Signs that you've walked into an information operation organised by a foreign intelligence agency as an African journalist: - A shadowy NGO flies you out for a program in Accra/Nairobi/Cape Town for a week and puts you up at the local Kempinski/4 Seasons, which start from $500/night. - The NGO doesn't clearly explain who is funding the largesse and why. You are encouraged to have fun, eat the food, and make sure to take part in whatever program they have organised at the 5 star hotel. - The program in question is facilitated almost entirely by white people. The greatest extent of local involvement is that an African is the one operating the projector or passing around the notes for audience participation. - The goal of the program is to get you to write something specific, but the muzungus spend hours nudging and gaslighting you into agreeing that it was your own idea, and that you will write it because you want to, not because you are obligated to. - The muzungu facilitators use phrases like "We do not want to dictate what story you should write or how to write it. We're only trying to help you become better journalists." *TRANSLATION*: "We absolutely want to dictate what story you should write and how you should write it, but we need you to convince yourself that it was your idea so that you will organically publicise and defend the published story, and you will also assume all blowback or consequences. Our muzungu lives and reputations are more important than yours - your job is to be our cheap, effective, expendable ventriloquist dummy without realising it." - Despite having all the money to fly you around Africa, wining and dining you all the way, the NGO isn't interested in using its money and influence to get your published article placed in international media - it specifically wants it placed in the local media you work with, because your audience is the target of the entire operation. - The NGO refuses to be identified anywhere in writing as the sponsor of the project in question. It does not agree for your sponsored article to be labelled correctly as sponsored or supported. It wants to leverage your name recognition and your audience to push a specific message, but it wants to remain entirely hidden out of sight. - In some cases, the NGO makes you sign a non-disclosure agreement to ensure that its role in your story remains hidden. (This is important because in journalism, visibility is everything, so a funding entity wanting to be kept hidden to the extent of making you sign an NDA is a MAJOR RED FLAG.) - If the article in question blows up spectacularly in your face and generates backlash, the muzungus repeatedly encourage you to stay quiet, to not defend your honour publicly, to avoid engaging on social media, and to keep reporting any news developments about the issue to them. That's actually an intelligence agency trying to ensure that its classified operation remains concealed, that you don't reveal information that could lead back to it in the process of engaging and defending yourself, and that it is on top of any change in situation so that it can cover its own ass adequately. You will, of course, receive no help whatsoever. Your entire purpose is to be expendable. And in case you're thinking, "Wait I've had experiences with elements of all this, but it was BBC Africa Eye instead of a shadowy NGO with unclear funding - surely that couldn't have been a clandestine intelligence operation?" My answer is, unending layers of doubt, misdirection, and deceit are literally the lifeblood of foreign intelligence operations. Go forth and be a mug no more. Good morning.

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