From left to right: Giannina Segnini from Costa Rica, María Teresa Ronderos from Colombia and Marina Walker-Guevara from Argentina. Illustration: Dante Aguilera for GIJN
The seeds of a project to radically replace the way research sleuths collaborate in Latin America were sown in Prague in 2015, when three friends came together and rekindled a long-cherished dream.
The context of an extensive workshop that brought together sleuthing topics on the common risk of authoritarian regimes; The friends were María Teresa Ronderos, from Colombia, Marina Walker-Guevara, from Argentina, and Giannina Segnini, from Costa Rica, a trio made up of some of the most reputable bloodhounds in Latin America.
They shared the belief, built over many years, that many stories in their region had to be cross-border and much more collaborative, just like transnational investigations and the demanding situations faced by hounds.
“[The workshop] generated this environment, the concept that we have to face what is coming,” Ronderos recalls. “At that time, the three of us were applying for organizations in the United States or Europe and we dreamed of being there to do what we were passionate about from Latin America. And then we said, “Well, let’s create our own cross-border journalism center in Latin America. »
That afternoon in Prague they made a pact that one day one of them would take the torch and carry out the task to completion. Four years later, with Ronderos as director and Segnini and Walker-Guevara on its board, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism – or CLIP – was born.
“For me it was very transparent that there was a void in Latin America. The cross-border investigations that existed were in the classic style, with correspondents and correspondents. We were looking for collaboration between organizations: this is how they can be strengthened. What we were looking for was to help the ecosystem of investigative journalism,” says Ronderos.
FPIC is the opposite of a comfortable release.
Newly officially established in June 2019, and with a team of just 4 people, CLIP has delved into two ongoing transnational collaborations that require coordination, technical and editorial support, and in one case, a spokesperson to lead a story too damaging to sign. The investigations involved partners across the continent, confounding through security hazards and complex challenges. In September, both stories were published in various media outlets. The organization became a member of GIJN two years later.
One of the first two stories, Faith Transnationals, required the coordination of 16 media outlets in thirteen countries, exposing the expansion of devout fundamentalism in the region. The other, The Miroslava Project, sought to highlight years of reporting by Mexican journalists on the murder of her colleague, investigative reporter Miroslava Breach.
The first task demonstrated CLIP’s ability to centralize and edit, its ability to register in multiple threads to weave a global narrative.
“They played a very important role and managed to bring together media and journalists for projects with a regional perspective, based on the local experience of the participants,” says Carlos Dada, founder and director of El Faro, the Salvadoran virtual data company of media that participated. in the Transnacionales de Fe project. “They are very intelligent in the broader editorial perspective, in giving journalistic meaning to the projects and also in what is most confusing among Latin Americans: coordinating the participants. ”
The second task showed the wide range of his capabilities. CLIP’s involvement created an area for anonymous publication in the face of retaliation, adding foreign partners to complement the articles. Netherlands-based investigative journalism group Bellingcat was tapped to help analyze satellite and open source imagery to thwart on-site reporting threats; Paris-based Forbidden Stories, whose task is to “find and publish the work of other journalists who are threatened, imprisoned or murdered”, helped ensure the story reached a foreign audience.
“CLIP’s task was to analyze the data, edit it a lot and increase security because other people were very anxious. We provide an open-air attitude on how you could be stronger. The cake was already made and we put the icing on it so that it can just go out to the public,” says Ronderos.
For Jennifer Ávila, director of the Honduran research site ContraCorriente, a common partner of CLIP, the organization has fulfilled its promise to discontinue the collaboration.
“Collaborations are not easy, some fail because there are no transparent rules, because there is selfishness,” says Ávila. “We continue to collaborate with CLIP because there is seriousness, commitment, procedure and a genuine interest in protecting ourselves. In reality, they respect the audience and the project of each media. They have wonderful empathy, they pay attention to their partners and that makes the difference.
CLIP’s rapid start was a proof of concept and purpose. Since then, they have continued to produce articles in collaboration with almost a hundred media partners in Latin America alone, in addition to many other allies in Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa.
Other notable stories of years include:
For Ronderos, CLIP’s commitment to collaboration runs counter to a festival culture among media organizations. Instead, its core philosophy believes that in an era of information overabundance, the price is not only to offer a story first, but also to paint along with its quality, in order to achieve agreements and achieve a multiplying effect of investigations. In a way, CLIP seeks to be the tide that lifts boats.
“For me, CLIP’s paintings and their discourse on the importance of collaboration are very valuable,” says Enrique Gasteazoro, director of the Central American Regional Media Project at Internews, an independent media promotion organization. “Beyond the fact that it was reinforced through the context, through the need that animated this type of collaboration, CLIP became a reference at a conceptual level. There were journalists whose career is very consolidated, betting on collaboration and breaking with the classic tactics of doing things.
“CLIP provides added value to journalists. It is not about telling them what to do, but rather asking: ‘How can we help you?'” explains Emiliana García, executive director of CLIP and one of the co-founders.
Have you won a multitude of leaked documents? They can process the information and find a route, technically and editorially. Do you have any concerns about protection? They can value your work, get a free legal review, or date reporters if necessary.
“We see CLIP as an intermediary for answers and services, as a media organization that competes with others,” says Ronderos.
From the beginning, the commitment to generate and share generation equipment that can benefit others is at the forefront of these services. It already existed in the Miroslava project, for which CLIP knowledge architect Rigoberto Carvajal created “La Vecindad”, an encrypted platform where collaborators can share data securely.
“CLIP knew that it was looking to expand a very strong technological orientation. From the beginning we thought of asking for investments to be able to expand the generation within CLIP at the service of journalism,” says García.
On the one hand, virtual equipment is purchased so that news hunters can use it freely, with paid workshops on how to use it; on the other hand, internal technological advances are shared with painters and are at the service of all those who paint with CLIP. The result is more competent hounds and more advanced research, with greater equipment, not only in their CLIP paintings but also. also in their reports.
For Gasteazoro, this is part of the true definition of what cross-border and collaborative journalism is, not only an intergeographical exercise, but an interdisciplinary one: “Journalism will have to be informed from the science of knowledge, from more artistic fields or from fields of academic studies. In other words, cross-border is the ability to transcend the barriers of your field or industry, inform yourself from them and integrate them.
It is a wealth of perspectives that has characterized CLIP as it has expanded over the years, from seeking allies beyond journalism to contributing to the production of documentaries, podcasts, virtual and print books, and reports on AI and learning. with devices.
“I’ve noticed that we went from an organization that did investigative journalism to an organization that caters to a crowd and therefore plays a very exclusive role in the media ecosystem in Latin America,” Peñarredonda says.
“We have managed to expand our network of collaborators on the continent; I run with other people who are not journalists, with virtual ministries, with civil society, with academics, with activists to write articles. Over the years, I have noticed the expansion and maturation of this total style of radical collaboration.
In terms of organizational development, the foundation was laid three years before CLIP launched, when the team secured an initial investment from The Atlantic and the Tinker Foundation, followed by a grant from the Google News Initiative. Over the years, they also gained investment from Luminate. , Open Society Foundations and Ford Foundation, among others. Emiliana García’s paintings and experience in Costa Rica over a decade laid the foundation for her registration as a non-profit organization in that country, also selected for its democratic and monetary stability.
A core of 4 members accumulated for the first investigations (Ronderos, García, Carvajal and the journalist Andrés Bermúdez Liévano) joined in 2020 through Peñarredonda, which was followed by other new members over the years to succeed the total of 17 existing ones, adding the administration team. Front-end and back-end members and engineers.
Secondly, García says that they will look at the long term with a macro and institutional vision, focusing not only on CLIP’s research mission, but also with the goal of contributing to the journalism industry as a whole.
“I am very motivated to think, in the face of a massive economic crisis, about how we can be a kind of laboratory so that what we are informed about – what we see is useful or – can be shared,” says GarcíaArray.
For Ronderos, the objective is to guarantee that the sleuths can continue their work in the face of the double crisis of the media’s long-suffering business style and the regression of press freedom, which ranges from gag orders to the use of spyware, judicial attacks and physical. . , and has led many newsrooms into exile. Strengthening the research ecosystem ensures that researchers have the tools, data and support, and do not have to back down when holding difficult parties to account, or stand alone against them.
“We need to influence so that other people do not feel alone when faced with terrifying diets,” says Ronderos. “This way they can ensure that there are lines left for history, for change, to show at a given moment what those regimes are doing and discredit their propaganda. We need those hounds to know that they are not alone. . . We are here and we are all connected to each other.
Diego Courchay is associate editor of The Delacorte Review and contributor to GIJN. He previously worked as a news producer for NBC TELEMUNDO and as a journalist for the magazines Agencia EFE, Nexos and Proceso. He graduated from Columbia University in New York and writes and reports in English, Spanish and French.
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