gijc2015

Research: “Accountability Information, Across Borders”

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This paper explores the efficacy and potential of increased journalistic and academic data, research and reporting collaboration, in the context of credible, accountability information. Investigative journalists throughout the world understandably cherish their independent “watchdog” function.

Professional news organizations and individual journalists traditionally have not been particularly collaborative with scholars in the academic community (beyond perfunctorily quoting them in their stories), even though their interests, expertise, research and writing are often about quite similar subject matter. And of course, at the same time, the university milieu, the “academy,” has seemed distant and disengaged from civic life and current events issues because, too often, it is.

gijc2015

Research: “African-Western cooperation in investigative journalism”

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The AIPC’s goal is to table African investigative journalism on international platforms. ZAM wants to be an enabler for this mission. It does this by ‘translating’ the work of African colleagues to fit with international – ‘Western’- media preferences re length, style and angles. This does not always go well.

We find that there are ‘taboo’ subjects in the West. AIPC stories have been refused by Western media for reasons from ‘that is racist’ (about a mention of witchcraft) to objection about the exposure of a quack abortion doctor in Ghana ‘because we must legalise abortion.’

This cultural challenge can be called ‘do-gooderism.’ Do-gooderism sees helpless trafficking victims instead of migrating sex workers. It sees happy noble primitives living side by side by gorillas in Virunga, instead of farmers angry at the environmental ‘protectors’ who fence off their lands. Do-gooderism blames local people for the failure of development projects, but blames (or praises) Shell for everything that happens in the Niger Delta. Do-gooderism never questions ‘fair trade’.

It is difficult for a ‘Western’ journalist to find truths hidden under the layers of dominant narratives about Africa. (Also, Africans have 300 years of experience in telling white people what these want to hear.)

We have developed a process for African and Western colleagues to overcome this cross-cultural challenge together.

GIJC2013

Research: “The Concept of Ethics and the Production of Journalism in Technological Times” (Portuguese)

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Technology is an ally for investigative reporting during procedures of verifying information. But the use of technology raises discussions about the ethical dimension of these procedures . Take, for example, the last update of the Code of Ethics of the Brazilian Journalists, which occurred in 2007 and was motivated by the specific discussion on the use of hidden cameras as an artifact in journalistic investigation. Could the use of new technologies in the production process of journalism influence the concept of ethics of journalists? To try to answer this question, we interviewed 15 professional journalists operating in the labor market of Fortaleza.