Networking Africa's investigative journalists. Global Journalism Seminar with Anas Aremeyaw Anas

12:40PM Nov 1, 2023

Speakers:

Caithlin Mercer

Keywords:

journalists

story

work

colleagues

talk

collaborate

people

killed

donor

journalism

question

african

support

put

cameroon

person

network

team

investigation

society

and more about my story on Chinese sex and they were jailed. 45 years, MV Benjamin were called. They were jailed ATS. An officiating among girls as young as three was jailed for 15 years and a host of others. So now I walk around, having my own limits knowing that that is the only room that I can hide. That's the only room that the whole team can hide and be able to tell the next story that nicely.

We had in the opening video that when we polled journalists 21% were a little bit unsure about whether it was okay to have anonymity. What are some of the common criticisms or concerns that you hear

about the

anonymity as a tool?

Well, people say, well, all other journalists keep their bases open because then my poor is always on CNN. So why don't you be like him? What do you have to hide? But they forget that many other journalists keep those keep dying too because they are easily identifiable. And people also say, Well, why are you anonymous and you are anonymous because you definitely know that what you are doing is wrong. That's why we are choosing to be anonymous. If what we are doing is right, why can't we just be open and what works for everybody to see in society. So people share different perspective, like the temperature is different depending on where you go. It is up to you the journalists to determine where you have to adopt anonymity and use it we don't have to. So choice to make whether you think in the region safer for you or not. For example, if there's a journalist in America, his environment would be different. You have a different story, a South African journalists who have a different story Cameroonian journalists would have a difference or depending on the temperature.

Yeah, well, what about

the how do you respond to the kind of criticism of obit How are you held accountable?

Well, accountability is defined properly in my work, for example, when I say you're a criminal, I show you the evidence of when you stop and my work is not just the it stands the test of time it goes to the court of law. I am a lawyer myself, I testify in the docket and you are allowed to have your lawyers to process I mean, so all these stories have mentioned where people are being jailed. They had people representing them. So the rule of law is adopted. So I see when I'm criticized that I have a transparent system. If you are not a team, why are you afraid? Yeah.

Am I correct in saying that you've literally had attempts on your life as a result of your work?

Maybe Okay, she's numerous times I mean, so danger in this world. I'm so used to it that when I do a story and I don't get threats, it sometimes feels like the story has not been properly done. But it is not about me alone. Many of our colleagues on the continent also face similar threats. countless examples I can give my colleague Ahmed Salim, who we worked with, on the future story betraying the game, which was aired on the BBC, was shot and killed he was shot three times in his heart and twice in his neck at close range. And Martinez Zuko, who will be talking about himself, but to me that jiwa dilla Giwa also went through the same and what so many other African journalists get killed every day. That's the reality of trying to enhance our democracy. Does the price repeat? Yeah. This is what I see. We have no choice because the democracies we have didn't just get other journalists have sacrificed to bring us to where we are today. And posterity will not forgive us if we decide to check it out. And abandon this. You see, it's it's a straight battle in in our society so good for button. Criminals are becoming sophisticated, and the earlier we lose our boots and fight them to make sure that we restore democracy restore sanity in our society, the better for us all. So it seems

to me

that you could keep going with this incredibly successful 20 year long career. What on earth convinced you of the need to collaborate and start Nair?

Well, for many reasons, because collaboration has always been the bedrock of proper investigation. There's no journalists, who knows that story better than the journalist who lives within that story. And there's been countless examples of stories that are misinterpreted in the West because people are not in it. And the days of crushing journalism are over where there wasn't journalism gets into a country scoops one or three, one or two gossips and then takes them away and wants to be able to liaise with each other to understand the nitty gritty of every story. So that if I decided that I wanted to cover something about the United States, and I felt that my colleague was in the United States, or my colleague was in Bangladesh, or India, or Pakistan, the best thing to do to understand the story was is to collaborate with that place. Again, you see you don't go around in circles if you have collaboration because we are dealing with someone who understands the ground very well, and so can tell you what to do exactly where to go and how to achieve success within the shortest possible time. Because Time is of essence in general. Again, finances. You want to be able to cut costs, journalists are not trained properly. Sometimes we have to add our personnel money for to what we get from various newspaper houses or various broadcast houses. Sometimes you don't even have at all but you are very passionate about the story. And you want to tell you better have collaborated with your community who would help you do it within the quickest possible time, at a better cost or even just one critical thing that we look at when it comes to collaboration is authentication. To ensure that you have crossed all the i's Maybe 10 We all agree with the principles and tenets of Germans. Of course, the rules remain the same. But we also knew that we have peculiar circumstances where we don't have very strong organizations look at West Africa, or the majority of the countries now I mean, ever many Africans are being killed. So we occupy the next it's an a very powerful brand also because we are talking of powerful journalists across the continent coming together to make a decision. How do we even intervene when our police are being tortured when our police are being beaten or killed? So for us, this was a pivotal time to stand together to say, hey, how do we intervene without anybody's assistance? From the west without a city without recourse reporters? Without Borders without all of them? How can we as African journalists on our own mobilize resources, mobilize human resource mobilize springs mobilize technical assistance as the real questions? Why did was our friend kill him? Is that a possibility that someone else will be killed? What did our friend do wrong? What are we also doing wrong in our corners? How can we improve on it so that many more people are not killed?

I love this on us. I want to ask

when you are very intentionally choosing what talent is going to collaborate together, and I think we can talk a bit more about this when we talk about Zoho, which I really want to get to. But when you're choosing that talent, do you have any rules about who is considered a journalist? Would you ever for example, collaborate with a social media influencer, who is doing journalistic work but not in a formal newsroom?

So we are we except that we get stuck in in semantics of the foods and house. Yeah, by doing so we lose the store. You put yourself together because your colleague is dead. You get yourself together because you know that the more time you waste the more that you know that even with Zoku that immediately someone also was killed. Also around to go story. Maybe if our intervention was earlier, the person would not have been killed. So we race against time to be able to say okay, what's this Chevy as we're going to do all the selections that we talked about, but fundamentally when it comes to the meat of that we ask ourselves, who can provide that meat for us and if it blogger who has the information, if it is a seamstress who has we are happy to have the person on board for us? The facts that will lead us to the truth would always be the most important. The rest of them and considered late.

Agreed. Save a lot of journalism could benefit from less semantics and more action. Let's talk about your colleague Zago. It's it was it must have been an incredibly difficult story to plan and execute how you looked into his murder. Are you able to tell us a little bit about how you put the reporting team together and how you what resources were in the background to support their efforts to find the truth?

That's before they so go. Arizona present started with a very difficult meeting. Difficult to meet him because here was where as African journalists meeting together and asking ourselves what how do we do this? When we don't have the basic information apart from how his body was mutilated, and he was killed? How do you put this together? But as the discussion kept on going, we realized that okay, yeah, we can learn from our police and again, that's another cross border that we work with Hicks in Arizona did a project somewhere, I think in 1986, I can't remember the time properly. And so why don't we borrow from that performance? Plan and sinker and see how do we identify conflicts within Cameroon? And outside Cameroon? Who know that story? Yes, it was a difficult moment in the beginning. But once you begin to realize that you are all powerful blocks, and the unity all your coming together. It means a lot. The meeting started becoming interesting. People started contributing, we realized that hey, even within us we have the story. We have the resources, the human resource. We have the people with the right attitude to get into their into their atmosphere to find their story and bring it out. And we're happy for once we knew that Yeah. Just by talking display discussions. We have the capacity to tell the story and to stop other colleagues from being killed. This option was how do you get the resources and it was not easy getting resources. I don't want to get too much into that. But here was that starting a new project and I want to be thankful to our colleagues and Sam, who provided all the support that we needed to reach out to the people that we they needed to reach out to us where we are. They gave us the organizational structure. They gave us the confidence that together with Matt and Sam, we could do something great. And I'm very happy that the results that came out was good. Yeah.

Tell me how many people were put on the ground and do you have any sense of whether I'm not sure what to call them? Whether the political intelligence apparatus in Cameroon was aware that foreign journalists were in the country working on this story?

I wouldn't be surprised because don't forget that we announced Arizona projects if you read the Guardian article that I did with Evelyn mouths that before we got in, so we knew that they were aware, but we also had to think very important steps before we announced it are getting it was very obscured and of course, if you were sitting there waiting for a team of journalists, international journalists to get in one morning at the airport at 8pm. That was a lie. No. We had proper strategies that were mapped out. Our getting in and getting out was virtually unnoticed. And there were many ways of gathering information that we use, that will not be very apparent to the security agencies because we knew what they were and how they could be problematic knowing that we wanted to dig and dig. Our brother Martinez.

We didn't find out for definite what happened to Zobo but you're definitely brought new suspects to the table. Do you think that investigation will be ongoing until there is some kind of justice for Zoho, or is it?

Are we

moving on to new projects now?

Yeah, I know there has a couple of projects but Zoho is dear to our heart that we always want to visit but what did we do? We try to bring perspective to the subject matter. And to also point out that sometimes as journalist, it is our own internal friends who do to bring us down and everything we got pointed to an insider closer to God, who would have been the reason why the horse met.

Yeah, closer to the reason is perhaps closer to justice. I continue asking you questions for a day but there are other people who want to ask you questions. So I'm gonna open up to both our journalists downstairs as well as those of you on the Zoom call, please feel free to add questions into the q&a function, but we've got a first one here from Daniel Coyle. He wants to know when will Uganda be included in there?

Well, May is is Uganda first First of all, every African country is welcome to divide on demand. But membership is by recommendation. We are not doing a wholesale importation of gems we talk about journalists based on recommendation very serious journalists who know what investigative journalism or who have the capacity to learn. So when you are, you are introduced to us, we definitely will look at your background what you have done and we bring you internet. I think at the last board meeting, there were about five African journalists who were brought in there. Also personally, we are able to give invitations to people. So if I know that you are good and you can send us records of your work. We can send it you can go to our website and send it to us and if it's great wine to invite him to be battles.

You go Daniel, get on it. I also want to go downstairs to our fellows. I have a series of questions here from Omar Zambrano from Burkina Faso. Ahmad wants to know a lot about safety and security. Take it away. Omar we're not off mute yet but go for it. There you go.

Thank you very much. Well Muslim read from a book enough so and I've got the opportunity to meet us during a novel Zongo meeting was the Philip, I think, and my question is about the safety. We know about investigative journalists takes take a lot of risk impact has for you apart from wearing this mask. What type of action do you take to mitigate the risk? And also I would like to know what what your direct collaborators and I'm referring to same who got killed in Ghana while it was investigating on a very dangerous topic.

Did that come through? Okay. Oh, should I summarize? I think that's might be Verizon. Or my What are your own thoughts while we wait for us to unfreeze? What are there you go and as you are back with us? I'll just summarize Omar was asking what kind of action do you take and alas you're still on mute, just so you know that. But the question is, what kind of action do you take to mitigate mitigate risk to the journalists who work with you? We know Hussein, obviously unfortunately it was killed in the line of duty is there any? Is it? Are there any security precautions risk analysis that your team undertakes? And is there any limit of danger that you might tell yourself like, up to this line? We will go no further if this if this risk continues?

Well, first of all, no story is when the journalists life.

Say it again on us. Law story

is with the life of the journalist, Allah Allah. So you have to be very careful. There's no point in wanting to tell a story that will end up killing because we end up losing much more because we won't get to tell them a story tomorrow. So yes, safety precautions are key to the work we do. So there are basic tools that my team we employ to keep ourselves safe. But usually from our studies, the danger is created by the journalist himself most of the time we we don't close our runs very well. When we break big starts. And so we have a whole security protocol that we go through to ensure that our journalists are safe. I think that that differs from country to country and the type of danger that you will face but at a better time. When we meet on this platform, we can do a whole course on security. But key takeaway point on security is that you must always have a back and this is international, even with the BBC, with the AlJazeera all these people have weighed me there's always a plan B. And there's always the need to look within your house. Mostly delegates come from your house and you cannot be a proper investigative journalist who talks too much, who is trigger happy and who is telling everybody about your story that is coming and who is jumping in, in happiness over a story that you have Gookin because their story is going well guy at every corner dancing about the story and give you room to give for people to attack. Now there are journalists who have done stories and they call into the call the people they did their story I'm about to teach them that you see what my story has done to you. And all these things are things that are generally seen as true to ensure that we have some level of reasonable safety among us.

There's an another question about security for you from Hong Chow. From China. Hong Chow. Do you want to ask your security question?

Hi, I just shout far away I guess my question is more about visibility and the practical side. I mean, you are anonymous, but how do you prevent authorities and other interest groups that you oversight, and you're investigating to launch counter investigations and finding out your sources exposing your you know your collaborators? How do you prevent that?

Just because the sound is a bit low for the audience. How do you prevent authorities launching counter investigations and then exposing you or exposing your sources your collaborators, your finance years?

is actually more than that. We fight the system and the system fight back. So let's know journalists be thinking that you are going to do a sorry and get a free ride. They are going to come after you if it's not the system, which is the government system. It is a cartel or a Gantt that will definitely come up though. So let nobody think that there's any opportunity for you to even think that nobody is coming after you. So in right into your story if you take into consideration that all these people will be coming after you. What do you do you build a solid chunk. And perhaps the reason why I do I go under cover because I know that people I deal with that. Even when you spot them with their hands in the shoe dripping. They Sue deny. So for me, if I say you've committed a crime, I show you the hardcore evidence. And I prove to you that you did it. Even industry people still deny. So your best medicine, your best tool for people coming after you is your evidence. If your evidence is watertight, no matter the prosecution, no matter the fish and shoots, you're going to survive it. Truth is key. And I tell you, if you make sure that your story is watertight people in the system will come after you they will try to change the narrative. They will try to do whatever they organize social media people to be insulting you every single day. But remember, truth stance, and it doesn't matter how long it takes. At the end of the day. genuine people in society will know that you have done that right. Sometimes they just lie outright that you've taken bribes. You've done this and done that. But if you have the truth on your side, at all costs, you will be able to triumph.

I wouldn't have to Clara from Singapore. All right, has a question about your succession plan.

Wow. That's a very interesting subject.

Cloud fire Do you want to take it away? Hi.

I'm Clara from Singapore. So you've spoken in interviews about your succession plan, should anything happen to you? But at the same time, you have become this iconic personality where people feel you are you're almost mythical when you talk about your name. So how do you think the work that you do would change if it was no longer you at the helm?

Well, it's a very good person.

It is. Yes,

and you realize that in the last five, six years, there's a fury that is called I am a nurse runs through a lot of Ghanaian and African hoods in Nigeria many other places because you are also a nurse, everybody else in the house once you decide that you do good. You are also a nurse and you realize that there were T shirts that were brought everybody can be a nurse. And if also known apart from that, for the francophones countries, we had a project called G Suite and that's where a lot of young journalists were thoughts. They're out of undercover journalists. So the work I do, I don't do it alone. I do it with a team. I can tell you without my team observing. I rely on my team members 100% Without them I can't function. So I'm not it's not about an individual. I may have established this name, but I know to carry it forward, there are problems. Your hands will be banked. It will come up that you do try to kill you do kill some of your colleagues. But you must have the tenacity. You must have the courage you must be brave enough to show that all those things and this is the message I preached across the African continent that hey, you can be your own and us. My colleague Steve in Malawi is trying to set up their mass Arabia mass investigative center and is going on well, he's also building his own brand other colleagues in other countries are building investigative networks. To be able to champion the cause and to fight corruption and human rights abuses. I believe that's how I'm channeling my lygus it's not about me as an individual, but this collective

narcissism

which I know they're teaching now in Ghana, universities and nurses as a style of journalism. How do you feel about that?

I feel good that the journalism that we do should not only be people read it in their bedrooms, but which elevate it to academic because the only way we'll keep up trends in the annals of history forever. And it's not about me alone. I think that my colleagues will well elsewhere should also look towards academia because you want students to learn once you then to learn that things you then and if you have academia join me then I'm glad that a lot of people are now doing a lot of research papers across the continent. There's a lot of academic material. And so in short, I'm happy about narcissism and the fact that many universities not only in Ghana, I've been in the West I've spoken to many universities across I keep getting invitations to speak at search to educate people on how to develop segments.

And we've got some questions online Apphia of course, also wants to know, if you're a young journalist who wants to pursue investigative journalism, can you still make a living?

If your must be forgotten? If yes, you can make a living. I learned a lot under the formidable and energetic hands of Abdul Malik. And he thought to me that take your journalism very serious. If you do, we are likely to get other stuff more likely to have international collaboration that will bring in some money to your team. And I also think that on this side, no journalists should just be content with journalistic work. You should also try to be industrious yourself so that you can be able to mitigate some of the hardship because you have a family. You have brothers and sisters you have a man. And so you don't just say I'm working from a shift of nine to five and that's it. There are many times that we have time on our hands as journalists, and we don't use it for good things, or we don't put it to a bad times. So a combination of these factors of of being industrials and taking your journalism serious and help you sustain yourself very.

So we know for you on us you're a lawyer but trained lawyer working as an investigative journalist but also running a PR agency.

Correct? Yeah.

Maybe a model that other aspiring investigative journalists might copy.

Yes, I think education is key people get stuck in their gun. But yeah, I've trained as a journalist and that's it. But I'm saying that you can be a research and pursue a law degree. Right now my colleagues in law if they have any investigation of the first person, they knock on my door, I can even do their jobs. There are plenty. I don't have time for them. I'm seeing that. If you don't end look yourself in one form, and want to look beyond you realize that there are many opportunities for journalists to open up and so the journalist ends and still be able to contribute to a better condition, their own personal conditions and like I said, the field of academia, there are many journalists, Ed journalism and lectures as well. There are many journalists who run at a private, there's a host of opportunity to be a lawyer, you can go on to become a doctor, you can do whatever and I encourage many African journalists that it is not about numbers, but we are not talking more about quality of agenda generally who sits on a panel and speaks and after that, everybody says, Hey, this journalism seems so let's not throw away education at all. In building.

Once again,

to be fair, not many Western journalists are under that kind of pressure to have three different side hustles to make their work sustainable, but it really does underline the need for a collaborative network where people are in the backroom supporting you. When you do have precious time to devote to journalism. There's a there's a network that you can collaborate with.

I totally I totally agree with you. Different I keep saying that we all pray from different places. And then be able to adjust to that crime. So yes, I agree, policing the best who are doing just one jobs and be okay with it. And I think for us in third world countries and in Africa, it might be better that we truth on your journalism is the same journalism but you've got to be improving it every day, if you want to sustain yourself.

And here's an interesting question from riddle choco agno. He says, What about the diaspora, the journalists, who wants to continue doing investigative work and African countries who are now off the motherland?

Well, I think it's pretty simple. People from the diaspora come here every day, and when they have issues we collaborate with them. So you are welcome any day anytime, reach out to any of us and we'll be able to collaborate with you is great. Match network of Black Journalists in America. I got an award from them and they are journalists in the diaspora and a lot of them come to Ghana, some go to Nigeria and we collaborate with them even as I speak. One African American journalists are just arrived and we have a meeting in a few weeks over historic she's here to do so. You're always welcome.

I've got a question from Sheikha Shalini and India.

Simple

asking for advice. For a person who hasn't yet gotten into investigative journalism. For the young people. What is the first step that you would advise?

Well, I think that first of all, believe in yourself. Believe that. We all make mistakes and that it is you are not a magician to start investigative journalism and get it all right. We all made our mistakes. So when you are making mistakes, don't think that means you are bad at it. The perseverance and the persistence that can lead you to a greater hands. Also, remember that investigative journalism is about patience. If your trigger happy personality, you will not be able to do it yourself. Take your time. Kill the onions by late from layer to layer gradually and you will be able to be successful with it. And I also know that people talk about the fight is expensive. Yes, it is. But not all stories are very expensive. Sometimes. The story that we are doing is just me battling and we pass that every day. So do not put in your mind that you have to pay a lot to do investigating them. No. Just start it at your corner at your piece and

let's talk a little bit more about Nair as we're reaching the end of our hour together. You said if people want to get in touch, they can go to the website. What is the website? And what information do you need from people if they want to get involved in the network? What kind of information should they be supplying?

Well, I'm only able to reach my phone to send you the name website. But I believe that you can just get it on Google and place it for students to copy. Yeah, that's that's about the website. Then. How do people get in touch I believe that when you write administrating, they will be told to send your CV and the work you've done before and it will be brought to a board within within very few days. We look at it and they will approve. We actually very willing to receive people who have the talent to join us at min Luna is a very wonderful if you are a person in man, you have access to many African journals and that helped build collaboration because your individual stories, anything you want to check any organization, any issues that you have, you are able to put it on the table and within a twinkle of an eye. Somebody has a solution. Network to be part of and I encourage all of you who are on this platform to join us.

Am I right? Is the magazine. Is that the right link that I should be sending in the chat?

Yes, please. You can send some Yeah, because I'm also mentioned tonight. Yeah. It's our collaborator, and I've already spoken about them. They've been very useful to us and have helped in the training and coordination and everything of net. So that is a partner to net.

Yeah, tell me a little bit more about

zams involvement, who is and how are they? How are they associated?

Yeah, so Zahm is a Danish organization. And that sorry, that organization and like I said, from the onset, they want one with David with the idea of putting together an executive well with the help of formulation. So we are a twin. And we also know that as a Western organization, or a Dutch organization, there was some level of collaboration that we meet in many other European countries that we can rely on. So it's a partnership like a marriage, where we understand each other and we come in for each other to help us together to fight issues. So it is not surprising that this investigation was done by men. In some and we think that Ben for further works that we have in the pipeline, which will still be ZM and then men unless we get up madness, we're also willing to join partnerships. And we are talking about cross border investigations. Now it's all about proper partnership and how to move forward.

This is a perfect segue to my last question for you which is from Kazmir. Nima. As mayor says, an issue that frequently accompanies investigative journalism. And I'll say I'll add, particularly in the Global South, is the perception that their endeavors are financially intertwined with or affiliated with international organizations. Consequently, a matter of Reliance or impartiality arises as your endeavors resemble a project for which you bear accountability to your financial backers. Have you encountered this difficulty? What are your opinions regarding this matter? And that's from Kashmir and the Philippines

is a very interesting region when you we as I have asked myself several question, okay, so, a donor wants to give us money to fight crime in our society. Somebody's point is that well what is the interest of that dude? I think the key question is my this is very person. I want to fight crime in my society. And to be honest, where the money is coming from, is important. Yes, but I'm more focused on getting the crime done. I'm not saying that are going to take money from a cocaine dealer, or to do a story. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I don't I don't take this to the extremes. I just say that if the person is a donor, and has given money, we are having the global conference on investigative journalism in South Africa very soon. And donors have supported if donors are supporting a worthy cause, and there's no red lights on that tool. I don't see any reason why we should not take money from that person to enhance ourselves to fight crime within our society. And let's not forget donors don't determine to us which crime we should fight in our society. If you have a donor who has given you money and he says okay, champion l GB or champion this and champion that then you gotta have questions, but they don't as we deal with, I don't as you say, Well, you have this issue in your society. If you want to deal with it. You can deal with it. We can support I'm more comfortable with such doing this. So yes, it's a tricky situation, but my eyes always on the ball. How do you fight crime How do you ensure that there is equity and there is we have best practice in our societies?

I think that's an excellent answer. But I wonder increasingly with foreign interests seeking to create instability through journalism. Do you have any considerations in place for politically motivated money where it's like, oh, you can do anything you want, please? We won't tell. You what to do. And all of the, you know, all of the marks are like Check, check, check, check. Like it sounds good. They're giving us lots of money. They say we can do whatever we want. They're not going to interfere with our editorial budget. But it's clear that this is a political interest who's seeking to create instability in Cameroon for example. How, how can journalists be savvy to if it seems too good to be true that

you see part of the reason is why we are here today. What is what really is a journalist looking for he wants to tell his story. He wants to be able to report the deaths in Israel or Palestine or guys. He wants to be able to tell the story in Ukraine the way he wants to tell it. And he's looking for tools that can help him tell that he's not necessarily money. So if we can have such collaborations, and there is a network that can assist the journalist to tell his story. You think you will have time for a donor? He doesn't have time to build a search network is important, and talking about issues of how to enhance ourselves as journalists, to have that internal power, how to even train our media houses to be able to be self sufficient and to be able to generate income. We tell our own story, as part of this is why we are seated here today. I think if you teach this frontiers of making sure that our media has become self sustainable, then no amount of donor support is even needed, or even before the donor support will come the critical stories will be told. And it's not it. If you talk to those who apply for donor support. It's not easy. A lot of hundreds of pages of writing you have to answer this answer that is not comfortable. It generally is worth his salt who has his own resources, who can serve generate resources, wouldn't look at a donor would have nothing to do with a donor. Thank you.

And as your time has been so valuable there I've got a page of notes just from from one hour spent with you. I think it's so beautiful the way you exhort young journalists to make mistakes.

Because that is how the the best of everyone learns.

And I just wish you and there and any attempt to collaborate every success. Is there anything that we can do as a journalistic community to support this initiative?

Yeah, I want to thank all of you for this opportunity. And for writers, it's, it's an honor to be here. I'm an alumni, I have attended some of the courses and we are happy as may either me or any of our colleagues to be on this platform in the day anytime we are hold. We'll be happy to share. And we're also open to learning a lot from this same platform because it's an incredible platform that all journalists must look up to sharpen their skills.

Perfect. Thank you, Anna Scott. Well, we will be back next week with akar Gupta from the Internet Freedom Foundation to talk about how changes to laws in India are impacting press freedom. There is going to be a very interesting discussion led by metalli and as I go, well go with God. We will see you soon. Our doors always open to you.

Thank you very much.