Summer Conference Events

A superb Panorama investigation broke its most recent revelations in May. Working with veterans as key sources, investigative journalists uncovered evidence of war crimes by British special forces over a whole decade.

It didn't start as an "investigation" but within months a story that began with a relatively straightforward report about tens of thousands of unpaid carers being unfairly forced to repay thousands of pounds in benefits and prosecuted for fraud had snowballed: the injustices exposed by the ongoing reports scandalised the public, led to a government-commissioned independent review, and won the journalists behind the story the prestigious Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published; everything else is public relations.” In the same spirit, Martin Tomkinson distils fifty years’ experience as an investigative reporter into four key lessons, and reveals what you really need to succeed in a sometimes perilous profession.

In her BBC Podcast The Abercrombie Guys, Rianna Croxford unearthed a powerful story; that the men in charge of teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch had been at the centre of a global operation scouting young men for sex; her investigation led to the arrest of its former CEO Mike Jeffries who was charged with running an international sex trafficking and prostitution ring.

Data journalism has been around for a very long time... but the existence of dedicated data desks in UK newsrooms is a relatively new concept. In fact when the CIJ started teaching data journalism - then called Computer Assisted Reporting - in the early 2000s, very few people were interested.

Three panellists talk through the innovative methods they used in recent investigations. The new digital methodologies allowed each to chase down important stories from major gaps in flood support funding from the Nigerian government, through sanctions evasion in arms trafficking to Russia, to the exploitation and abuse rife within platforms such as OnlyFans.

Veteran TV investigative journalist Dónal MacIntyre joins Summer Conference to discuss a career of undercover work, protecting the identities of sources and his recent request to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) to confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) placed him under direct surveillance.

It was on the third day of the trip into the jungles of northern Cambodia when three Mongabay journalists found themselves surrounded by government rangers pointing rifles at them. Narrowly avoiding arrest, Mongabay combined satellite imagery, geospatial data, paper trails and a lot of hours in the jungle to expose how a network of politically connected timber traffickers are plundering Cambodia’s protected forests.

In this session, we will look at the UK law on “contempt by publication” as set out in the 1981 Contempt of Court Act and discuss whether that law - post the Lucy Letby trial (where an article in The New Yorker was geo-blocked) - and the Southport killings (where the police appeared to believe the law restricted what they could say about the perpetrator of the stabbings, so allowing misinformation to spread), is no longer fit for purpose in the digital age.

Since being founded in 2020, Mill Media has built a reputation for publishing hard-hitting investigative journalism that truly connects with readers. Its stories are known for their immersive feel and narrative structure, engaging audiences in a way that traditional investigations sometimes struggle to.