‘Libya’s Game of Drones’ produced by Manisha Ganguly wins Best Investigation at the Asian Media Awards

‘Libya’s Game of Drones’, which was produced for the BBC by CAMRI Doctoral Researcher Manisha Ganguly, has won Best Investigation at the Asian Media Awards. The documentary, which can be viewed below, uncovered new evidence that a laser-guided missile, fired from a UAE drone, killed 26 unarmed cadets in January 2020, that the UAE is still deploying drones and other military aircraft in support of its Libyan allies, and that Egypt is facilitating this intervention.  The UAE has denied intervention in Libya’s civil war.

Manisha was the lead OSINT producer for the BBC World Service’s Emmy-winning Arabic Documentaries teams since its inception, and has previously worked for BBC Newsnight, CNN International, the Telegraph, and others.

She prides herself on combining traditional methods of investigative reporting with open-source intelligence to document violations and civilian harm in conflict, and track down hard-to-find sources. Her primary areas of interest are international humanitarian law, and the impact of technology on human rights.

At 25, Manisha was named a Forbes Under 30 media innovator (2021), for her impactful journalism.

In 2018, Manisha was granted funding by the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster to pursue a PhD. Her PhD explores the impact automation, OSINT and AI has had on investigative journalism, through a political economy lens that documents how the gig economy and digital labour has impacted the mental health of OSINT journalists, especially the prevalence of PTSD through vicarious trauma.