Manisha Ganguly (Bengali: মণীষা গাঙ্গুলী, born 13 January 1995) is an investigations correspondent at The Guardian.[1] She previously worked as investigative documentary producer for BBC News[2] covering conflict and international affairs. She lives in London, United Kingdom.[3]
Early career
In 2012, as a teenager in Kolkata, India, Ganguly was one of ten young journalists selected from hundreds of competitors to intern for The Times of India.[2][4]
After the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, Ganguly began reporting on violence against women; in a later interview she described being subject to rape and death threats online as a result.[2] She was the founder and editor of Eyezine, the webzine of the feminist counterculture Eye ArtCollective which she co-founded in 2013/14. The publication showcased women reporting on violence against women.[5][6][7] In a later interview with Marie Claire, she said that the website was central to documenting the campus rape which sparked the 2014 Jadavpur University protests.[8] Its investigation into subsequent riot police assault against students sparked mass protests and shut down the city,[2] and resulted in more than 100,000 readers in one month for the website.[9] She said that the webzine also came under attack from the state for reporting on human rights abuses in the Kashmir conflict.[2] The collective exhibitied their work in Toronto in 2015.[10][11]
Ganguly received a full scholarship to study a Master's in journalism at the University of Westminster in London, and moved to the United Kingdom. She considers India to be a hostile environment for women in journalism.[2] Her first role in investigative journalism in the UK was for The Daily Telegraph.[12]
Reporting
For the BBC, investigative documentaries she has worked on exposed double-tap attacks by Russian planes in Syria and war crimes by Turkish-backed forces in the Syrian civil war,[13][14][15][16] war crimes in Libya,[17][15][18][19] use of cluster munitions in Ukraine,[20] human trafficking in the Middle East,[3][21] uncovered the training of the killers of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,[3][15] discovered China's most famous MeToo activist who had been missing,[22] and reported on Covid-19 in the Middle East.[23] In 2022, an investigation Ganguly co-led documented the torture of Russian anti-war prisoners in a Moscow police station and the identities of the officers, and officers were subsequently sanctioned by the EU.[24][25][26]
For the Guardian and Forbidden Stories, Ganguly was part of an international team that investigated Team Jorge, a group of Israeli contractors led by Tal Hanan which claimed to have meddled in more 30 elections worldwide and Aims, their software to launch bot armies.[31][32][33] The investigation resulted in the suspension of French broadcaster Rachid M'Barki of BFMTV.[34] For The Guardian, she investigated NTC-Vulkan, which develops a Russian disinformation network and cyberweapons used by the Russian military and intelligence agencies, as a part of the Vulkan Files.[35] Ganguly acquired the Pentagon Leaks from Discord for the Guardian,[36] and reported that half the special forces deployments in Ukraine consisted of UK special forces.[37] As part of the "Costs of the Crown" team, Ganguly investigated the lineage of colonial looting of jewellery in the royal collection owned by Elizabeth II, and the British royal family.[38][39] Ganguly exposed the US and Germany training of Saudi border forces accused of mass killing migrants on the Yemen border.[40] Ganguly has reported on transnational repression of dissidents on European soil, focussing on Saudi Arabia[41] and Iran.[42]
During the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, Ganguly's Instagram account was restricted by Meta while seeking blood donations for injured journalists.[43] Ganguly led the Guardian's investigation into the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion,[44] reporting that the crater at the blast site required kinetic energy inconsistent with a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) aerial bomb, and was also inconsistent with an airstrike, concluding that it was "more likely to be a weapon that failed and released its payload over a wide area." She investigated damage to Gaza's hospitals including by Israeli munitions,[45][46] the Jabaliya refugee camp airstrikes,[47] conducted damage assessment of northern Gaza,[48] and wrote that Israel appeared to be receiving munitions from a US War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel for the war in Gaza.[49][50] Together with Forbidden Stories and ARIJ, Ganguly investigated the deaths of Palestinian journalists in Gaza and revealed that parts of the IDF viewed Hamas-linked journalists as legitimate targets.[51][52][53][54][55]
Ganguly worked with a consortium of investigative journalists to uncover more than 1,000 unmarked graves of deceased migrants and refugees on the borders of Europe.[56][57] The investigation was awarded the European Press Prize Special Award.[58][59][60][61]
Academic work
She holds a PhD titled "Future of Investigative Journalism: The Age of Automation, A.I. & Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)" from the University of Westminster, where she has also taught.[62][63] It is the first[citation needed] PhD in OSINT mapping the impact on investigative journalism.[64][65] Ganguly's research also focussed on incidences of PTSD and the mental health impact of looking at graphic violence in OSINT investigations in war zones.[66]
Commentary
Ganguly is a vocal proponent of women's representation and diversity in the OSINT space and investigative journalism.[66]
Ganguly has stated that OSINT investigations help confirm ground reality during war and fact-check claims made by state actors.[67][45]
In 2023, following the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk and banning of ElonJet, Ganguly expressed concern for Twitter becoming "an inhospitable platform for the OSINT community".[68] Ganguly also criticised the verification of the account of assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Musk for Twitter Blue, tweeting: "Jamal Khashoggi deserves better".[69][70] She attributed the new verification rules on X to the disinformation put out by OSINT accounts, and "OSINT grifters".[67]
^Achcar, Gilbert (4 January 2024). "The first US-Israeli joint war". Le Monde diplomatique. Archived from the original on 25 January 2024. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
^Baddhan, Lakh (1 October 2020). "Asian Media Awards 2020: Finalists list". BizAsia | Media, Entertainment, Showbiz, Brit, Events and Music. Archived from the original on 15 April 2022. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
