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Editorial leadership for cross-border collaborations

Lessons and Practices from CENOZO

Arnaud OUÉDRAOGO / CENOZO

arnaud@cenozo.org

www.cenozo.org

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CENOZO

  • Regional network established in 2015
  • +600 journalists trained, +300 investigations conducted
  • Coverage: 16 countries in West and Central Africa
  • Key topics: FFI, corruption, organized crime, human rights, environment, climate change
  • Read some stories at cenozo.org

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Shared dditorial leadership

  • Perfect for the West African sub-region
  • Diverse teams and multinational governance
  • Editorial committee: collaborative project validation
  • Transparent processes — listening and collective decision-making
  • Example: Editorial coordination of the Resilience project with GITOC

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From individual reporting to collective storytelling

  • Regular editorial meetings, collaborative platforms
  • Sharing of methodologies, harmonization of standards
  • Examples: – “West Africa Leaks”: harmonization of techniques, shared planning among 11 newsrooms – Migration and environment projects: content adapted to different audiences, coordinated dissemination

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Promoting team cohesion

  • Technical training (Investigation skills, data journalism, OSINT, digital security)
  • Peer mentoring, expertise sharing
  • Legal support before publication and in cases of threats or pressure

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Managing cultural and linguistic diversity

  • Multi-layered translation: adapting to language barriers
  • Respect for national specificities and cultural codes
  • Example: Migration Project — 24 surveys published in 10 African languages

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Levelling operational and funding challenges

  • Logistics pooling
  • Centralized fund management
  • Access to international partners, support for research costs
  • Gender parity: 40% of grants reserved for women
  • Example: Fundraising from donors to support long or risky research

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A new editorial approach

  • Promoting local responses and innovations
  • Beyond denunciation: impact and transformation
  • Opening up to solutions journalism

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Call to action

  • Collaborative cross-border journalism is emerging as the most appropriate response to the crisis affecting journalism in West Africa, particularly in the Sahel
  • The region needs investigative journalism, but someone has to pay for it
  • So support the region's journalists

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Thank you for your kind attention