Summer Conference Events

In different ways, the i newspaper's Dean Kirby and Paul Morgan-Bentley from The Times forced the pre-payment meter scandal into the open, their investigations leading to substantial industry change. Both come to Summer Conference to talk about their methods, which in the case of The Times involved undercover video, and the impact of their work.

In the wake of the chaos surrounding the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Josie Stewart, then a senior official at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, became concerned that the truth was not being told by the government and talked to a journalist.

Two award-winning podcast creators Maeve McClenaghan (The Tip Off Podcast) and Basia Cummings (Tortoise Studios) share their experience of how to make investigative podcasts. They’ll discuss how to identify compelling subjects for audio stories, provide tips and tricks on sound design and the differences in writing and interviewing for the ear, rather than the eye.

Private Eye investigative reporter Solomon Hughes recently exposed a loophole that allowed subcontracted "mini-umbrella companies" to avoid paying national insurance for staff of Covid-19 testing centres.

In 2012 a Kenyan called Agnes Wanjiru was murdered by a serving British soldier and her body hidden in a septic tank, a crime which was subsequently covered up. Winner of the 2022 Paul Foot award with her Sunday Times colleague David Collins, Hannah Al-Othman talks about how they worked with sources to bring the story to light, and their dealings with the police and the Ministry of Defence as they worked to investigative and publish it.

Earlier this year the journalist Daniel De Simone published a long-form investigation into the activities of a rogue, abusive MI5 agent, the end result of a months-long tussle between the BBC and the British government which ended with his employer being taken to court.

Jane Bradley, an award-winning investigative journalist at The New York Times, has tracked down some of the world's most wanted terrorists, Russian dissidents and spies, human traffickers, shadowy business figures and whistleblowers and convinced them to talk.

Helena Bengtsson is Data Editor at Gota Media, Swedish publisher of 13 local titles. In this session she explains how to educate, train and work directly with local reporters to produce both title-specific data stories and projects which can be shared across the other titles.

Local councils do far more than collect our bins and look after streetlights. They spend billions of pounds of public money each year but often with very little oversight. Journalist Tom Bristow will take you through how to find out where this money is going and how to spot potential corruption and scandals.

Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland, Butler to the World and Coda Story's Oligarchy Newsletter, will speak to The New York Times' Jane Bradley about Russian oligarch money and its relationship to the war in Ukraine, the role of London and other international financial centres in enabling oligarchs, money-launderers and criminals from all over the world to hide their money - and what can be done about it.