A few weeks ago, we held the last group meeting of our first cohort of Tenacious Journalist awardees. In this blog, Joe Mitchell highlights some of the amazing work they’ve achieved.
Just over a year ago, we announced the first Tenacious Journalist Awards — a £100,000 fund from Changing Ideas, managed by PINF, to boost impactful, independent journalism.
We had a range of exciting applications and with the help of independent judges, chose nine projects to support. Following nine months of hard work by the journalists and coaching and mentoring support from the PINF team, it’s time to take stock of the project.
Impact highlights
Agatha Scaggiante, for Tower Hamlets Slice, published local stories on synthetic opioid use. Her work contributed to the greater availability of antidote in the area, which could result in lives being saved. Agatha’s reporting inspired mainstream and specialist coverage, exposing missing data in the system for tracking drug deaths. Read “The Arrival of an Invisible Killer”.
Sarah Hartley, for The Northern Eco, investigated the use of glyphosate weedkiller, which has known environmental and health implications, in areas including playgrounds, pavements and parks. Sarah connected disparate campaigners across the country and is working with an MP on a Private Members’ bill to outlaw the use of glyphosate in public spaces. Check out "In The Weeds”.
Rhiannon Davies, for the Scottish Beacon, produced a series of investigations on clean energy infrastructure across several Scottish local news outlets. The stories have been raised at the highest levels of Scottish Government, helped upskill local reporters and built a network of people reporting on climate across Scotland. Learn more about “The Power Shift: Investigating Scotland’s Green Energy Boom”.
Adam Bychawski investigated the lack of compensation for miscarriages of justice, developing case studies of victims, one of which featured in The Big Issue. Adam’s work has helped build a coalition for reform, working with campaigners and committing local MPs to the issue.
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff's work on missing people resulted in a major new podcast series, which has had over 50,000 downloads. Charlie partnered with a national newspaper and joined forces with an MP who has offered to help improve the UK Government’s approach to missing people. Again, this is work that could save lives. Listen to “The Missing Sister”.
Wil Crisp’s work on statutory regulators led to stories in The Scotsman and The Times. His investigation into the gambling regulator led to calls for change from a campaign group and a member of the House of Lords. Wil is going on to create a database of regulators and their funding to boost transparency and accountability across the sector.
John Plummer, for Harrogate’s The Stray Ferret, produced seven pieces investigating local agreements made between housing developers and local authorities that should have led to new schools, bus lanes and other public amenities. The work has led to comments by MPs and promises by local government to increase transparency. Read the “Shortchanged” series.
Sean Morrison, for The Bristol Cable, explored school exclusion, the school-to-prison pipeline and violence against children. The project launches next month with a five-part podcast series and full print edition dedicated to the issue. Their investigation created a better evidence base on secure children’s facilities and encouraged young people to tell their own stories. Check out the preview.
The impact on journalists
As part of the Awards support, the Tenacious Nine had monthly one-to-one calls with PINF team members, plus peer-group coaching sessions to connect the journalists up (several were working alone), share lessons learned and approaches to tackling challenges, help unblock problems, and hold each other accountable.
All nine journalists completed ‘before’ and ‘after’ surveys to give us a sense of the achievements of the support package. We saw scores rise across the board on how connected they felt to peers, how supported they felt, their confidence to support others, the amount they consider impact in their journalism, and their confidence that their project would make a difference.
One Tenacious Journalist told us: “The impact I've seen achieved by this year's winners is incredible. It's inspiring to work alongside people whose reporting is making a real, positive difference to people's lives.”
Happily for PINF, we received good feedback from the journalists on the programme. One said: “Thank you SO much. It was so smooth, so supportive, so trusting, so clearly tied to the importance of good journalism.” Another said: “It felt different to other grant schemes that I have participated in because of the sense of community that was fostered and i really appreciated that.”
What works
In reviewing the projects, several themes emerged as pillars of success. We think these could be useful for anyone considering how to boost journalism in the public interest.
- Creating networks. Several journalists acted as networkers, variously connecting campaigners, editors, other journalists, politicians or victims in their constituencies. Journalists played the role of ‘connective tissue’ for their issue.
- Alerting politicians and policymakers. Projects had success in alerting the relevant politicians at different levels with the stories happening in their area, affecting their constituents.
- Providing solutions. Projects didn't just highlight issues — they provided solutions, with some following the ‘solutions journalism’ methodology and others ensuring their reporting included constructive ideas to tackle problems.
- Honesty regarding complexity. Projects didn’t simplify or collapse complex problems into ‘clickbait’ — they acknowledged and reckoned with difficulties and sensitivities, even where this risked being perceived as bias.
- Curiosity. At the heart of the projects were real human stories — stories of lived experience — understood as a result of journalistic curiosity and tenacity to tell the truth and encourage positive change.
- Strength in partnerships. Several projects saw success by partnering with bigger media titles to ensure their stories reached a bigger audience... and to help those bigger titles to improve their methods, like on reporting missing people.
- Momentum matters. Projects with quick outputs really took off as journalists gained connections and ideas on their theme. This made their potential for impact expand exponentially — each published story elicited more responses and follow-ups, and greater impact.
- Tenacity is for life, not just for the project duration. Almost all of the journalists plan to continue their work, the impact of which may continue to be realised for years to come. As one of the cohort said: “This was only ever a part one.”
What’s next?
At PINF, we’ve been delighted by the progress made by our Tenacious Journalists. It was a privilege to work alongside such dedicated, thoughtful and supportive people. The impact over just nine months has truly impressed and motivated us to redouble our efforts to support thriving, quality journalism in every community in the UK.
PINF and Changing Ideas are keen to run another cohort of the programme and hope to have an announcement on this very soon!
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