Freelance data journalism: A million moving parts; a reality check; a huge responsibility to your readers
Speaking from my own experience only, the data is the least of your worries. The data is ready to be analysed. But bringing your story to life with real people’s stories, and managing ambitious, wide-ranging data projects is a whole different kettle of fish for a “traditional” journalist
When I landed an impactAFRICA grant in 2016, it was one of the most exciting moments of my career. I’d been researching garnishees and unethical behaviour in the South African credit industry for the best part of two years at that point. I had more information than I knew what to do with, and a deep need for this story to see the light of day.
A quick recap, in simplest terms: A garnishee (or emolument attachment order, EAO) is a legal order served on an employer (your company) to enable collection of debt owed by a consumer. So, if you don’t pay your instalments on your clothing store card, for example, the company might go to court to get an EAO against you to collect on that debt. They serve this on your boss / payroll at your company. Then your employer has to pay a portion of your salary directly to the creditor. Different versions of garnishee orders are used around the world to this end, but they are particularly controversial in South Africa where rampant abuse of the orders saw a legal challenge go all the way to the Constitutional Court (who found elements of one of the Acts governing this to be unconstitutional). It was a landmark case in SA law, and received huge media attention, but there has been a tendency on the part of the media to treat the issue of garnishees as “job done” after the case. In reality, the ConCourt dealt with just two issues in a practice riddled with loopholes and outright fraud. It is a hydra and the fight is far from won.
I wanted to be able to show “how we got here”, and what those remaining loopholes are, to offer some sense of just how prevalent and unregulated (“unregulatable”?) garnishee use had become in South Africa.
As we know, around the world, media is in flux: a problematic revenue model and a changing information environment mean that many publications can’t afford to invest in single issue, in-depth reporting. It’s even tougher if you’re a freelancer on the outside of the newsroom. And the impactAFRICA grant gave me the support and space to put time and energy into doing this as a freelance journalist.
I approached Business Day because I wanted to tell a high level, detailed story to a high level audience. Yes, we need to ultimately educate consumers on their rights. But I also wanted the champions of private business and public service to get an overview of the issue, and to consider their role in this. Business Day seemed a good fit in this regard, and were immediately interested and committed to the idea. With them on board, I wrote up my impactAFRICA application and motivation. A for away, right?
Yes and no. I could never have anticipated some of the challenges I faced over the next year from acceptance to publication.
One example is companies who promise data — in writing — and then drop off the face of the planet. No response to email after email, no answers to your numerous phone calls. No explanation, no nothing. Another is just how frustrated the victims are in this matter, and that you (as the journalist) are not seen as their ally (or even a means to an end), but as another cog in a large uncaring system that has let them down time and time again.
Specifically, 15 consumers with garnishees agreed to speak to me on record. One by one, almost all of them the dropped out of the process. And who can blame them? Their lived experience of the court system is one of fraud and brutal bureaucracy. Their lived experience of the media is an industry that seems to pop in when the spotlight is on, but leads to little change in their lives. Wouldn’t you be frustrated?
Then there was the issue I should have anticipated, but naively didn’t. As a freelancer, I was the writer, the researcher, the project manager, and other roles as well. The insightful Code for Africa fellows had tried to warn me: you need a team, and you need distinct responsibilities. When life comes at you (as it inevitably does), if you are trying to conduct (and play) all the disparate instruments of the orchestra by yourself, things fall apart.
Fast forward a year, and we’ve had two large features appear in both the print and online editions of the Business Day, seen them shared fairly widely on social media, reprinted and shared in legal circles (a core industry implicated in the story output, and therefore an important audience), and — I’m told — discussed at a meeting between leadership of the debt recovery industry and representatives of a top government department. All of which I am excited about and proud of.
But the real takeout right now, and one that I am still figuring out how to manage, is the people (the credit consumers) who have reached out to me since publication: “I can’t get a statement from my debt administrators”… “I’ve been paying off diligently but my debt keeps growing”… “I don’t understand why I owe this much”… “I never opened this account”… “I don’t know how long I will be paying for”…
This story has only just scratched the surface.
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest federation of data journalism and civic technology laboratories, with labs in four countries and affiliates in a further six countries. CfA manages the $1m/year innovateAFRICA.fund and $500,000/year impactAFRICA.fund, as well as key digital democracy resources such as the openAFRICA.net data portal and the GotToVote.cc election toolkit. CfA’s labs also incubate a series of trendsetting initiatives, including the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in East Africa, the continental africanDRONEnetwork, and the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting(ANCIR) that spearheaded Panama Papers probes across the continent. CfA is an initiative of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
