Summer Conference Events

In this session, openDemocracy's Jenna Corderoy will lift the lid on how she has used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain vital documents for her investigations. She will talk about how and why the FOIA is such a vital tool in holding the powerful to account, and discuss her favourite investigations and stories obtained via the Act.

With a proven track record of producing hard-hitting major network investigations, BAFTA and International Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist Gesbeen (Gesh) Mohammad will share her journey of becoming a documentary filmmaker.

Disasters triggered by climate change are many years in the making, but when they reach critical points the effects can unfold fast. If journalists are to capture and show the impacts of such events on affected communities, they too must act fast.

Recent years have seen significant improvement in both recognition and rhetoric from those in power around the need for action to address the looming impacts of the climate crisis. However, in too many cases, positive words have served only to obscure inaction at best and continued harm at worst.

A fearless Nigerian investigative journalist who has gone under cover on numerous occasions to expose corruption, 'Fisayo Soyombo is best known for spending several days in a police cell and a prison to expose corruption within the country’s criminal justice system.

Across Europe, secretive algorithms are making life-changing decisions about millions of welfare recipients. An international team of journalists led by Lighthouse Reports gained unprecedented access to an AI system designed to predict which welfare recipients were committing fraud.

Patricia Devlin’s investigations into crime and paramilitarism in post-Troubles Northern Ireland have left her with powerful enemies on all sides. At the CIJ she talks about how to investigate in sometimes hostile territory, and how to deal with the abuse and intimidation that follows.

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.

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.