Transcript - Pull Quotes Episode 4 [Upbeat music] Gabe Oatley 00:10 Hello, I'm Gabe Oatley, the co-host of Pull Quotes. Rahaf Farawi 00:15 And I’m Rahaf Farawi, the other half of Pull Quotes, the podcast where we take you behind the scenes of Canada's top long form stories. Gabe Oatley 00:21 Game on. Rahaf Farawi 00:22 So Gabe, who did you chat with this week? Gabe Oatley 00:24 Yeah, this week on the podcast, we've got Geoff Dembicki. Jeff's a climate justice reporter who's published stories about the forthcoming climate apocalypse in the New York Times the Tyee, Foreign Policy and elsewhere. Rahaf Farawi. 00:40 So is the story you chatted about also about climate? Gabe Oatley 00:41 Yes, true. It also is about climate. In particular, it's about how an undercover cop infiltrates U.K. climate justice movements and the impact that that kind of policing had on those movements. Rahaf Farawi 00:50 So what stuck out to you in the interview? Gabe Oatley 00:53 Yeah, I was really interested in the origin story for this piece. Geoff talks about being at Black Lives Matter marches after George Floyd was killed, and trying to figure out how to tell a story that would link climate justice and policing. And this story was the result. Rahaf Farawi 01:24 Cool. I'm excited to hear it. Gabe Oatley 01:36 Alright, let's do it. [Upbeat music] Gabe Oatley 01:35 Alright, Geoff, hello. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. Geoff Dembicki 01:40 Yeah, thanks for having me on here. Gabe Oatley 01:44 So today, we're gonna be chatting about your most recent piece for VICE. It is titled: How a married undercover cop having sex with activists killed a climate movement, which is just like a very ‘wow’ headline. Like, you read that headline, and you're like, ‘Holy shit, I'm in for a story here.’ For folks who haven't yet read this piece, can you sort of tell us in broad brushstrokes about the main characters in the story and what happens? Geoff Dembicki 02:14 So the story really takes place over the course of a few decades. And the gist of it is that back in the early 2000s, U.K. police sent an officer named Mark Kennedy undercover basically, to pretend that he was a climate change activist. And his mission was to gather intelligence on people advocating for solutions to climate change and the environment and, and all sorts of things related to that. And the British police basically were worried about eco-extremists, and other things like that. And, and so Mark Kennedy, he, he changed his hair, he invented a backstory, and he set about infiltrating a bunch of radical climate change groups. And one of the main tactics that he used was entering into romantic and sexual relationships with women who are in those movements. And that allowed him to gain trust and, and gain and get closer to the people who are making decisions. And so after seven years of doing this, activists revealed his true identity, [and] the whole thing exploded in the public. And then several of the women who had been manipulated and deceived by him took action against the U.K. Police and after nearly a decade. One of those women, Kate Wilson, won a major court battle against the U.K. police force and she was recently awarded, as of a couple of weeks ago, a bunch of money in damages. And so but the whole thing really, it takes place the story takes place from around like 2003 to, to very recently. Gabe Oatley 04:26 And what motivated you to do this story in the first place? Where did this piece come from? Geoff Dembicki 04:31 So like, I write about climate change, full-time for for a variety of outlets. And I first heard about the Mark Kennedy story back in 2010 when he had been exposed. And, and I thought at the time ‘Wow, this, this is such a wild story — this cop pretending to be a climate change activist.’ And the, the story of it just stuck with me over the years. And I would think about it, every now and then, but it took on a bit of new meaning for me in the summer of 2020, when there were massive protests against the police in the U.S. and worldwide, due to police killings of people like George Floyd. And so I was listening in on a bunch of conversations in the environmental movement, where people were making linkages between a police oppression and the climate emergency. And I thought those discussions were, were super interesting and super important. But it was, it was all still, you know, fairly abstract. And I didn't see a way that I could build really a compelling story around that. And so, I was in a meeting with my VICE editor in early 2021. And she was asking some of us if we had ideas for bigger, more ambitious, narrative style pieces around climate change. And then that's, that's when I remembered this Mark Kennedy story. And I thought, this is, this is a great way to tell a climate story that's, that's also directly relevant to, to police oppression, and, and to state interfering with, with people's free speech, and all sorts of other issues. And so that's kind of how I got the ball rolling. And my editor was very interested in, in me doing this piece. The, The other aspect of this is that I, like I didn't, I didn't break any news, or really discover anything that wasn't already out there, like on the record. Because this, this has already become a huge story over in the U.K. and Europe, due to the advocacy and legal fights of some of the women who had been manipulated by the cop, Mark Kennedy. But what what I saw when, when I, when I did a lot of reading of the media reporting in the U.K. and elsewhere, is that over time, some of the political elements have— had kind of been stripped away from the story. And it had taken on more of, like a tabloid-y feel. It mostly just focused on the more sensational, like sexual aspects of the story. And a lot of the reporting kind of just portrayed this as, as like, drama between individuals like, the, the women and the rogue cop. But I wanted to bring more of like, a bigger political climate focus back into the reporting, because, you know, Mark Kennedy went undercover for very political reasons, he saw the climate advocacy of these people as a threat. And then the other thing was, I saw that, you know, this story had basically gotten no attention whatsoever in the U.S. and Canada. And so I thought, ‘Well, here's the one the thing I could contribute to the reporting is, is bringing it over here.’ If, if that makes sense. Gabe Oatley 08:49 And how to go about finding sources for this piece and reporting this story out. Geoff Dembicki 08:55 The main thing I did when I was reaching out to people, initially, was, was to kind of explain, what what I just explained now — that I'm a climate journalist, I'm based in New York at the moment, and I'm, I'm interested in bringing this predominantly U.K.-Europe story into a North American context. Gabe Oatley 09:21 Hmm. And how did folks respond to that? Geoff Dembicki 09:23 Well, the first person I reached out to is this guy named Jason. He's quoted in the piece and he, he was pretty interested in having the story reach a new audience, because this undercover policing that was happening in the U.K. I mean, it's definitely not isolated to, just to just that country. There's long histories of RCMP and FBI infiltrating social movements and, and environmental groups over here. So I think he, he shared my interest in, in having this, this story, reach more people and in more groups and, and the reason I reached out to him first is because he's in the process of creating a documentary about undercover policing and Mark Kennedy called Spied Upon. And he had posted a bunch of different interview clips on the documentaries website with, with various people who, who were involved with the climate movement. And so I figured, well, if, if Jason has already done all these interviews and knows all these people, then he probably has, like, a good bird's eye perspective on this whole story. So he's the first person I got in touch with. Gabe Oatley 10:57 Right on. It seems like you're able to interview Kate Wilson for the story. Kate is one of the women who had a relationship with Kennedy, the cop, while he was undercover. And Wilson has been through, as you reported, nearly a 10 year legal battle around the impact of that sort of cop-work on her and other women. She has said, as you reported in your piece, that the interaction with Kennedy, her relationship with Kennedy, was like a computer virus that affected all of her memories. Can you talk about how you were able to get Kate to speak with you and how you approach that interview in terms of being sensitive to her experience going through something as traumatic as this? Geoff Dembicki 11:42 That was definitely a sensitive interview to do. And I think I, I don't think she would have wanted to speak with me if I hadn't been in touch with a few of the other activists over a period of several months and had, you know, long conversations with them and, and sort of communicated where I was coming from with this piece. And, and when I, when I spoke with Kate, I said that I'd be drawing most of the material about the personal aspects of her relationship with Mark Kennedy from stuff she had already said on the record. She had, you know, written op-eds, in The Guardian, and done other public appearances where she discussed the relationship. And so I, I said that I was mainly interested in discussing some of her political thoughts about this, which is kind of in keeping with me wanting to bring more of, like a higher level climate or, or political angle to the piece. And so I, I asked, you know, I asked how, how the Kennedy stuff had had affected her political activism over the years. And, you know, what, what the end what the, the judgment had, had meant in, in terms of closure. And whether she still does any, any climate organizing. And so that, that's mostly the stuff that we— that we talked about in, in our conversation. Gabe Oatley 13:33 And how did you approach offering anonymity with sources in this story? Several of the climate organizer sources go on record. At least one does not. And for one of the sources, you use a pseudonym. When did you offer it? How did you negotiate those terms with your sources? And were there many folks who were keen to stay anonymous, who, you know, over time, became more comfortable with going on record for the story? Geoff Dembicki 14:03 Yeah, usually, usually, people were pretty upfront at the beginning of the interview, whether they wanted to be on record or off-record. And some people said, ‘let's keep this on background. And then we can decide later what, what you'd like to use and in terms of a quote.’ And you know, generally, I think as, as a journalist, it's kind of like case-by-case how you make those sorts of calls. If if I was interviewing someone who led a government or corporation or anything like that, I'd be more inclined to just say, like, ‘No. Whatever you say to me, I'm probably going to print or or put on the record.’ But, you know, when, when you do to do a story like this — where a lot of events are highly personal for people and and there's they're still active in, in these activist communities and potentially police are still monitoring some of these people. I tried to be, to be attuned to that. And like the person who we use the pseudonym for, he was closely related to a lot of really important events around Mark Kennedy. He was part of a small group of people who, who helped expose the cop and made it public. And so I felt like having that person's voice in the story was, was really important. And, you know, ultimately, I don't think having a pseudonym detracted at all from, from the importance of the, of the things he was saying. Gabe Oatley 16:06 Since being outed as a cop, Kennedy has said lots on the— in the public domain, some of it is like pretty colorful stuff, he did a multi-hour kind of tell-all interview with the U.K. Daily Mail, he talks about how his wife and son have reacted to the stories being published, things about his mental health, that kind of thing. That is certainly material that could like, add life to what is already like a really detail-rich, colorful, draft. I'm curious how you chose what to include and what to not include? Geoff Dembicki 16:43 Yeah, with Kennedy, it's, it's kind of difficult because the, the judicial— sorry, the judicial body that was deciding on Kate Wilson's case, pretty much acknowledged that Mark Kennedy is a highly unreliable narrator. I mean, he's, he's spent seven years pretending to be someone he wasn't. So he's essentially like— he's, he's a professional when it, when it comes to saying things that aren't true. But that, that said, you know, he had done a lot of on-the-record interviews in the early years after being outed. And I thought it was useful to include some of that stuff in the piece. Partly because, there, there were, there were some times when he was the only person speaking to a specific event. And, and, other times I thought it was just interesting to, to see how he attempted to portray his role in some of these undercover operations. And, I mean, part, part of what's, what's interesting about the narrative arc of, of this story is that when he was— when Mark Kennedy was first outed, the, the whole thing was kind of treated as this like silly, like, spy scandal. And Kennedy even hired a celebrity publicist and he was, he was going around doing all of these interviews that were attempts to make him look really sympathetic. He would say things like, ‘I shouldn't have fallen in love with these women, but I, I couldn't help it.’ And at one point, he did an interview with Rolling Stone. And, and they, they kind of portrayed the whole thing as like a bit of a farce. It really— the story was full of like, metaphorical, like winks and stuff at the reader. But then I think one thing that really happened is, is the, you know, our cultural understanding of what Mark Kennedy was actually doing, shifted a lot over that past decade. It's, especially with things like Me Too, and, you know, a closer examination of like, racial and gender inequalities in our society. And, and when you look at what he did, from today's perspective, it's a lot less silly and a lot more, you know, disturbing. Because it's, he's an agent of the state and he's coercing wom en into sexual relationships that they don't have the ability to fully consent to. And, and he's doing that to undermine their legitimate right to organize politically. And even worse than that, is that these people are trying to wake up society to deal with the climate emergency which is already causing tens of thousands of deaths and all sorts of damage around the world. And so I think the way people view this story now is, is a lot more — in a way that, or they view it as a lot more disturbing and sinister than they might have 10 years ago. Gabe Oatley 20:19 Sure. Yeah, you mentioned off the top that like, part of what brought you into the story was thinking about how to tie sort of, policing stories with climate stories. I'm curious after having now been so deep in this one for many months, what you're thinking about in terms of other ways that you or other climate focused journalists can, like, engage readers in stories at the intersection between the carceral system, or cops, and climate change. Geoff Dembicki 20:55 I mean, I would love it if I had another one, just like, ready to go. I mean, that's, that's something I'll be thinking about more definitely, over the next few weeks and months. But like one, one kind of interest, or there's been a few, a few interesting reactions to this piece. One of them is [that] we figured, like, people would be interested in reading it, but the, the, the initial reaction to it was, was a lot bigger than then, at least I, expected it. Because it was like, the top story on VICE for a few days. And you know, with, within the first, I think four or five days, like over 130,000, people had read it. And I think it's, it's quite higher than that even now. And, and, even though it was a U.K. piece, a whole bunch of environmental and social justice and other organizations in the U.S. and Canada, used the story as a way to share their own experiences with undercover policing. And share links to other examples of undercover cops that people had kind of forgotten about. A few people even got in touch with me directly and said they suspected that their organizations had been infiltrated and asking for resources. And I said, ‘Obviously, I'm not an expert in any of that.’ And tried to point them to organizations that deal with that, specifically. And, but, I, I think at, at a broader level, you know, peep— people are pretty people are pretty interested these days in, in stories that can really sort of humanize climate change or tell a compelling narrative around the climate emergency. And, and, with, with this Kennedy piece, like, not only does it show how, you know, a national government uses its police force to stifle legitimate political consent around the climate. It, it also it's, it shows that like, you know, every day complex, people are working on climate change all the time. And, and, they, they have fascinating and nuanced stories to tell. And so in, like in, in this piece, I just wanted to bring more of like, a human dimension to climate change, and try to do something that was a bit more compelling in a narrative sense than, than a lot of the other climate stuff out there, including lots of stuff that I've written. Gabe Oatley 24:09 Fair enough, yeah. Very often the night before my stories get published, I sleep really badly. My brain is like going over all the details. It's like, ‘did I mess this up? How will this person who's cited in my story feel about how they show up in the piece.’ That kind of thing. What was one thing that made you nervous about this story before it was published? Geoff Dembicki 24:32 I guess, I always get nervous about whether the people in it are going to feel [that] I did a good job representing them. And, you know, after the the piece came out, I think among like the activist circles who are directly involved with Mark Kennedy, there was, there was, there was some discussion in there about what whether they liked the framing of the piece or not. Especially, especially the, the headline, which, which really obviously grabs a lot of people. And, you know, some of the people that, that I interviewed were, were really happy with the piece and promoted it widely. And, and, and other people I had conversations with — about some of the conclusions the piece draws. And, you know, some, some people felt that it was, you know, a bit too pessimistic. And that, you know, the, the climate movement had, had still survived in, in the U.K. And that it wasn't quite right to say that, that Kennedy had, had killed it outright. But I mean, I, yeah, I was, it's, it's interesting when, when a piece like this kind of blows up the way it did, because all these people come to it from different experiences and, and with, with different conclusions about it. But what, what I was happy about is, that is that so many people over here in the U.S. and Canada, you know, found it useful, and that it triggered a lot of new conversations about climate change and in policing. So in that sense, I felt that it was, it was, it was a success. Gabe Oatley 26:37 I'd love to zoom out from this story a little bit— wee bit like, you've been doing climate reporting for a long while now. I'd love to start back at the beginning. I'm curious, like, when did you first realize that you wanted to be a reporter? Geoff Dembicki 26:51 I think since I was in high school, probably. Yeah. Like grade 11, grade 12. Because I was always interested in, in reading and writing. And when it came time to choose a university, I decided I wanted to go into journalism, and then I ended up going to Carleton journalism school. Gabe Oatley 27:14 Okay, and how did you get into climate reporting? Was that always your beat? Or did that evolve over time? Geoff Dembicki 27:21 It definitely wasn't always my beat. But I, I think it's, it's just like due to the unique circumstances of the time that I graduated in. Because like, I graduated in 2008, which was a pretty terrible time. I mean, I guess it's all terrible these days. But that felt bad in a particular way to me, because the recession had just hit. And all these newsrooms were closing around the country. And I didn't really see a way to get a job in any sort of traditional media. But I, I'm from Alberta, originally, and I wanted to move out to the West coast. And I started an internship at this really great media outlet called The Tyee. And they, they were doing only online stuff at the time. Which is, it's hilarious, because that felt like, really ‘out there’ and experimental like, ‘Ooh, only internet’ [laughs]. I had to like, explain that to people. It's not that long ago! And, and, I started writing for them covering the Vancouver Olympics, actually. And, and when, when the Olympics were over, I had to decide, like what I wanted my, my new beat to be. And my editor there, David Beers, suggested I start writing about climate change and the oil sands. Because a lot of debates around that were really heating up. And there were companies proposing these big pipelines to the West coast, and like, social movements mobilizing against that. And since I was already from Alberta, I felt like, I had a bit of a window into that culture, because a lot of my friends and family had, had worked in oil and gas over the years. And so I really got started writing about all that stuff in like, 2010 or so. Gabe Oatley 29:29 Okay, I'm curious. You know, you're a journalist who has written pretty frankly about your own opinions about like, where we're headed with the climate crisis. You wrote a piece for The New York Times titled Trump has declared Climate War. But my generation will win. You wrote a book that had, you know, a bunch of your opinions in it. I'm curious how this kind of opinion writing has shaped — if at all — the stories that you have been able to report on, around the climate — on the climate. And the places you've been able to report them. Like, I guess I'm curious: Have there ever been places where you've been keen to pitch reported pieces on the climate, that have said ‘No,’ because of the opinion pieces that you've written? Geoff Dembicki 30:15 No, that's never happened. And if anything, bringing more of my personal self into my reporting, as has helped it reach has helped my writing reach more readers and, and opened up opportunities for me. And I think, I think, like the, this, this idea of like, the completely objective journalists like ‘voice from nowhere,’ — to me that, you know, in some circumstances, that's, that's still, that's still a good position to have. But it kind of feels a bit outdated. And especially in the sense of, like, you know, I do a lot of writing about climate change disinformation, and the way like, bad faith actors use the media to spread denial of the emergency and in other things. And a lot of those bad faith actors, like, deliberately tried to exploit this, like, old-school idea of journalists objectivity, in, in order to get like, pretty damaging messages out in front of millions of people. And so like, like, the classic example of that is, in the 2000s, how journalists would be under intense pressure if they interviewed anyone talking about climate change, to also interview someone who says climate change isn't real. And so that, that was like deliberately trying to exploit this, like, ‘we talked to both sides’ aspect of journalism. But you know, having said all that, you know, I, I'm not just gonna, like, put something out into the world that's not factually supported. I think I, I'm coming at the issue from a pretty clear perspective of wanting aggressive action on climate change and being quite worried about the future of the planet. But as everything I write is carefully vetted. I investigate any claim whether it comes from an environmental group or an oil company or a politician. And, you know, ultimately, I'm, I'm writing on, on behalf of myself and, and, and not, you know, in, in service of some larger interests. Gabe Oatley 32:59 That seems about as good [of[ a place as any to end it. Geoff, thanks so much for making the time to be on the podcast. Geoff Dembicki 33:07 Thanks for having me on. Gabe Oatley 33:12 Alright, and that is your episode of the podcast for this week. Pull Quotes is published by the Review of Journalism at X University. Our show hosts are Rahaf Farawi and me, Gabe Oatley. Our podcast team also includes Andrew Oliphant and Annika Forman. Technical audio support is provided by Angela Glover and web support by Lindsay Hannah. Our executive producer is Sonya Fatah. music by Harrison Amer. Join us back here in about 10 days time for the next episode.