Welcome to Waterless, the podcast from the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (CCIJ) that contributes to the global water conversation by giving voice to, and advocating for, everyone across the world who is water disadvantaged.
The CCIJ is a nonprofit collective of media creatives from across the globe, all united in the pursuit of cross-water and cross-discipline investigations. This podcast is produced by Volume.
This week, learn about how The Gambia’s plentiful water supply has actually been causing major health problems across the country.
It’s story of how a country with plentiful water resources is failing to provide safe water to its people.
Our host, Winston Mwale speaks to investigative journalist Lamin Jahateh and photographer Jason Florio the duo behind the story, “The Gambia’s Water Paradox (https://ccij.io/article/water-paradox-in-the-gambia/),” which covers the full extent to which the water system is failing a large population of Gambians.
The groundbreaking story synthesizes data collected over the past years and tells the stories of citizens who, over past years, have been sickened by the water in a country with no shortage of it.
14 Jul 2021
Nengi Nelson
What role, if any, can pictures play in telling water-related stories?
Are there any special tricks that journalists who are planning to cover water-related stories can employ to make their stories lively?
In this episode, host, Winston Mwale, speaks to Nengi Nelson, a photographer and budding film maker born and raised in Port Harcourt Nigeria.
Nengi, together with Festus Iyorah and Yuxi Wang, recently published a story titled “Waterpreneurs” cash in on government failure to deliver clean water to islanders” in Nigeria on CCIJ website.
It’s a story that talks about the struggles for water a daily reality for impoverished Nigerian island residents. Our host Winston Mwale talks to Nengi about this interesting story and her role, which was essentially photographing.
How important are pictures in production of stories?
7 Jul 2021
Yuxi Wang
In the previous episode, our host, Winston Mwale, spoke to Lesotho-based investigative journalist, Pascalinah Khabi, who, together with Sechaba Mokhethi, recently did a great story titled “water, water everywhere…but not a drop to drink”.
Apart from the great pictures that accompanied it, the story also had great data visualizations that were done by Yuxi Wang, a freelancing writer, and data journalist.
In this episode, Winston talks to Yuxi about her for passion for data storytelling, visualization, and her recent data visualizations for the story “Waterpreneurs”, which talks about government’s failure to deliver clean water to islanders” in Nigeria.
What was Yuxi’s major role in the story? In her opinion, what was so unique with this particular story, as far as data visualization was concerned?
6 Jul 2021
Pascalinah Kabi
The idiom "so close, yet so far" or "so near and yet so far" rings true for communities living within sight of Lesotho’s two biggest dams.
The villagers endure a daily struggle to access safe water because the “white gold” they can see, but cannot reach, is destined for neighbouring South Africa.
In this episode, host, Winston Mwale, speaks to Lesotho-based investigative journalist, Pascalinah Khabi, who, together with Sechaba Mokhethi, recently did a great story titled “water, water everywhere…but not a drop to drink” which was published on CCIJ website.
It’s a story that talks about how diseases keep on stalking some villages in Lesotho, as the country sells water to South Africa.
9 Jun 2021
Lois Henry
For the start of our third season of the Waterless podcast, we will be hearing from Lois Henry, the CEO and editor for SJV Water, an independent and non-profit news organization dedicated to covering water in the San Joaquin Valley.
In this episode, Henry discusses her work on her most recent piece titled, "The Central California Town that Keeps on Sinking" that was recently published in collaboration with the CCIJ and The New York Times. The piece focuses on the small town in the San Joaquin Valley known as Corcoran and investigates the causes behind the town's slow but sure sinking process. The town has sunk close to 12 feet within the last 14 years and Henry believes she knows why.
Listen to this latest episode to learn of her discoveries!
21 Oct 2020
David Dembélé and Jacques Ngor Sarr
In our first French-language podcast, David Dembélé of Senegal and Jacques Ngor Sarr talk about their potent investigation into water pollution in the Falémé River that runs between both countries. The journalists explain how they navigated the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the devastating consequences illegal gold mining and other pollution sources have on the Falémé, and what can be done to improve the urgent and stark situation.
14 Oct 2020
Joshua Vissers
Just how do you deal with sources who show no interest to speak to you, and then later get back to you after the story is published?
In this podcast, host Winston Mwale speaks to JOSHUA VISSERS, Associate Editor of the Mining Gazette, a US online publication, about his story “Residents of Cole’s Creek Road left out to dry."
The residents are accusing the the Houghton County Road Commission for cutting off their water supply with no warning, but HCRC says they did nothing wrong. When Joshua was gathering facts of the story, some sources declined to speak to him, but later accused him of “leaving out some facts."
So, how did Joshua go about it? Above all, how did he learn about the story itself? Take a listen.
7 Oct 2020
Jane Johnston
How do you make sure you tell a seemingly complex story in an engaging way that even your family members would love to read it, from the beginning to the end?
And, as if this was not enough, just how do you put a human face to such a complex story?
In this episode, Jane Johnston, a US-based journalist, reveals the answers to these and many more questions that Waterless podcast host, Winston Mwale, asked about her story "One Michigan County Tells The Story of a Nation Plagued by Water Pollution".
30 Sept 2020
Brezhnev Malaba
In 2018, a twin cholera and typhoid outbreak hit Zimbabwe’s capital, piling on the misery. It claimed 69 lives and over 10,000 people were affected by the diseases, highlighting the dangers of Harare’s dilapidated water-supply system.
In this podcast, host Winston Mwale speaks to Brezhnev Malaba, the Zimbabwean journalist who did a wonderful story about Harare’s crumbling water infrastructure, with support from CCIJ.
Why did Brezhnev do the story? What challenges did he face when doing the story? And any tips for young investigative journalists?
You’ll learn about this and more in the podcast.
23 Sept 2020
Jenipher Changwanda
Jenipher (Jane) Changwanda is a Malawian journalist with seven years of experience in the field. She discusses her new story, co-published with CCIJ, called “Collecting water dangerous for women and girls,” which tells the story of villages in Malawi that have been subjected to intermittent and unreliable water supply for the past 22 years. She talks about how that story came to be and how water scarcity poses a danger to women and girls globally.
29 Jul 2020
Mayor Otu
Akwaowo “Mayor” Otu is a documentary photographer from Nigeria, who holds a degree in Biochemistry, but has pursued photography to great heights, even publishing a book on street photography. His intimate documentation of the lives of waterless people living in Ruga Katampe, a community mostly made of nomads in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, went viral after he posted the pictures on his Instagram account. The community needed N500,000 (about $1300) to get a borehole for clean drinking water.
Mayor’s series, which he called “Water of Katampe” was acknowledged by Water Aid; he tells Ruona Meyer that the renowned international agency said it was unable to help the people of Katampe because they had exhausted their funding. Undeterred, Mayor tweeted at a Nigerian bank.
The results were swift, and unexpected.
22 Jul 2020
Winston Mwale
Today's guest is Winston Mwale. Mwale is a CCIJ member and the founder and editor of Africa Brief, a news aggregator for stories about Africa. A veteran journalist, Mwale has years of experience across east and southern Africa-- and beyond. He has racked up cross-continental bylines and regional awards on this journey. He specializes in investigative and solutions journalism. In this episode, Mwale discusses his work as a journalist and his new story-- published with CCIJ--that explores the women fighting for water from unprotected wells in Malawi.
Read Winston's work with CCIJ:
Daily scramble for water part of life for millions in Malawi (//Daily scramble for water part of life for millions in Malawi)
Malawi 2020 Presidential Election: Will the country crawl back to normalcy? (https://ccij.io/malawi-2020-presidential-election-will-the-country-crawl-back-to-normalcy/)
Follow Winston on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WinstonMwale (https://twitter.com/WinstonMwale)
15 Jul 2020
Freddie Clayton
Today, Ruona speaks with CCIJ member Fredrick "Freddie" Clayton, a former civil servant turned journalist. Freddie recently flew from London to the U.S. to meet who he called the "water cops" in Las Vegas, Nevada.
8 Jul 2020
Sonja Smith
Our guest today is Sonja Smith, a freelance investigative journalist at Namibia's biggest newspaper, called the Namibian. Smith is also a correspondent for the Associated Press and since 2013 she has broken high profile political stories, racking up front page leads consistently. With host Ruona Meyer, Smith discusses her experience as a freelance journalist and her most recent story-- published in collaboration with CCIJ-- about Waterless people in Namibia who are dying trying to collect water for themselves and their families.
Read Smith's story, Dying for a Drop, here: https://ccij.io/article/dying-for-a-drop/ (https://ccij.io/article/dying-for-a-drop/)
1 Jul 2020
Khaled Sulaiman
Khaled Sulaiman has a special relationship with water. In the first episode of Waterless, he speaks with host and CCIJ Social Media Director Ruona Meyer about that relationship that stretches back to his early childhood and his new book, "Guardians of the Water: Drought and Climate Change in Iraq."
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