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

Dimensions of safety

Threats are situations likely to cause harm, and harm is the actualisation of threats against journalists’ Physical, Psychological, Digital, and Financial security (Hasan and Wadud, 2020). Safety is challenged by various factors; for example, journalists in low-income countries and investigators are more prone to attacks, while women, non-binary and LGBTQIA + journalists suffer institutional harm (Hamada, 2022; Konow-Lund and Høiby, 2023; Matthews and Onyemaobi, 2020). Across Africa, a ten-country study records threats as cultural prejudice, dramatized arrests aimed for maximum embarrassment, and harm to journalists’ children (Tshuma et al., 2024). Others are recruitment of journalists into becoming government informants, threats from politic-focused social media influencers, while journalists’ perceived tribal affiliations attracts threats from audiences (Selnes and Walulya, 2020; Workneh, 2024; Zviyita and Mare, 2024). In general, violence against journalists and Africa as a location are under-explored within collaborative journalism research (Danso et al., 2024, p.1).

Specific to investigative journalism—this study’s focus—gender-based attacks; legislative hurdles; perceptions of threats; safety measures after colleagues die, and collaboration for protection have been explored (Coatney, 2022; Higgins Jouce et al., 2022; Kunert et al., 2022a; Urbanikova and Hanikova, 2022). This article maintains these trends but furthers the “emotional turn” in journalism studies that prioritizes individual-based and psychological threats (Wahl-Jorgensen and Pantti, 2021, p.1147). Examples include workplace well-being (Šimunjak and Menke, 2023); anger’s role in investigative journalists’ routines (Stupart, 2023) and Happiness in journalism, which advocates focus on “the real human beings behind cameras, microphones and touchscreens” (Bélair-Gagnon et al., 2023, p.4). However, before exploring colleague-based threats to journalists’ safety, the contemporary workplace deserves appraisal.

Today’s collaborative investigative journalism ‘workplace’

Journalism is affective labour where workers’ emotional and creative assets are repeatedly “mobilized as an economic resource” (Siapera, 2019, p.275). This labour is increasingly enabled by digital technologies, and work occurs beyond physical buildings (Maares et al., 2023). Since the 1990s, full-time employment has moved to remote or hybrid arrangements, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating these shifts (Casero-Ripollés, 2021). However, before COVID-19, cross-border investigations (CBIs) were, and remain remote; colleagues in dispersed locations have always co-produced and co-published journalism (Alfter, 2016). Noteworthy are collaborations between The Guardian UK and South Africa-based freelancers throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Sanders, 1997).

Analysis of articles from 2010 to 2020 (Hellmueller and Berglez, 2023) categorises cross-border journalism under foreign, international, global and transnational forms, the last being collaboration across countries or continents (Alfter, 2016, 2019). Within this, is discourse about hierarchical “bottom-up” collaborations initiated by “individual journalists and actors,” and “top–down” collaborations, where “leading media organisations initiate collaboration” (Heft, 2021, p.1190). In African—Transcontinental collaborations, foreign journalists seek funding and initiate project-based collaboration with African colleagues (ZAM, 2022). To reflect the reality of contemporary work, Slavtcheva-Petkova et al. (2023, p.1211) recommend the term “occupational safety.” They argue that the workplace is wherever journalistic tasks happen (e.g. offices, residences, speaking locations, or reporting sites) and wherever threats/harm can occur. Therefore, workplaces include collaborative investigations because tasks are achieved through freelance arrangements, or in exile, using encrypted servers for physical or intellectual safety (Cândea, 2020). Collaborative investigative journalism also aligns with Daft’s (2013, p.14) definition of organizations as “goal-directed, social entities with coordinated activity systems connected to the external environment.” Relevant examples are the transnational teams behind the Panama Papers investigation, who used Internet technologies to coordinate the world’s largest data leak, with the goal of exposing financial impropriety by public figures (Ntibinyane, 2018). Finally, cross-border journalism activity is described as organized work achieved through various time-limits and commitment levels. Stonbely (2017) and Martínez De la Serna (2018, pp.15–16) detail these arrangements as: one-off, informal, or long-term partnerships; peer-production that enables sifting through databases and leaks; or non-profits collaborating with freelancers, journalism schools and media outlets.

Power, control and precarity

Power is a characteristic of relationships, an attribute held by individuals and a quality embedded in organizational life (Oksiutycz, 2006). Castells (2016) provides a noteworthy definition of power as: “the relational capacity that enables certain social actors to asymmetrically influence the decisions of other actors in ways that favor the empowered actors’ will, interests, and values” (p.2). The result of this influence is control, which manifests helpful or dangerous consequences for partnerships (Gray et al., 2022; Kenny et al., 2016). Control may transpire as “power-over, power-to and power-with,” where latent asymmetrical relations exist between actors; whenever actors are able to control; or whenever control is achieved as a group, towards a common outcome respectively (Pansardi and Bindi, 2021, p.52).

Power and control have been discussed within foreign-African news production from the perspective of Africans who are “local-foreign correspondents” working for international media bureaus and “western correspondents based in Africa,” working for non-African outlets (Bunce, 2010; Moon, 2019, p.1714; Nothias, 2020, p.250). In the decade between Bunce and Nothias’ study of these transnational working environments, both scholars conclude that western journalists are a dominant influence on news narratives, amid their personal efforts to reverse negative stereotypes about Africa.

For Moon (2019), “power is both gained and lost”; though African local-foreign correspondents are empowered to pursue more critical reporting, gain skills and greater audience engagement, “their safety and labour are undervalued by the foreign press” they work for (p.1728). Africans also surrender journalistic autonomy to non-African management controlling elite bureaus or endure transnational newsrooms where “racism is a fact of life” (Boughen, 2023 p.252; Umejei, 2020).

Beyond newsrooms, power asymmetries recur in peer-to-peer collaborations; African colleagues take on non-editorial roles, receive “significantly less” pay than Middle East and European colleagues, and forfeit reimbursements for incidental expenses (Palmer, 2019 pp. 17, 79, 179; Shivute, 2022). Blacksin and Mitra (2024) aver that these dynamics persist because “local-foreign” binaries within cross-border production harbour “ingrained hierarchies” that cause “intense precarity” for local media workers (pp.2–3). In Africa, precarity in cross-border journalism is characterised by safety constraints and dependence on foreign aid (Ireri, 2024 p.365), while wider local-foreign control manifests through prioritization of westernized perspectives, norms and locations in journalism training, practice and reward systems respectively (Blacksin and Mitra, 2024; Gondwe, 2024; Paterson et al., 2018).

Virtual organization and safety ‘within’

This manuscript covers virtual collaboration for producing cross-border investigative journalism, and the power dynamics that ensue.

To sum Slavtcheva-Petkova et al.’s (2023) explanation of the link between power and journalist safety: a breach of individual, organisational or systemic control brings risks that “spawn threats” to journalists (pp. 1–3). When collaborations are negotiated online, these forms of control may collide, because: control is a feature of technological and cultural systems (Lawrence et al., 2012), and cross-border tasks require digital platforms, which are “surfaces” where “micro-level technocentric control” through automated standardisation or human monitoring occurs (Andersson Schwarz, 2017, pp.375–376).

My positioning of virtual collaborative workplaces as organizations is not new. Jägers et al. (1998) and Jackson (2002) argue that virtual organization occurs whenever a geographically dispersed, temporary or permanent collective of individuals with specialized skills use communication technologies to implement production processes and deliver services. Similarly, what distinguishes cross-border investigators is: teams are recruited and coordinated remotely, using digital tools (Heft, 2021) and this virtual organization exists to collaboratively produce journalism—e.g. investigations—on a specific topic (Alfter, 2019).

Contextualizing threats using Organisational Power Theory

Given that work conditions affect the quality of investigative journalism produced (Mesquita and de-Lima-Santos, 2023), this study adopts Morgan’s Organisational Power Theory (1986, 2017) to specify areas of virtual investigative collaboration where peer-based threats to journalists’ safety occur. Although “collaboration is not a chaos-free process where everyone has equal power and influence” (Ng, 2021, p.119), research on safety prioritizes threats from external actors (Hamada, 2022; Miller 2023). Conversely, internal threats are cited as newsrooms’ inability to support journalists in anticipating or escaping external threats (Høiby and Garrido, 2020; Henrichsen and Shelton, 2023; Holton et al., 2023). Journalists’ role in compromising their own safety includes low newsroom coverage of journalists’ safety, their limited adoption of information security measures and reluctance to report workplace harassment (Appiah-Adjei, 2020; Henrichsen, 2020; Sreedharan et al., 2020). What is missing is research on internal threats during virtual collaboration, and this article attempts to bridge the gap.

Organisational Theory advances Slavtcheva-Petkova et al.’s (2023) safety model (Figure 1) by naming the power dynamics within online collaboration, that cause offline threats.

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Figure 1.

Journalists’ safety conceptual model (Slavtcheva-Petkova et al., 2023).

Organisational theory scrutinizes work-based phenomena, how organisations relate with society to induce loyalty—or defiance—and “the nature of power and authority” in organisations (Hirschman, 1970; McAuley et al., 2007, p. xii). Control and power recur within literature on virtual organizations, and the consensus is that “considerable power” manifests in these workplaces, bringing “unintended consequences in the real world” (Jägers et al., 1998; Köffer, 2015; Marsh et al., 2022, p.2). However, it remains unclear what types of power dynamics affect collaborative journalism, due to modest critical inquiry into threats faced by journalists (Høiby and Garrido, 2020). A suitable tool for theoretical clarity is Morgan’s (2017, p.244) Sources of Power in organizations. They are: Formal Authority; Control of Scarce Resources, Use of Organisational Structure; Control of Decision Processes, Control of Information; Control of Boundaries; Ability to cope with Uncertainty; Control of Technology; Interpersonal Alliances and Control of Informal Organization; Control of Counter-organizations; Symbolism and the Management of Meaning; Management of Gender Relations; Structural Factors That Define the Stage of Action; and The Power One Already Has (for details on each, see Supplemental Table 1).

Since its debut, Morgan’s (1986) theory has been used to examine: cultural tensions between software developers and users; conflicts within disciplinary committee processes; “problematic dynamics” between consultants collaborating on their client’s employee culture-change initiative; and the “interpersonal and symbolic power” held by women in quoted companies (Canning and O’Dwyer, 2006; Smith and Zane, 2004, p.161; Taylor-Cummings and Feeny, 1997; Tessaro, 2022 p.75). Regarding cross-border journalism, only Cândea (2020) has used this theory to critique control of investigative journalists’ access to technological platforms during collaborations.

Relevant to this article’s focus on digitally organised investigative work: Slavtcheva-Petkova et al. (2023) say power dynamics influence journalists’ safety, but questions persist on precisely how these dynamics appear between workers. Their Power-Breach—Safety—Threat framework only covers threats from external actors: governments, advertisers, the public, socio-political elite, and cartels (as listed). It excludes journalists’ ability to use power over each other at work, despite these scholars stating that journalists’ safety is linked to journalists’ occupational activities (p.1213). This article therefore uses a socio-organisational approach to explore colleague-based threats during virtual collaboration. It examines roles within remote investigative journalism teams to ascertain where power originates, and how breaches of such power affects journalists’ safety during organized cross-border work.

The following questions led to AJs revealing workplace threats during collaborations:

RQ1

What are African investigative journalists’ experiences of virtual transcontinental collaboration?

RQ2

What types of roles are held by FCs during virtual transcontinental collaboration–and what effects do they have on African Investigative journalists’ work?

Foreignness in reporting is denoted as the nationality of reporters being researched, or as journalism produced outside the researcher’s location (Hamilton and Jenner, 2004; Morrison and Tumber, 1985). In this article, interviewees are journalists working in west and southern Africa. Both regions are Africa’s most active, in terms of investigative journalism production and publication, number of registered networks and donor focus (Foundation Maps, 2024; GIobal Investigative Journalism Network, 2024; Lugalambi and Schiffrin, 2018; Ntibinyane, 2018, p.47). Therefore, AJs are defined as: investigative journalists “who play a professional and editorial role within cross-border production” (Blacksin and Mitra, 2024, p.3), and genealogically-legally identify as nationals of the African countries they work from. Their foreign colleagues (FCs) were conversely delimited as: all investigative journalists based outside Africa, collaborating with AJs. Furthermore, all FCs cited were collaborators on investigations for entities across Europe and North America, in countries within the “global North” designation “used widely in journalism studies” (Kunert et al., 2022b, p.766).

Data analysis

Castleberry and Nolen’s (2018) steps enabled qualitative analysis through data curation, disassembling, reassembling, and interpreting. The first three interviews were coded using NVivo software, with themes of control by AJs and FCs emerging. These themes were depicted visually to allow respondents “confirm or challenge” researchers’ interpretations (Whiting and Sines, 2012, p.21). Data from successive interviews resulted in three Power Diagrams (see Supplemental Figure 2 for final diagram). This method of “member-checking using synthesized analysed data” aids research validity by testing emerging theories, soliciting dis (confirming) voices, while enabling reflections for rich data (Birt et al., 2016, p.1804). Using diagrams also prevented “retriggering disturbing events.”

Control incidents were coded under Morgan’s (1986, 2017) Sources of Power. For precise analysis, a new power category called Control of Cultural Norms was created. Relying on Frese’s (2015, p.2) summation of cultural norms as specific, “socially routinized” behaviours occurring in a distinct location which people may/may not conform to, I define Cultural Norms as:

The ability to promote or relegate location/personal-based customs held by individual organisational members. This form of power covers Religious, heritage-based, and professional customs.

The rationale is that Africa’s ethnic, religious, geopolitical and sociocultural contexts constantly enhance or impedes journalists, and the journalisms produced (Lugalambi and Schiffrin, 2018; Matthews and Onyemaobi, 2020; Paterson et al., 2018; Wasserman and De Beer, 2009). This paper makes a modest original contribution by creating a distinct category for examining how breaches of cultural norms may cause threats to journalists.

However, using or altering established theory requires peer debriefing against bias, and research reliability benefits from peer cross-checking (Spall, 1998). A senior researcher critiqued the author’s codes, including the category created. Thereafter, anonymized summaries of coded transcripts were sent to the researcher and two others for de-briefing.

Formal authority

The hierarchy-based deprivation of influence that newsroom journalists experience (Steiner, 2002) also happens in virtual collaborations, even though colleagues typically do not meet in-person during cross-border work (Alfter, 2019). Disagreements occurred over editorial procedures and in collaborations initiated by FCs. Coping strategies included compliance, resisting, or exiting the collaboration.

A 10-year collaborator said anytime they suggest changes, FCs reinforce formal authority:

“… First thing they say is ‘I was the one who pitched this, and I know how it should be.’ It makes me feel less…” (R5).

Income loss is a risk; a videographer says FCs “were getting upset because there was no shady thing happening… I felt taken advantage of and stopped working with them” (R12).

An FC’s interviewee choices threatened physical safety for a respondent with over 20 collaborations:

“People I had crossed paths with, and they are so angry with me, are the same people (the FC) wanted to talk to. It was a big struggle” (R13).

This suggests that although Formal Authority aids completion of collaboration tasks (Alfter, 2019), breaches can jeopardise safety. Furthermore, as media job losses increase the need to manage relationships (Siapera, 2019) journalists may be exhibiting Compliance via self-censorship, says (R9): “a lot of African journalists keep quiet even when not comfortable …they think if they talk, it is going to affect their earnings”.

Control of Scarce resources

Discretionary power to coordinate grants, decide payment terms and collaboration frequency reportedly brings financial threats. A freelancer adds that:

“...There was only one (collaboration) where I was paid a salary…all the other collaborations, they cover (sic) my out-of-pocket expense. For a year’s project, I get as little as $500…I get 60%... after six or four months I get the other. It’s ridiculous” (R1).

A founder who receives $200-$300 for fieldwork and 1000-word articles says this surpasses local wages but is dependent on each FC because “they can decide you earn nothing, or way less…” (R20). Another said: “I don’t get paid when I do investigations, I do it by passion” (R22).

A fourth respondent feels as initiators of investigations, FCs “control all the money” and “it affects my communication with them” (R9).

Interviewees showed compliance, even when dissatisfied. By suppressing emotions or limiting interactions with FCs over money, their coping strategies are maladaptive (Slavtcheva-Petkova et al., 2023).

Adjin-Tettey and Braimah’s (2023) conclusion that a lack of standardized benefits in newsrooms causes inequitable working conditions showed in this study. In the same investigation, R1’s expenses were covered, while R22 in another country received no payment (as discovered during data analysis).

Use of Organisational Structure, rules, and regulations

FCs reportedly decide online safety tools for teams or invoke ethics to control tasks. Respondents’ income and timely digital safety are threatened.

A veteran journalist recalls FCs insisting that all team-members obey the non-African country’s media law. The law was that nobody under investigated could be named during publication. Arguments followed and the AJs resisted, to protect their earning potential:

“They had to do their own version of the story and we did ours because how else will our by-lines have impact in our country? They were not happy” (R11).

Another respondent feels they are “always a step behind English-speaking colleagues” regarding digital safety because:

“I have to wait for trainers to teach me and I am also limited by…the poor quality of the Internet.” (R22).

Delays meant the AJ’s digital security was threatened, while others remain secure, showing the “problematic” nature of security training “prioritizing western contexts” (Henrichsen, 2020, p.334).

Control of Decision Processes

Respondents say FCs influence topics for investigation, but add that the themes donors choose, or the types of data that whistle-blowers leak, are additional forces. This means AJs “work around” pre-determined reporting themes “even if it doesn’t maximize your expertise” (R20). Also, reporters face negative perceptions by African audiences:

“You end up being nothing more than a fixer and the audience will notice, may even mock you online” (R20, Network Founder).

As being regarded as a fixer comes with the social stigma of not being a real journalist (Kotišová and Deuze, 2022), emotional harm is a likely risk.

Another breach of this power dynamic is lost sleep, where some journalists are “…awake until 2am” (R4). Here, the real-life consequences of online work (Köffer, 2015) apply to AJs disadvantaged by time-zones because they endure “constant digital connectedness” that causes “psychological stress” (Šimunjak, 2023, p.69).

Control of knowledge and information

Workplace hierarchies bring distinct tasks for team-members, which may cause information asymmetries (Morgan, 2017). In virtual collaborations, this power showed as FCs withholding pay information or excluding AJs who authored an investigation from post-production tasks.

After R5 was mistakenly sent an email showing all team-members’ fees, they lost income for confronting the FC about unequal pay: “I said ‘it is preferable you fly in and we do the ground work together.’ They haven’t worked with me since.”

Withholding information during story editing causes physical harm after publication, says an investigator who exited collaborations:

“‘This is going to be a risk for me,’ … ‘let me be part of the product,’ they refused. I was really upset. I had a mini-stroke.” (R19).

These accounts illustrate two indicators of “power dynamics impeding collaboration” (Gray et al., 2022, p.15). First, “low-power stakeholders” are excluded from deliberations, and powerful stakeholders can pick which rules to obey.

Control of Boundaries

FCs protect AJs from threats by external actors and facilitate further collaboration. However, breaches include FCs maintaining boundaries between AJs and donors, or foreign newsrooms.

Conditional aid to African journalism from industrialized nations propagating their interests (Paterson et al., 2018) has increased FCs’ influence, according to AJs. A film-maker copes by accepting that:

“They gate-keep this industry. I can’t travel to the US and lead an investigation ... Africans cannot…get six-figure grants given to a bootstrapped organization of three people, year after year; but foreign colleagues can” (R7).

However, an early-career journalist (R12) says this “gatekeeping” is also done by experienced AJs who alienate other AJs based on nationality, or reporting beats: “…they always dismiss us. It is painful”.

Ability to cope with uncertainty

Managing unpredictable situations brings power that advances a worker’s worth (Morgan, 2017) but the continental locations of teams mean FCs may not understand unique threats that AJs face:

“They are more likely to be protected by the police. They take it for granted ... So, they often belittle your cry for help” (R1).

Another respondent feels “most” FCs “lower their standards” of care, to prioritize deadlines:

“…the stuff they will not dare do back home, in Africa they just want to find a shortcut around it…even when the timing may put my life at risk” (R9).

Newsroom colleagues downplaying concerns and threats aligns with prior findings (Ivask and Lon, 2023; Larsen et al., 2020), and occurs between journalists with differences in gender, or years of experience. In this study however, location difference is cited.

Control of Technology

Only one respondent specified how control of communication and production technologies brings risks:

“They say ‘let’s talk on this,’ without asking which one is safe for you...you have to download it (app) if you want to keep the job...” (R5).

This re-echoes conclusions from Kunert et al. (2022b) that investigators feel pressured by an overwhelming need for enhanced digital skills and tools, regardless of their location.

Interpersonal Alliances, and control of Informal Organization

This power covers “unstructured, invisible” work circles (Morgan, 2017, p.259), and influence depends on the profile of individuals within powerful actor’s social networks. Respondents implicated FCs in breaches capable of reducing income and timely press freedom alerts:

“They know editors… They can help or mar your career. Because they are believed, whatever they say” (R7).

The acceptance R7 displays mirrors what Gray et al. (2022, p.13) call a silent trend in collaborative partnerships; stakeholders “less favoured by field norms” may become socialized into “deference” to wider structures imposed by “the more favoured actors in the field.” For example, in another case (unattributed to preserve anonymity), a respondent faced death threats and got no response from their FCs. The AJ then contacted a press freedom organization to release an alert, but that organization responded that the FCs had already contacted them, trying to stop publication of the alert, reportedly to avoid bad press.

Control of Counter organizations

Although counter-organizations give power to actors outside established power structures (Morgan, 2017), a breach may cause financial threats when AJs set up networks but self-sabotage through competitiveness. One founder (R2) wants fewer African investigative networks because “the challenge of funding leaves us very open to threats”, while another (R15) feels founders’ inability to work cordially is “why funders prefer non-African organizations”. As Cândea (2021, p.26) notes, while competition for technological and reputational prominence typically persists between networks, “tensions appear” whenever competition for donor-funding enters the mix.

Symbolism and Management of Meaning

This power is the ability to define others’ reality through ceremonies, language, appearances, and hypervisibility (Morgan, 2017). It manifests when investigators get recognition, win awards for collaborations, or are interviewed at conferences (Carson and Farhall, 2018; Kunert et al., 2022b).

The downside is that reputations and further work may be threatened at these arenas:

“At conferences, foreign colleagues always try to condemn (popular AJ’s) methods... If we don’t challenge it, our credibility and livelihood become affected” (R11).

Responses indicate this behaviour is not restricted to FCs. Africans use this power on each other:

“At workshops, they (African colleagues) are in cliques. They’re like ‘these ones only report on entertainment.’ How will we get commissioned for collaborations if this continues?” (R12).

Gender and the management of gender

When hierarchies exist on who can include/exclude team members based on gender, a breach may cause women to leave investigations. The colleague-based emotional abuse and sabotage female journalists face in the newsroom (Adjin-Tettey et al., 2023) occurs in virtual workplaces. It can be inflicted by women FCs against women, adds a journalist leaving their long-term collaborators:

“…They push you down by restricting you to certain investigations or taking by-lines from you. The funders do not bother to check on the foot soldiers… to say, ‘what did that collaboration cost you, emotionally?’ Funders are guilty…because they’re not doing their own monitoring and evaluation” (R24).

Structural factors that define the stage of action

This concerns historical and contemporary power relations embedded in the wider society where the organization operates (Morgan, 2017). In virtual investigations, breaches of structural power cause financial and physical threats. Respondents say peripheral actors in the cross-border journalism sector (funders, governments, and legal support NGOs) contribute to these threats—see Supplemental Table 3.

Founder R13 relies “fully on donor money” but finds donor themes “restrictive,” and therefore inserts a “box-ticking, useless activity… like (journalism) trainings” into grant proposals because “sometimes, what is in the donor’s budget may not be the most topical matter in our country.”

Another threat is African laws designed to block funding for transnational journalism. However, FCs reportedly contribute to this threat because “...they do not make the disbursement of grants in ways that understand our region.” (R10).

Finally, unresponsive legal support NGOs reportedly worsen threats by neglecting journalists’ mental and physical circumstances, says R1, who contacted an NGO but was still awaiting a response after 2 years:

“… You might end up in jail before legal support reaches you… you might not even have the presence of mind to fill all these paperwork sent by the foreign colleague.”

As Slavtcheva-Petkova et al. (2023) advise, although Resilience is laudable, actions leading to Resilience should not be automatically classified as constructive. By “ticking boxes”, R13 may have shown Resilience, but they admitted to Deception as a coping strategy. Other responses suggest Compliance negatively affects the quality of journalists’ content, their finances and mental well-being.

The power one already has (social perceptions of power)

The “resource strength” that Global North investigators possess means they can “make challenges more bearable for colleagues in the Global South” (Kunert et al., 2022b, p.775). Accordingly, FCs are considered powerful, for enabling visibility, skills training, and protection from assault (Meyer, 2019).

However, this power dynamic brings risks for sources and AJs, depending on where FCs are:

“They attract attention. You could go somewhere and not get anything to film, because they’re there...Their presence could mean those you are investigating are immediately aware and start planning to harm you” (R7).

The latent power that FCs reportedly have appeared during data collection. Despite signing consent forms stating this study as fully anonymous, three respondents sought reassurance (after spontaneous mid-sentence disclosure) that no FC names, cross-border networks or press freedom bodies would be cited. When asked if they wanted to end the interview, all insisted on continuing. A fourth respondent ensured recording stopped, before saying they only spoke because the researcher is Black. These non-codable occurrences suggest offline consequences exist for discussing colleague-based threats within cross-border journalism. Workers who comply repeatedly may be seen as Resilient because they continue collaborating. However, Hirschman’s (1970, p.96) argument that organizations extract loyalty (in this case, Compliance) through “penalties” such as “defamation and loss of livelihood” suggests external penalty-induced Compliance may differ from self-directed Resilience.

Control of cultural norms

This power unfolds when journalists exercise cultural capital: the ability to legitimize or prioritize cultural objects, moral values and socialized habits (Moon, 2019, p.1715). In this study, FCs decided communication and cultural standards for team members.

When faced with unfamiliar communication conditions, AJs practice self-censorship:

“In WhatsApp chats… people were raising financial issues, physical threats... but then there was sort of a brushing over of what was happening by foreign colleagues... So, people code-switched to not raise the issues anymore.... Theirs is rather like; ‘I’m concerned about you, colleagues, I hope you’re well, but can you keep on talking about these other things here?’ (R4).

Cultural control includes not recognising heritage-based circumstances that influence production tasks:

“They shouldn’t limit themselves to thinking of physical security.… People can do anything, even juju-wise (voodoo).” (R14, Print Journalist).

These incidents suggest that the greater loss of emotion and empathy experienced when communicating with digital technologies (Jimenez et al., 2017) also affects team morale and tasks during transcontinental collaboration.