Posted on March 15, 2017 by The Orwell Prize -
The story highlighted the growing social phenomenon of far right groups using social and charitable causes to further their racist agenda. The Neo-nazi group called National Action set up a ‘whites only’ foodbank to recruit homeless people. Members also lauded the murder of MP Jo Cox. The story had a hugely successful outcome after the group was blocked by Home Secretary Amber Rudd after she branded them a “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organisation”.
Journalistic Writing and Social Media Content
Posted on March 15, 2017 by The Orwell Prize -
The RBS Dash for Cash investigation exposed how Britain’s biggest taxpayer-owned bank deliberately killed or crippled thousands of businesses in a deliberate plan to add billions of pounds to its balance sheet in response to government pressure to cut lending and bolster profits. Based on an explosive cache of thousands of leaked documents and extensive interviews, the investigation shone a light on the hidden consequences of the public bailout for British businesses and the inherent conflicts in the regulation of government-owned banks. MPs called it “the biggest single scandal since the 2008 crisis” and referred the bank to the SFO. In the wake of the story, the city regulator found RBS guilty of systematic abuse of small firms and the bank announced a £400m compensation scheme.
Journalistic Writing and Video Content
Posted on March 15, 2017 by The Orwell Prize -
The reports expose the precarious and fragile nature of employment in Britain for almost a million people on zero-hour contracts who can be easily exploited by companies wanting a cheap and compliant workforce. Channel 4 goes undercover in JD Sports, Britain’s biggest sporting retailer. Their reporter was put on a zero-hours contract with an agency who supply hundreds of workers on minimum wage to its warehouse in Rochdale. Over 5 weeks their reporter worked gruelling 12 hours shifts. She’s told she’ll be sacked for sitting down, disciplined for missing targets, and must adhere to a “three strikes and you’re sacked” policy rigorously enforced by JD Sports staff. Airport style security checks can take up to 20 minutes and are unpaid, leaving workers effectively earning less than the minimum wage.
Journalistic Writing, Video Content and Social Media Content
Posted on March 15, 2017 by The Orwell Prize -
Through weekly columns, a data and explainer series, social media and audio reporting, Dawn has worked to show the complexity of the housing crisis afflicting Britain, how it differs geographically, particularly focusing on how the poorest and most vulnerable in society are evicted, forced into arrears and have very little choice in housing. The predominant narrative on housing problems in the UK focuses on home ownership: Dawn has worked to amplify the voices of and problems affecting people for whom home ownership is unlikely to ever be an option: women fleeing domestic violence, families stuck in temporary accommodation or moved out of the borough they and their children are settled in, and households forced into rent arrears due to various government policies.
Journalistic Writing, Video and Audio Content
Posted on March 15, 2017 by The Orwell Prize -
Ros Wynne-Jones has been leading the Daily Mirror’s opposition to the Bedroom Tax since its inception in April 2013. Dozens of stories in her Real Britain column, throughout the paper and online have shown not only its cruelty towards individual families, but its incompetence as a policy that does nothing to improve the national housing crisis. In extraordinary year, she followed families all the way to the Supreme Court, where some defeated the Secretary of State, and testified to the UN on their behalf. The campaign has also been run through the Mirror’s Facebook page, on twitter and in Parliament, alongside trade unions, and in unique collaboration with grassroots activist groups. Its also has spearheaded opposition against other welfare cuts.
Journalistic Writing and Social Media Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
In an exclusive and groud-breaking investigation spanning more than six months, Channel 4 News was the first news organisation to successfully go undercover inside Britain’s most notorious immigration detention centre. Yarl’s Wood IRC in Bedfordshire holds up to 400 detainees, the vast majority are women facing deportation from the UK. For years, the centre, run by the security giant Serco, has been at the centre of claims of mistreatment of detainees. But despite multiple attempts, journalists had never succeeded in getting in. A micro-camera kit was specially constructed to avoid detection from the considerable security measures in place. A team from Channel 4 News was close by at all times. The investigation uncovered:
- Racist and sexist and dismissive behaviour by some members of staff
- Detention of highly vulnerable people including the elderly and pregnant
- Appalling treatment of pregnant women including one who suffered a miscarriage
- A “culture of disbelief” among staff towards detainees with health issues
- Many incidents of self-harming by detainees
- Issue of male officers intruding on women detainees
- Forced removals, including splitting a pregnant woman from her husband
- Issue of indefinite detention, including one woman who had been at YW for 3 years
- Worrying use of solitary confinement, restraint and violence against detainees
The impact of the investigation was swift and widespread in parliament and the media. Serco immediately launched an independent investigation, led by the eminent lawyer Kate Lampard, who had previously led an inquiry into Jimmy Saville. There was an angry debate in the House of Commons, with MPs of all parties condemning the conditions exposed by Channel 4 News. The Home Secretary Theresa May was accused of allowing the “state-sanctioned abuse of women.” The Home Office said the issues raised in the report would be looked at by David Shaw, in a review of welfare in detention commissioned by the Home Office. As a result of the Channel 4 News revelations HM Prison Inspectorate sent inspectors into Yarl’s Wood in April for an extended period. Their damning report in August 2015 described Yarl’s Wood a “place of national concern”. It highlighted the plight of 99 pregnant women held at the centre and poor healthcare provision. It said Yarl’s Wood was “failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable women held.” In January 2016, David Shaw’s report into welfare in detention was published. It called for an “absolute exclusion” of detention for pregnant women, an end to detention of the vulnerable including the elderly and called for the government to bring an end to indefinite detention altogether. It called for big improvements to the healthcare provision and an end to the “culture of disbelief” among staff towards detainees with medical and mental health issues. It also said searches of women and women’s rooms should only be undertaken “in the most extreme and pressing circumstances.” At the same time, Kate Lampard published her report which was a direct response to our investigation. Her report said management, staffing levels and training at YW needed to be dramatically improved. It highlighted “serious concerns with staffing arrangements” and concluded there had been “serious incidents of inappropriate behaviour and individual cases of mistreatment and abuse of residents by staff.” She also found that there were weaknesses in the safeguarding of vulnerable detainees and urged Serco to address the problem. As a result of the investigation, 6 detention officers were suspended. Two were dismissed, and one resigned before the investigation took place. All staff at Yarl’s Wood were issued with body cameras to record and prevent abuse, and stair wells were boxed in to stop detainees from self-harming.
Journalistic Writing
Video Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Michael Buchanan’s investigation into Southern Health exposed the failure of one of England’s biggest mental health trusts to investigate the unexpected deaths of hundreds of mental health patients and people with learning disabilities. The items were the product of weeks of sensitive and challenging conversations with those affected – several people broke down as they recalled the poor care their son or daughter had received prior to their death; many told us they were astonished that we were interested in hearing their stories after their own often repeated efforts had been ignored by the trust, regulators and others. The investigation led to the Health Secretary being forced to come to the House of Commons to answer urgent questions, where he announced a nationwide inquiry into how the NHS as a whole investigates the deaths of people with learning disabilities. Michael says “The stories we uncovered as part of this extensive investigation have given a voice to some of society’s most vulnerable individuals – mental health patients, people with learning disabilities – and have made it harder for the NHS to ignore their concerns. The mid-Staffs scandal highlighted poor practices in acute care; the failings we exposed at Southern Health have shone a light on the problems within mental health trusts, with few deaths investigated and lessons rarely learned from previous incidents.”
Journalistic Writing
Video Content
- Investigation into NHS Failings – 09/12/2015, BBC 1 10 O’Clock News
Audio Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
I have been reporting from the Family Courts since 2009, when journalists were first allowed in to hear cases. In 2011 I first came across the problem of mothers who are – in effect – producing babies for the care system,for years a hidden problem, and surely a social evil. A mother will have one or more children removed, because of abuse or neglect, grieve for the child or children,and quickly become pregnant again–as if the children had died,the mother wants to replace them. The family courts, the social workers, focus on the child who’s been removed, the mothers receive little help.They often fail to change their lifestyle, or end their addiction, which had led to the original care case. Some of the mothers are very young when they lose their first child. They will come before the Court again – and lose the new baby at birth. They often become pregnant again. I have learned of one mother who has had sixteen successive children removed. In 2014 I made contact with Professor Karen Broadhurst, who is analysing Family Court records for the first time, and reported her initial findings, which for the first time identified the huge scale of this phenomenon:over 7 years nearly 23,000 children in England had been taken into care from these so called “repeat” mothers. Aware that – since the death of Baby Peter Connelly – many social workers are acting more quickly than they did in the past – I asked Professor Broadhurst if she could establish how many babies were actually “born into care” – that is, subject to care proceedings at birth.She told me that the numbers were increasing dramatically, and that many of the babies came from these “repeat” mothers. I coupled this news story with further investigation, including interviews with mothers. The resulting articles on Today and BBC News were very widely picked up, in the UK and worldwide. Both the Prime Minister and Education Secretary were asked about the issue. Over the years I have followed the small number of poorly funded projects which try to break this cycle, notably the Family Drug and Alcohol Court, whose extension I reported in February this year. Michael Gove, the Lord Chancellor, is now looking at “problem solving” courts like these, to try to end these destructive cycles.
Journalistic Writing
Audio Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Daniel Douglas’s investigation into the mistreatment of homeless families exposed the full scale of a mass uprooting of over 100,000 vulnerable homeless children in the capital; a scandal the government had kept hidden from public view.
The investigation, published on the front page of The Independent a week before the 2015 general election, sparked widespread outrage and accusations of social cleansing from across the political spectrum and from leading housing and children’s charities.
London mayor Boris Johnson speaking to the BBC about austerity and welfare cuts in 2010, pledged: “On my watch you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living.” The investigation established beyond any doubt that this promise to Londoners had been broken.
A Supreme Court ruling in April 2015 strengthened the established legal position that forcing homeless families out of their local authority is unlawful and unjustifiable in the vast majority of cases.
Labour’s mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan, commenting at the time of publication, called the “social cleansing of London a badge of shame for this government”.
The story brought to public attention a subject that rarely makes the front page of a national newspaper, and gave voice to a section of the community that often is not able to speak up for itself.
Journalistic Writing
Social Media Content
@_dandouglas
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Maeve McClenaghan works for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism She tweets @MaeveMCC
Journalistic Writing
Audio Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
We set out to move beyond the emotional claim and counter-claim which has characterised the debate over the impact of government spending cuts. To do this, we carried out an extensive, and ground-breaking, analysis of data from every local authority to measure the effect of the reductions on people’s lives. We discovered how many fewer elderly people were being looked after by social services, how many more homeless children were being accommodated in B&Bs and how much less was being spent on each child at risk of abuse and neglect. To fill what we regarded as a serious gap in public understanding, we then created an interactive feature which automatically detects where the reader is, presenting a personalised snapshot of the story and allowing him or her to discover what has happened to services in their localities over the past five years.
Journalistic Writing
Social Media Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Nicci Gerard is a novelist and author of Soham: A Story Of Our Times. She also writes with her partner Sean French as Nicci French. With nearly one million Britons in the grip of dementia, it’s hardly surprising that writers and artists should increasingly tackle the subject. But can the arts ever illuminate a condition that by its very nature resists all understanding?
@FrenchNicci
Submitted articles
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
This project was conceived, planned, led and written by David Cohen. However, the photography was a key part of the project. David worked exclusively with Matt Writtle, an experienced freelance photographer who has often partnered him on his Evening Standard special projects, and Kiran Mensah, who he recruited from the Angell Town estate where Kiran had spent much of his youth. Kiran is a freelance photographer who had studied photography at university but had never been published in the mainstream press until he joined the team. The three of them formed a close-knit team that spent many months on the estate.
Journalistic Writing
Photojournalism
Social Media Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Journalistic Writing
Video Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
This exclusive story had huge implications in relation to the DWP’s Work Capability assessments. ITV News’ story revealed the DWP procedure to assess 60 year old Michael O’Sullivan failed to follow correct procedure and several red flags which should have been picked up to alert the assessors to his serious mental health condition were missed leading to tragic consequences. Penny revealed that for the first time a coroner had directly linked a death to the DWP’s Work Capability Assessment. A significant finding. ITV News also revealed a leaked confidential DWP document showing the department’s response to the coroner which clearly showed the DWP admitting to its failings. Penny‘s story included an exclusive, moving interview with Mr O’Sullivan’s daughter, Anne Marie, who had never spoken about this before. It uncovered the failings by the DWP and the assessment and shone a light on this hugely important issue of how the DWP deals with people with mental health problems and the need to assess people with mental health problems sensitively, carefully and responsibly. MIND, a leading charity supporting people with mental health problems, praised ITV News’ work and called for an overhaul of the WCA. The coverage led to the DWP admitting their fault publicly which they had never acknowledged before. Additional reporting by Disability News Service
Journalistic Writing
Video Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
It’s Britain’s housing benefit scandal. Nine billion pounds of taxpayers’ money goes to private landlords every year in housing benefit. It should help some of the country’s poorest people secure decent housing, but rogue landlords are milking the system while their tenants live in squalor. In a documentary described by the housing charity Shelter as a “masterpiece” and “the best expose of this issue” yet, Alys Harte investigated some of the country’s worst landlords – and the vast sums of money they’ve been getting from the UK taxpayer. Undercover filming and amateur footage obtained by Panorama uncovered properties with cockroach infestations, leaking raw sewage, chronic damp, cell-like rooms, and lethal fire hazards. Working with Director/ Producer Jonathan Coffey and Executive Producer, Andrew Head, this was Alys Harte’ s first film as reporter for Panorama. In recent years, Alys has made documentaries on subjects including illegal dumping and organised crime in Northern Ireland, access to abortion services in Ireland, female violence, and riots resulting from loyalist marching bands in Belfast. She has worked as a journalist in television current affairs at the BBC for eight years.
Journalistic Writing
Video Content
Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Orwell Prize -
Emily Dugan, The Independent’s Social Affairs Editor, has been responsible for a succession of scoops, campaigns and investigations which demonstrate her powerful sense of social justice and a tenacious determination to correct wrongs however vested the interests she is challenging. Emily’s reporting almost single-handedly force the Government to reverse its iniquitous court charges (whereby innocent defendants were often left with no choice but to plead guilty just to avoid this injust imposition). Over a period of months she exposed case after case of unfairness, stirred up massive dissent among lawyers and magistrates and eventually was able to report that Michael Gove was reversing the policy. This was a triumph of relentless digging and it is only because of Emily’s sense of mission and her refusal to give up that a policy so brazenly unjust has finally been consigned to history.
Journalistic Writing
Social Media Content
Posted on April 24, 2015 by The Orwell Prize -
Extremists in Britain with links to Islamic State jihadists are offering cash payments to teenagers so they can travel to join terrorists in Syria, an investigation by The Times has found. A three-month undercover operation, in which reporters posed as two schoolgirls, has exposed the ease with which young British Muslims are being groomed, radicalised and facilitated in making the journey to join the foreign conflict. Take from the Times Journalistic Writing Secrets of Britain’s teen terror trade uncovered – 12/19/2014, The Times
Video
Secrets of Britain’s teen terror trade uncovered (see video tab) – 12/19/2014, The Times
Social Media
(See “read the messages” tab – our own digital presentation of some of the content from an investigation carried out almost entirely via social media.) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4301791.ece (see “Read the messages” tab)