Signatory Spotlight: Africa Uncensored
Updated: 2 days ago
Africa Uncensored is a prominent force in Kenya’s investigative journalism landscape, with a mission to uncover the truth and hold those in power to account. Emmanuel Chenze, its Chief Executive Officer, describes the safety challenges that accompany Africa Uncensored’s investigations, and why the organization become an ACOS signatory in 2025.
Q. Chenze, Africa Uncensored is known for its impactful investigations. Can you tell us a bit more about the on-going safety challenges that accompany your work?
EC: Our journalism comes with its own set of risks. We work on a public interest basis, accessing information that people don’t want us to get out. Over ten years of operating, our journalists regularly receive verbal threats from our interviewees and subjects. These threats can manifest as surveillance, online harassment, and physical intimidation. Approaching subjects for their right of reply often leads to safety issues: it’s seen as an opportunity to prevent a story getting out.
What effect has this had on the way that you work?
It can make our operations very costly as we have to factor in additional resources and security. We put significant time into risk assessment to ensure that both our teams and our sources are safe during and after publication. Production processes can often be prolonged because of this: we don’t want to publish a story that puts anyone at risk.
For new journalists and members of the team, this means that the learning curve is long. Because our journalism is investigative and impactful, everything has to be grounded in a culture of safety. Everyone involved in the production process has to get on board with our safety processes, and it helps give them confidence to do their work in a very challenging environment.
The psychological impact of our work can be high - threats have an effect - so we constantly have to figure out, as an organization, how we support our teams so they can continue to do what they do. We see it as an insurance.
Africa Uncensored has been participating in the ACOS Newsroom Program. How has this helped? Taking part, specifically in Safety in Practice Plus (SiP+), has been a godsend, and it’s come at just the right time for our organization. In May 2025, with ACOS, we organized a three-day safety training for our team, and this has been a natural next step. We’ve also been working on several important, highly contested investigations which have presented some serious security challenges.
It’s been great doing [these investigations] while in SiP+ because we’ve had the dedicated support of Ephraim Muchemi, our allocated safety advisor. Whilst we would have been putting in place safety protocols, it’s been a huge plus to work through them all with Ephraim. For an organization our size it’s been really beneficial. Not only has it helped us focus on what we do best - the journalism - it’s also helped us to strengthen our existing processes and provide template protocols for future investigations.
We’re storytellers, not security consultants, so having that specialist support has been invaluable. Another plus is that Ephraim is known to us and known to the team. Having that background, and the local and contextual knowledge, has enabled us to get more done because he knows what we’re up against.
[The ACOS Meeting] was a big eye-opener for us because we found a community that shared our experiences and concerns. We found journalists from the MENA region, from South America and other parts of Africa who were facing the same set of challenges and we wanted to be part of this: ‘Our peers are here!’
What led Africa Uncensored to become an ACOS signatory? It came from extended conversations with Elisabet [Cantenys] and the ACOS team, and after our invitation to the ACOS Meeting in 2024. It was a big eye-opener for us because we found a community that shared our experiences and concerns. Prior to that we’d been doing risk assessments and embedding good practices, but given how niche and specific our investigative journalism is in Kenya, we had always thought that our safety challenges were very unique to us.
We found journalists from the MENA region, from South America and other parts of Africa who were facing the same set of challenges and we wanted to be part of this: ‘Our peers are here!’
We also liked ACOS’s innovative approach. As someone who runs an organisation, I have to constantly factor in safety processes: ‘How can we do this so that it sticks?’ The meeting was talking about this and trying out innovative approaches to safety. We wanted to be part of that.
We very much see this as a partnership - and that’s a measure of how we’ve been treated since becoming a signatory. We feel that we belong to ACOS. We see ourselves as being part of a safety solidarity movement, and that solidarity is built into the Freelance Journalist Safety Principles.
What does being an ACOS signatory mean to African Uncensored? We very much see this as a partnership - and that’s a measure of how we’ve been treated since becoming a signatory. We feel that we belong to ACOS. We see ourselves as being part of a safety solidarity movement, and that solidarity is built into the Freelance Journalist Safety Principles - it’s at the heart of the Alliance. We realised that Africa Uncensored had to have a strong safety ethos nine years ago - and we’ve kept it. But, as an ACOS signatory, we now have partners who have those same values and ethos. We don’t take that for granted.
You can find out more about Africa Uncensored's investigations at africauncensored.online
All photos copyright Frankie Mills
