Making a real difference in society: An interview with Nuno Viegas

One of the journalists who made the podcast a reality is Nuno Viegas. In addition to conducting investigative journalism, Nuno handles fundraising for Fumaça. He and his teammates are dedicated to uncovering the truth and giving a voice to the unheard.

“Our work focuses on uncovering inequalities in large systems. For example, we spend several years on projects like policing in ghettoized neighborhoods, researching historically and contextually by interviewing residents, police officers, and academics,” says Nuno.

Nuno kindly answered some of our questions about his work and the organization itself.

Note: The original interview was longer and has been edited with permission from the interviewee.

What inspired you to start your organization?

Back in 2016 … investigative journalism was on the decline, as it had been for decades across Europe and the US. The media landscape was dominated by the same middle-aged, center-right white men. It was very straight, very conservative, and very boring.

Inspired by projects like The Intercept and Democracy Now!, we decided to create something new. We started an interview podcast in Portugal. It was a one-hour, deeply scripted but barely edited podcast where we sat down with researchers, activists, and politicians to talk in detail about policy issues, covering a wide range of topics.

Over the past eight years, we transitioned from interviews to long-form audio documentaries. We now spend two to three years developing serialized podcasts and then publish a comprehensive piece. This shift began in 2018 with a multi-episode series on the occupation of Palestine, which won the Gazeta Award, the biggest journalism award in Portugal. This was a turning point, prompting us to professionalize our efforts.

What have been some of your key milestones along the way?

One of our significant milestones was our series on private security in 2021, which won the UNESCO World Award for Human Rights Reporting. We introduced a line-by-line fact-checking system, which adds about three weeks to each episode’s production time but ensures every word we publish is verified. We justify every statement, even subjective ones, to maintain the highest standards of accuracy.

You started as a small group. How many employees do you have now?

We’re nine people, soon to be 10, because we’re onboarding a security consultant. Seven are full-time employees, nearly all of whom are journalists. We manage the newsroom horizontally, so everyone shares tasks related to daily management, fundraising, communications, and other duties. We also have three part-time employees handling security consulting, web development, operations, and administrative tasks.

What are the main topics you focus on?

We cover security very intensively. For example, we’ve done a series on the private security system in Portugal, which is significant — more people are working in private security than there are police officers. We’ve been investigating the prison system for about four years now and hope to publish our findings next year. We’ve also been researching policing in certain neighborhoods for six years, and it’s exhausting but necessary work.

Additionally, we focus on access to mental healthcare in Portugal, not just to break the stigma but also to examine public policies for creating actual access. We’ve investigated gas drilling in Portugal and frequently cover the occupation of Palestine, which is a recurring topic for us.

How do you approach investigative journalism?

Instead of starting with a specific story, we research entire systems or issues we believe need to be adequately covered. We choose topics that collectively annoy us because they aren’t being reported on thoughtfully. We do fewer stories but discuss each one extensively before committing to it. Our focus is on systemic issues that have been ongoing for decades.

For example, researching the prison system involved extensive reading and interviews with researchers. We use a grassroots reporting methodology, talking to affected people before speaking with officials. This means visiting neighborhoods, finding residents willing to talk, and building trust.

We do extensive archival and document work. For our piece on policing, we reviewed decades of media coverage to understand how narratives around policing in immigrant and poor neighborhoods were created. We also engage in ongoing Freedom of Information fights with institutions to obtain documents. This process is time-consuming but essential for transparency.

At the end of our investigations, we present our findings to officials in meticulously prepared, evidence-based interviews. We back our questions with extensive research and data, making it hard for them to deny the issues we’ve uncovered, although they often do anyway.

How do you measure the impact and success of your programs and initiatives?

Measuring impact in journalism, especially the type of contextual journalism we do, is quite challenging. However, there are specific instances where our reporting has led to visible changes. For example, when we covered the private security sector, we highlighted a labor law issue where private security guards had to switch employers every time a public contract changed providers, losing all their benefits each time. After our coverage, there was a change in that law.

Another instance was when we reported on eating disorders. We discovered that the official data on anorexia treatment was incorrect and had been for a decade. Our investigation prompted the ministry to revise its data and publish new, accurate figures, which showed that anorexia rates were steady rather than at an all-time high.

While these specific impacts are measurable, our primary goal is broader. We aim to provide a deeply contextualized understanding of complex issues like policing. For example, our series on policing includes diverse perspectives: victims of police brutality, researchers explaining the historical and sociological context, and police officers discussing their struggles, such as inadequate mental healthcare, low wages, and poor working conditions.

By presenting these multifaceted narratives, we hope to challenge and change preconceptions. For instance, someone might start the series believing that all police officers are terrible, but by the end, they might have a more nuanced view of the systemic issues police face.

What are some of your biggest challenges in producing in-depth investigative content?

One of the biggest challenges is structural — funding the newsroom to sustain long-term investigations. Working on a piece for six years isn’t the greatest business model. Most media outlets publish constantly to keep their audience engaged and drive revenue. In contrast, we rely on monthly membership donations even when we don’t publish for extended periods. It’s difficult to convince people to support us financially under these conditions.

Another significant challenge is Portugal’s poor compliance with Freedom of Information laws. On paper, the laws are decent, but institutions often ignore them in practice. This makes obtaining necessary data very time-consuming and costly. For example, what should legally take 10 days can take eight months and cost a thousand euros in legal proceedings.

Transparency is a mindset that is generally lacking, especially in state institutions. This makes it difficult to get interviews and balanced perspectives. For instance, the police directorate refused 12 interview requests for our series over six years, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs delayed scheduling an interview so long that the government changed before we could conduct it. This lack of cooperation from public officials severely hampers our ability to produce comprehensive reports.

Moreover, many fear repercussions even when public employees can legally speak to journalists. This fear inhibits freedom of expression and makes it hard to find sources willing to talk about their experiences within public institutions.

How does digital privacy and security affect your organization’s operations?

Digital privacy and security are crucial to our operations, especially given the nature of our work. We handle a lot of confidential police documents and rely on anonymous sources, many of whom legally should not be speaking to us. Protecting these sources and our data is important, and we take digital security very seriously.

To safeguard our communications and data, we implement robust security practices. This is why we are onboarding a security consultant and transitioning many of our tools to more secure services. This shift is time-consuming but essential to protect against state surveillance and potential police raids, which are significant concerns for us.

Could you share any specific scenarios or use cases in which a VPN like NordVPN has particularly benefited your NGO?

We have integrated NordVPN into our overall security strategy, which has been particularly beneficial in several scenarios. Whenever we work within the newsroom, we ensure our network is secure. Outside of the newsroom, we rely heavily on VPNs because we don’t trust any internet connection without it. This helps keep our internal communications and work safe.

We’ve consistently applied this approach for the past 2-3 years, especially when dealing with sources or exchanging sensitive documents. It’s become a standard practice for our team to use a VPN whenever handling anything confidential. This includes conducting interviews and other interactions that involve sensitive information.

At this point, using a VPN is mandatory for our team members to ensure that all our communications and data exchanges are secure. This strategy has helped us protect our sources and maintain the confidentiality of our work, ensuring that we can operate safely and effectively no matter where we are.

How do you ensure the safety and security of your sources and journalists?

For our journalists, the risks are often calculated and managed as part of the job. However, we have developed a detailed and secure process for our sources, especially anonymous ones, to alter their voices and remove any references that could identify sources from transcriptions. Encrypted files are stored securely.

The identity of sources is known only to a small, closed group within the newsroom: the reporter, the editor, and the fact-checker. This information is tightly controlled and shared only within this small circle. The actual names of sources are kept in encrypted storage, separate from the content they provided, ensuring that even if one piece of information is compromised, it cannot be used to identify the source.

The identity of sources is known only to a small, closed group within the newsroom: the reporter, the editor, and the fact-checker. This information is tightly controlled and shared only within this small circle. The actual names of sources are kept in encrypted storage, separate from the content they provided, ensuring that even if one piece of information is compromised, it cannot be used to identify the source.

What role does community support and engagement play in your organization, and how can people support your cause?

Given that we publish content infrequently, we’ve worked hard to build a non-transactional membership model. Our listeners don’t have to pay to access our content, and we offer very few member benefits. For instance, members gain access to our Slack channel, where they can communicate with us, and we host open newsroom events, monthly meetups, and listening parties for new episodes before they go live.

Despite the minimal benefits, about 1,800 people donate money to us monthly, which constitutes a significant part of our budget. Last year, community donations accounted for 51% of our annual budget, making it our largest funding source.

When we ask our supporters why they donate, 94% say they do so to keep our newsroom financially sustainable. They aren’t necessarily donating because of our latest series but because they believe in our editorial mission and want to support future projects.

We maintain this relationship by being open about our operations and updating our supporters on our progress, challenges, and timelines. If you visit our website, you can find details about every step of our investigations, including the episodes we’ve written, the ones we’re still working on, and any legal battles we face. This transparency extends to our financials — our budget, wages, and every transaction in and out of our bank accounts are publicly accessible online.