45:16.840 but you're not necessarily going to solve the 00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:18.880 environmental issue that you're reporting on 00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:22.159 because it's just too massive. What do you... 00:45:22.269 --> 00:45:26.230 source material declare as, thank you Sussan 00:45:26.230 --> 00:45:28.829 and I if you're right, memoranda of understanding 00:45:28.829 --> 00:45:32.809 is exactly the wording. What do you kind of mark 00:45:32.809 --> 00:45:37.369 as impact in regards to a successful investigation? 00:45:37.809 --> 00:45:40.929 What would you deem a successful investigation 00:45:40.929 --> 00:45:47.170 when it comes to environmental? I think what 00:45:47.170 --> 00:45:51.510 we count as impact is really not in the sort 00:45:51.510 --> 00:45:55.809 of like viewing stats and sort of how many social 00:45:55.809 --> 00:46:00.210 media likes we get. Also because being published 00:46:00.210 --> 00:46:02.389 with partners that we don't really have access 00:46:02.389 --> 00:46:05.590 to any of that information, but we try to focus 00:46:05.590 --> 00:46:09.389 on real world impact. So whether that's like 00:46:09.389 --> 00:46:16.670 policy change or investment not going anymore 00:46:16.670 --> 00:46:24.849 to the company that we exposed. We've had quite 00:46:24.849 --> 00:46:28.650 a bit of success since early on. Before I even 00:46:28.650 --> 00:46:33.309 joined my company, we did a lot of work on carbon 00:46:33.309 --> 00:46:37.030 offsetting. We did that for a story with The 00:46:37.030 --> 00:46:41.070 Guardian that basically broke the carbon offsetting 00:46:41.070 --> 00:46:46.710 market. We tried to, after that, continue to 00:46:46.710 --> 00:46:50.340 do to do the sort of investigation that really 00:46:50.340 --> 00:47:01.440 can lead to change. My editor mentioned the other 00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:06.619 day some figure about how many millions of dollars 00:47:06.619 --> 00:47:10.639 of impact we've had, which is a very crude way 00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:14.760 to describe our impact, but also very effective 00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:19.420 if you think about how much money... at a very 00:47:19.420 --> 00:47:26.099 basic level these companies have and these industries 00:47:26.099 --> 00:47:30.219 are worse. So yeah, I think the two things are 00:47:30.219 --> 00:47:36.400 really like policy change and just an astral 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:40.260 impact. Thanks for that insight. We've got about 00:47:40.260 --> 00:47:42.940 10 minutes left. So if anyone has any questions, 00:47:43.340 --> 00:47:46.670 now is the time to ask them. We had a question 00:47:46.670 --> 00:47:51.590 earlier about opportunities for applying environmental 00:47:51.590 --> 00:47:53.769 OSINT methods in conflict settings, like Sudan. 00:47:54.550 --> 00:47:58.210 I can say from Bellingcat's side, there's absolutely 00:47:58.210 --> 00:48:00.389 opportunities for applying environmental OSINT 00:48:00.389 --> 00:48:04.230 methods in those settings. It's needed in lots 00:48:04.230 --> 00:48:07.510 of different conflicts around the world. But 00:48:07.510 --> 00:48:10.909 in terms of your experience, Costanza, where... 00:48:11.210 --> 00:48:14.530 Does the way that you report and the way that 00:48:14.530 --> 00:48:18.230 you approach stories differ if the area that 00:48:18.230 --> 00:48:23.010 you're reporting on is hard to access, insecure 00:48:23.010 --> 00:48:27.389 in general? Have you done stories where accessing 00:48:27.389 --> 00:48:30.250 on the ground is just impossible and how do you 00:48:30.250 --> 00:48:43.110 adapt to that problem? We take risks, I guess, 00:48:44.090 --> 00:48:47.690 when we think that the story is worth taking 00:48:47.690 --> 00:48:50.389 those risks and we try to mitigate for them as 00:48:50.389 --> 00:48:52.550 much as possible. So a lot of people would have 00:48:52.550 --> 00:48:55.030 said that it's impossible to go to Cabo Delgado 00:48:55.030 --> 00:48:58.130 for a journalist. And indeed we were probably 00:48:58.130 --> 00:49:01.210 one of, you know, I was probably one of a handful 00:49:01.210 --> 00:49:03.150 of journalists who've been to Cabo Delgado in 00:49:03.150 --> 00:49:07.250 the last few years. But I think that there is 00:49:07.250 --> 00:49:11.099 other, it's about How can you tell the story? 00:49:11.539 --> 00:49:15.579 So I think what you said about, you know, using 00:49:15.579 --> 00:49:19.599 digital tools to investigate and with the invalid 00:49:19.599 --> 00:49:22.219 cut work, right? Like I haven't never done anything 00:49:22.219 --> 00:49:24.980 that comes even close to be as good, but you 00:49:24.980 --> 00:49:29.489 know, that's definitely like a method that that 00:49:29.489 --> 00:49:33.630 is worthwhile using because nobody wants to go 00:49:33.630 --> 00:49:38.269 and die or be kidnapped. Of course, we should 00:49:38.269 --> 00:49:40.590 use any method that is available. I think there 00:49:40.590 --> 00:49:44.489 is a value in gathering testimonies on the ground. 00:49:45.750 --> 00:49:48.090 But I think there has been cases of stories that 00:49:48.090 --> 00:49:51.809 I'm currently working on. And then we have published 00:49:51.809 --> 00:49:55.860 a specific one that comes to mind. about Nigeria 00:49:55.860 --> 00:50:00.920 is based again in a very insecure area with a 00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:03.780 lot of violence going on. And in those cases, 00:50:04.579 --> 00:50:11.519 we can think about, can we outsource the work 00:50:11.519 --> 00:50:15.119 in a safe way? What can we do? Because it's obviously 00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:17.239 the risk for us, but if we send somebody else, 00:50:17.400 --> 00:50:19.789 it's the risk that they are taking. and our duty 00:50:19.789 --> 00:50:22.230 of care towards them. And if we're involving 00:50:22.230 --> 00:50:24.849 sources on the ground, then they are taking our 00:50:24.849 --> 00:50:27.650 duties of care towards them. So I think all these 00:50:27.650 --> 00:50:29.489 conversations need to be had and there is no 00:50:29.489 --> 00:50:34.230 right answer. It's very much case by case. But 00:50:34.230 --> 00:50:38.369 I think that all should be done that is possible 00:50:38.369 --> 00:50:42.269 to be doing safely without having to go to the 00:50:42.269 --> 00:50:46.130 places. I think all these digital tools should 00:50:46.130 --> 00:50:50.460 be used to their fullest. And then when they 00:50:50.460 --> 00:50:53.739 fail, let's say, or when you reach that limitation, 00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:56.400 then I think that's when you start thinking about 00:50:56.400 --> 00:50:59.460 how can I do the work on the ground in a way 00:50:59.460 --> 00:51:01.519 that safeguards myself and everyone else who 00:51:01.519 --> 00:51:03.340 is involved. And I think those are very hard 00:51:03.340 --> 00:51:06.420 questions to answer sometimes and require months 00:51:06.420 --> 00:51:10.119 of work. And I cannot stress enough how we took 00:51:10.119 --> 00:51:12.719 a year before we went to Mozambique just to organize 00:51:12.719 --> 00:51:15.380 the trip and make sure that we were doing it 00:51:15.380 --> 00:51:20.090 in a safe way. It's not like a one -off risk 00:51:20.090 --> 00:51:23.090 assessment sort of checklist that you do in a 00:51:23.090 --> 00:51:26.530 couple of days. Yeah, it takes work and time. 00:51:27.369 --> 00:51:30.570 You mentioned earlier the Sentinel satellites 00:51:30.570 --> 00:51:35.090 that you've used. Obviously we often use satellites 00:51:35.090 --> 00:51:38.769 when access on the ground is difficult. And sometimes 00:51:38.769 --> 00:51:41.610 there's no satellite coverage, which makes reporting 00:51:41.610 --> 00:51:43.929 really digitally really hard. And you do have 00:51:43.929 --> 00:51:46.440 to have those conversations about, okay, so How 00:51:46.440 --> 00:51:51.099 do we gain eyes? How do we find a way to find 00:51:51.099 --> 00:51:54.400 out what's happening there? And those can be 00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:58.280 some hard questions to answer. In regards to 00:51:58.280 --> 00:51:59.900 tools, and we've only got time for about two 00:51:59.900 --> 00:52:02.260 more questions. In regards to tools and techniques, 00:52:02.440 --> 00:52:05.880 digital ones, what are your go -to tools and 00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:08.159 techniques that you use when you are doing the 00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:12.239 digital side of your reporting? Yeah, I think 00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:15.019 it really depends on the topic, but for example, 00:52:15.139 --> 00:52:17.809 with Yeah, I'm sure lots of people here are going 00:52:17.809 --> 00:52:20.789 to be familiar with ship tracking website, but 00:52:20.789 --> 00:52:25.809 there's some really great open tools like Global 00:52:25.809 --> 00:52:30.429 Fish and Watch. I use it a lot to track vessels. 00:52:31.110 --> 00:52:33.989 It's very good. Some of the organisation I mentioned 00:52:33.989 --> 00:52:38.269 before, I was just going through my story, Shadow 00:52:38.269 --> 00:52:42.230 Cruise. I think that was about the sailors that 00:52:42.230 --> 00:52:45.619 work on Shadow Fleet vessels. So we tracked them 00:52:45.619 --> 00:52:48.320 down through Telegram, but then we used a website 00:52:48.320 --> 00:52:50.719 called crewdata .com, which is kind of a LinkedIn 00:52:50.719 --> 00:52:57.960 for Russian speaking sailors mostly. We got loads 00:52:57.960 --> 00:53:00.320 of information from that website. I don't know 00:53:00.320 --> 00:53:02.000 if it's still available, maybe you need a VPN. 00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:08.000 But that was like, we got loads of information 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:13.780 from there. For that, we use like all sorts of 00:53:14.980 --> 00:53:18.219 company's house or like company registries from 00:53:18.219 --> 00:53:21.320 a variety of different countries. I mentioned 00:53:21.320 --> 00:53:24.039 earlier Orbis is obviously very useful to find 00:53:24.039 --> 00:53:30.539 out about companies and people. It kind of like, 00:53:30.579 --> 00:53:36.179 I guess, yeah, satellite as I mentioned SkyTruth. 00:53:42.009 --> 00:53:47.849 Yeah, trade companies like Kepler and we'll do 00:53:47.849 --> 00:53:51.050 15 ,000 companies that do kind of the same job. 00:53:55.440 --> 00:53:58.900 I think what I try to do, and every time I do 00:53:58.900 --> 00:54:00.980 a new investigation, I kind of find new tools 00:54:00.980 --> 00:54:04.760 that are new companies that are keen to help 00:54:04.760 --> 00:54:07.800 out with different things. And they have got 00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:10.980 their very niche specialism. I'm literally booked 00:54:10.980 --> 00:54:14.480 in with another company that does ship tracking 00:54:14.480 --> 00:54:19.300 that I'd never heard of in a couple of days to 00:54:19.300 --> 00:54:23.860 check out there. their platform. So I almost 00:54:23.860 --> 00:54:26.820 think like every time I've got a new beat or 00:54:26.820 --> 00:54:31.960 like a new topic, I kind of try to like Google 00:54:31.960 --> 00:54:37.039 or find companies that provide data that is relevant 00:54:37.039 --> 00:54:39.639 for that specific topic, the forestation. Obviously 00:54:39.639 --> 00:54:42.340 we've got the amazing Santara Atlas that covers 00:54:42.340 --> 00:54:45.900 Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia, I think in 00:54:45.900 --> 00:54:50.000 a few other countries. loads of other like a 00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:52.239 differentiation platforms. So it's really dependent 00:54:52.239 --> 00:54:56.320 on what topic you're looking at. And then we 00:54:56.320 --> 00:54:58.760 do like a lot of Google search and a lot of social 00:54:58.760 --> 00:55:03.059 media search, like just to find like, you know, 00:55:03.119 --> 00:55:07.059 when we had the dark guard story, the story about 00:55:07.059 --> 00:55:09.820 mercenaries working on shadow feed tankers, we 00:55:09.820 --> 00:55:12.460 got the original crew data from like a lot of 00:55:12.460 --> 00:55:16.190 different, the original crew data was like obtained 00:55:16.190 --> 00:55:18.170 by the dossier center, and I can't really go 00:55:18.170 --> 00:55:20.809 into how they got it. But we got loads, like 00:55:20.809 --> 00:55:26.050 thousands and thousands of sailors that worked 00:55:26.050 --> 00:55:28.710 on each other's feet. But then we just like used 00:55:28.710 --> 00:55:31.389 Google and social media to try and find them. 00:55:31.489 --> 00:55:34.670 And that was, you know, kind of unforgiving, 00:55:35.409 --> 00:55:38.710 extremely boring, and extremely like a low rate 00:55:38.710 --> 00:55:43.579 of success work. Yeah. And oftentimes that's 00:55:43.579 --> 00:55:46.039 kind of the work that we do. I just spent two 00:55:46.039 --> 00:55:50.440 hours this morning going through different vessels 00:55:50.440 --> 00:55:55.019 on Global Fishing Watch and a big spreadsheet 00:55:55.019 --> 00:55:58.840 to try and find sailors that worked on them. 00:55:59.940 --> 00:56:03.599 So it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of not that 00:56:03.599 --> 00:56:07.739 fancy. I'm going to have to push us a little 00:56:07.739 --> 00:56:10.260 bit over time because I want to ask a final question. 00:56:10.480 --> 00:56:13.440 But just as a quick aside on the tools, we had 00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:15.920 a talk from Christian Panton, who's amazing. 00:56:15.980 --> 00:56:18.840 He made a little tool called Sketchy Boats, which 00:56:18.840 --> 00:56:21.480 you might like, which is a list of boats that 00:56:21.480 --> 00:56:24.320 you probably need to be aware of, including some 00:56:24.320 --> 00:56:27.539 of the ones in your investigation that he monitors 00:56:27.539 --> 00:56:30.500 via a little tool. It's called Sketchy Boats, 00:56:30.679 --> 00:56:33.920 the tool. So definitely check that out. Also 00:56:33.920 --> 00:56:36.159 in this space, we have hashtag tools and sites, 00:56:36.260 --> 00:56:38.780 which is a list of tools and sites that might 00:56:38.780 --> 00:56:41.320 be useful. And we have the Bellingcat toolkit, 00:56:41.400 --> 00:56:45.199 which is not just Bellingcat tools. It is a list 00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:48.500 of open source tools, sorted by category. We 00:56:48.500 --> 00:56:51.340 have a category on environment and have a little 00:56:51.340 --> 00:56:53.900 look at that. There's lots of open source tools 00:56:53.900 --> 00:56:55.820 in there, including many of the ones that you 00:56:55.820 --> 00:56:58.360 just mentioned. So please do check that out. 00:56:58.960 --> 00:57:02.619 Final question to wrap. because we've had, obviously 00:57:02.619 --> 00:57:05.019 you're from source material. So we've had a lot 00:57:05.019 --> 00:57:09.219 of questions about sources. And there's quite 00:57:09.219 --> 00:57:13.139 a few, a bit of interest in how you get sources 00:57:13.139 --> 00:57:17.440 to feel comfortable to talk to you and what aftercare 00:57:17.440 --> 00:57:20.900 looks like when an investigation is about to 00:57:20.900 --> 00:57:23.619 come out with those said sources. So perhaps 00:57:23.619 --> 00:57:27.940 we can end on a little, a small overview of how 00:57:27.940 --> 00:57:32.750 you. maintain source relationship? Um, I think 00:57:32.750 --> 00:57:35.469 like something that is really helpful, um, for 00:57:35.469 --> 00:57:38.389 me is that I don't work for a daily newspaper. 00:57:38.610 --> 00:57:41.409 So I have plenty of time to develop relationships, 00:57:41.409 --> 00:57:44.730 uh, with sources. My investigation take, you 00:57:44.730 --> 00:57:47.730 know, from three months to a year and a half. 00:57:48.469 --> 00:57:52.469 So, um, that time is, is probably the main thing 00:57:52.469 --> 00:57:54.889 when it comes to building relationship with sources. 00:57:55.409 --> 00:57:59.789 I think. It's kind of the usual thing when you're 00:57:59.789 --> 00:58:02.289 interacting with another human being, be open 00:58:02.289 --> 00:58:05.469 and honest about what you're trying to achieve. 00:58:05.690 --> 00:58:08.130 I think there is no point promising things that 00:58:08.130 --> 00:58:11.489 you can't deliver. You will not know if their 00:58:11.489 --> 00:58:14.710 lives will be improved from you publishing the 00:58:14.710 --> 00:58:16.670 article. It's not something you can promise and 00:58:16.670 --> 00:58:20.250 it's very misleading. I think being clear on 00:58:20.250 --> 00:58:24.969 your objectives and why you're trying to talk 00:58:24.969 --> 00:58:27.679 to them and what their values are. what the value 00:58:27.679 --> 00:58:33.320 is of talking to them. I think all those conversations 00:58:33.320 --> 00:58:36.599 need to happen before you start having a conversation 00:58:36.599 --> 00:58:39.559 about the story and the stuff that you want to 00:58:39.559 --> 00:58:43.300 learn from them. I think that's kind of the basics. 00:58:44.380 --> 00:58:47.940 And then just jumping to the aftercare, I think 00:58:47.940 --> 00:58:51.260 that when I leave a place, let's say I've done 00:58:51.260 --> 00:58:53.920 a reporting trip or even if I've done it all 00:58:53.920 --> 00:58:56.460 digitally, There is usually quite a long time 00:58:56.460 --> 00:58:58.360 between that and when the story gets published. 00:58:58.960 --> 00:59:00.960 So it's important to maintain that relationship. 00:59:01.139 --> 00:59:03.820 It's not like, oh, once I got what I want, I'm 00:59:03.820 --> 00:59:09.559 out. It's kind of like, now we're staying in 00:59:09.559 --> 00:59:11.559 contact, I keep you updated on what's going on. 00:59:11.800 --> 00:59:13.619 If there is a delay, I'm explaining why there 00:59:13.619 --> 00:59:17.480 is a delay. At the same time, once you do that, 00:59:17.699 --> 00:59:19.340 you're kind of checking in on what's going on 00:59:19.340 --> 00:59:21.579 with them because their situation might have 00:59:21.579 --> 00:59:24.019 changed and it happened to us that you know someone's 00:59:24.019 --> 00:59:25.880 situation might have changed and all of a sudden 00:59:25.880 --> 00:59:28.300 it wasn't safe for them to be involved in even 00:59:28.300 --> 00:59:31.719 anonymously in the in the piece so we just moved 00:59:31.719 --> 00:59:35.559 them out and and I think just being I think a 00:59:35.559 --> 00:59:37.579 lot of like it's very cultural as well I think 00:59:37.579 --> 00:59:39.920 it's important to appreciate that not everybody 00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:42.719 responds the same way to things like you know 00:59:42.719 --> 00:59:46.309 people might be very blasé about the risks that 00:59:46.309 --> 00:59:49.090 they're taking, or people might be very afraid. 00:59:49.610 --> 00:59:51.789 So it's about judging as well, like, you know, 00:59:51.789 --> 00:59:54.670 trying to get to know somebody enough that you 00:59:54.670 --> 00:59:57.690 can judge when they respond in a certain way 00:59:57.690 --> 01:00:00.230 to a certain question about their safety or their 01:00:00.230 --> 01:00:04.590 wellbeing, what that actually means. Again, being 01:00:04.590 --> 01:00:08.590 a kind of human being. And then, yeah, once we 01:00:08.590 --> 01:00:11.469 publish, we usually inform them that the article 01:00:11.469 --> 01:00:13.489 is about to be published, that there might be 01:00:13.489 --> 01:00:17.280 like, you know, conversation around it. And then 01:00:17.280 --> 01:00:21.440 once we've published, we check in. And then I'm 01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:22.940 not going to pretend and say that, you know, 01:00:23.039 --> 01:00:25.900 I'm in touch with all my sources. I've done all 01:00:25.900 --> 01:00:29.530 my stories where it's of course not like. slowly 01:00:29.530 --> 01:00:33.469 things move on and relationships come to a natural 01:00:33.469 --> 01:00:35.730 end or there's a couple of cases where I'm still 01:00:35.730 --> 01:00:40.210 friends or acquaintance with some of the source 01:00:40.210 --> 01:00:43.909 I worked with. So it's just like a sort of naturally, 01:00:45.130 --> 01:00:48.090 once you've sort of made sure that there's not 01:00:48.090 --> 01:00:51.130 been any negative repercussions on them and all 01:00:51.130 --> 01:00:56.429 is good, then that's it. I hope that answers. 01:00:57.429 --> 01:01:01.349 Absolutely. And if you want to dive deeper into 01:01:01.349 --> 01:01:03.250 that, as I mentioned, we had that amazing talk 01:01:03.250 --> 01:01:06.469 with Eliza from the Fuller Project earlier this 01:01:06.469 --> 01:01:09.210 year. I linked it in the chat. I'll link it in 01:01:09.210 --> 01:01:10.829 the description of the podcast. It's called Protecting 01:01:10.829 --> 01:01:12.489 the People Within Your Research, and she covers 01:01:12.489 --> 01:01:15.530 a lot of this kind of source relationship stuff. 01:01:15.650 --> 01:01:19.349 So please do check that out. So much love for 01:01:19.349 --> 01:01:23.130 you in the chat, because thank you so, so much 01:01:23.130 --> 01:01:26.880 for coming in and just... enlightening us with 01:01:26.880 --> 01:01:29.960 your knowledge and your experience in this space. 01:01:30.320 --> 01:01:32.239 As I mentioned in the chat, if you're interested 01:01:32.239 --> 01:01:35.059 in talking about environment and wildlife stories, 01:01:35.679 --> 01:01:37.179 we have hashtag environment, wildlife, and we 01:01:37.179 --> 01:01:39.000 also have hashtag maritime. If you want to dig 01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:41.980 into ship tracking, there's lots of experts in 01:01:41.980 --> 01:01:44.440 that space as well, if you're ever looking for 01:01:44.440 --> 01:01:48.739 sources cause. And I have linked the contact 01:01:48.739 --> 01:01:50.760 email for source material if you want to get 01:01:50.760 --> 01:01:54.019 in touch with Cassandra and I've tagged her within 01:01:54.019 --> 01:01:55.860 the Discord as well in case you want to reach 01:01:55.860 --> 01:01:58.579 out here. But yes, thank you so much for your 01:01:58.579 --> 01:02:01.039 time and we'll be back in two weeks with another 01:02:01.039 --> 01:02:04.679 stage talk. Thank you so much. It was fun. Thank 01:02:04.679 --> 01:02:07.530 you for listening to the stage talk. If you'd 01:02:07.530 --> 01:02:10.369 like to catch a stage tour live where you can 01:02:10.369 --> 01:02:13.050 ask the guests questions, join the Bellingcat 01:02:13.050 --> 01:02:19.449 Discord server by visiting www .discord .gg slash 01:02:19.449 --> 01:02:22.349 Bellingcat. The music you've heard is titled 01:02:22.349 --> 01:02:26.289 Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy of Artlist.