The threat within: Power dynamics impeding cross-border journalism practice–perspectives from African investigators

Abstract

This paper reveals incidents of episodic and systemic power that threaten fully virtual, remote collaboration between African investigative journalists (AJs) and their colleagues in Global North countries. Safety is conceptualized as journalists’ ability to surmount threats sparked by occupational power structures unique to cross-border journalism. The workplace is the digitally mediated, often temporal space where socialized media enables journalists co-produce and distribute investigative reports. Interviews with 25 journalists across west and southern Africa showed that tension within virtual teams causes: disagreements over media cultures and wages; downplaying of risks; de-prioritization of cultural norms and disparities in access to funding. The resulting consequences affected journalists’ psychological, financial, and physical safety during, and beyond collaboration. Respondents coped by Compliance or Avoidance, exiting their teams or leaving investigative journalism in general. Awareness of technology-based inequity, cultural norms concerning mental health, and agile appraisal of threats are recommendations for journalists and donors. By adapting organisational Sources of Power theory to virtual workplaces, this study specifies the work routines and conditions that cause colleague-based threats during cross-border journalism work. The creation of a new power category for assessing breaches of cultural norms is a modest contribution towards understanding power asymmetries within transnational investigations mainly funded by and consumed in non-African countries.