Africa Uncensored founder shares his startup stories

John-Allan Namu shares what it takes to grow an investigative journalism unit from startup to sustainability.

Independent investigative journalism units across the continent face many of the same challenges. These aren’t limited to funding but include capacity-building and entering non-traditional journalism spaces while staying true to the discipline’s core values.

Expert view

Multi-award-winning Kenyan investigative journalist John-Allan Namu is the founder and chief executive of Africa Uncensored. Based in Nairobi, this investigative and in-depth journalism production house is a Code for Africa (CfA) partner through the African Academy for Open Source Investigations initiative. Namu spoke on the first day of the African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) in a session titled ‘The work of Africa Uncensored’.

Key points

• Multiple revenue streams are crucial for any media organisation. At Africa Uncensored, there are four core areas: storytelling, training, content platforms, and events. ‘Be ambitious, but also be realistic. Pragmatism will save you in the end,’ Namu says.
• Content platforms such as dashboards can provide more than traditional ‘straight journalism’, and function as a valuable resource for researchers, civil society, and the public. An example of this is Africa Uncensored’s Wizileaks, a resource for tracking public-sector corruption over time. Currently, Wizileak’s focus is on Kenya, but Namu aims to expand it to other countries in Africa. Fun fact: The name Wizileaks is not only a play on Wikileaks — ‘wizi’ means ‘theft’ in Swahili.
• Collaboration is vital. Namu looks beyond his own organisation and is committed to ‘creating an information ecosystem that helps people to navigate how they live’. He notes that collaborating with other organisations (including Code for Africa) on stories helps to develop his team members’ own capacity.

Quotable quote

‘Our goal is to create investigative reporting that’s not just about the moment, but can be more systemic’ — John-Allan Namu, founder and chief executive of Africa Uncensored.

Our take

Occasions such as AIJC provide an opportunity for journalists to exchange ideas, learn from each other and navigate common challenges. Just as collaborating editorially makes our stories stronger, sharing our organisational experiences helps to strengthen the media ecosystem.

Read more of Africa Uncensored’s work on CfA’s ADDO website or at Africa Uncensored. Find out more about the African Investigative Journalism conference here.

Summary by iLAB copy editor Theresa Mallinson and edited by iLAB managing editor Athandiwe Saba.