Civic Journalism Lab

As the public's fascination with crime stories grows, so too does the responsibility of those who bring these stories to light. Whether through traditional journalism or increasingly popular true crime content, the way these narratives are crafted can shape perceptions, impact communities and, significantly, affect the lives of victims and their families. Our first guest on this episode is Bethany Usher, lecturer in journalism at Newcastle University, and author of a new book titled Journalism and Crime. Bethany is researching how we might create new codes of practice, for crime reporters, true crime content creators and police comms teams as well as for social media influencers and amateur sleuths. We recently hosted an afternoon of discussion on crime and journalism at Newcastle University, so later in this episode you'll hear the views and opinions of crime reporters Anthony France of the Standard and Sophie Doughty of the Chronicle; Newsquest group editor Joy Yates, who's a Society of Editors board member; Dominic Ponsford, Press Gazette's editor-in-chief; true crime podcaster Hayley Mortimer of the BBC; true crime commissioner for Hearst Networks Diana Carter; Alice Gould, Independent Press Standards Organisation head of complaints; Eve McDowell, co-founder of Stalking Ireland; Clare Hoban, media content lawyer and true crime specialist at Reviewed and Cleared; and true crime scholars Kelli Boling (University of Nebraska), Megan Hoffman and Simon Hobbs (University of Portsmouth) and Barbara Henderson (Newcastle University). J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our guest on this episode is Jessica Hill, senior investigations and features reporter for Schools Week and FE Week. Jessica was the first journalist to reveal to the general public how reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) was ‘a ticking time bomb' making school buildings ‘liable to collapse'. She brought the scale of the danger to an even wider audience when she persuaded The Guardian to run a story that led to the emergency closure of more than 100 schools. Jessica was named Specialist Journalist of the Year at last month's Press Awards and in our conversation details her reporting of the RAAC crisis, and explains the importance of specialist reporting and vital role played by trade and industry titles. She also discusses why she quit journalism for 15 years... and what drew her back. J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our guest on this episode is Paul Morgan-Bentley, head of investigations at The Times newspaper, who has just scooped Investigation of the Year at the Press Awards for undercover reporting that exposed the force-fitting of British Gas meters in the homes of vulnerable people. In our conversation, Paul explains how he reported this story, why he thinks undercover reporting is so important and offers advice for early career journalists on door-knocking…and converting work experience into proper jobs. J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our guest on the latest episode of the J-Lab podcast is Martina Lees, a senior writer for the Sunday Times. Next month sees the sixth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower disaster, when fire destroyed a 23-storey tower block in West London, killing 72 people. Martina has spent much of the last few years seeking answers to why the disaster really happened, and who was to blame. She recently won a British Journalism Award for holding to account those responsible for the biggest public housing scandal in 50 years, and for campaigning to free millions of people from having to pay for dangerous cladding to be replaced. In our conversation, Martina explains why she became a journalist, what interested her in reporting this particular story, how she turned her reporting into an impactful campaign and how to ask the questions that no-one else is asking. J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our J-Lab guest this episode is Hannah Barnes, investigations producer for the BBC's Newsnight programme. Hannah's reports with science correspondent Deborah Cohen and her subsequent book about the rise and fall of the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) for children at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London are the result of intensive reporting, carried out across several years and based on more than 100 hours of interviews with Gids' clinicians, former patients, and other experts. Gids was established to provide talking therapies to young people who were questioning their gender identity. But 15 years after the service was founded, staff began expressing concerns about the rapid rise in patient referrals to endocrinologists who would prescribe hormone blockers designed to delay puberty. Many young people with complex case histories of autism, eating disorders or histories of family abuse were being referred to the service, then given puberty blockers. Clinicians interviewed by Hannah for her Time to Think book compared it to East German doping scandals in the 1970s or failings at the Mid Staffs hospital in the 2000s. The clinic will shut later this year, to be replaced by a number of regional centres that will aim to offer more holistic treatment. This has been a difficult subject for Hannah to report - some trans people see criticism of Gids as attempts to stop children transitioning at all; some gender-critical campaigners treat its closure as vindication of wider arguments. Hannah's book makes the point that this isn't a culture war story. It's a medical scandal. And yet while her scrupulous and meticulously researched journalism – with 70 pages of notes and references – has been widely praised in reviews from the Guardian to the Telegraph, more than 20 publishers passed on the chance to publish her book. Her eventual publisher, Swift Press, struggled to find people who would even copy-edit the book or design its cover. In this conversation, Hannah outlines her analytical, source-based methods, and offers advice on how to retain a questioning approach during reporting, while always treating contributors and interviewees with decency and respect. J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Around 4,300 cases a week are heard in the family courts in England and Wales and the number of applications for children to be taken into council care has is around 13,000 each year. And yet remarkably little is known by most people about what goes on in family courts. In this latest episode, our guest is Louise Tickle, a multi-award winning freelance journalist who has reported extensively on domestic abuse, child protection and the family courts - and how the lack of scrutiny and transparency in these courts means many women and families are being tragically failed by the justice system. Last year, Louise's investigations for Channel 4's Dispatches programme exposed cases of families traumatised by their encounters with family courts and judges hiding poor decisions behind secrecy rules. Earlier this year, Louise's reporting for BBC Panorama shared the troubling stories of families who felt failed by local authorities and social workers when their children were taken into care. And her recent podcasts for Tortoise Media have exposed how a former government minister abused the secrecy of the family courts in an attempt to hide the truth that he had abused and raped his wife. In our conversation, Louise explains how she developed a journalistic interest in these areas, the pros and cons of conducting her investigations as a freelance, how she's grown in confidence in challenging reporting restrictions and why she believes journalists have a unique and critical role in holding courts to account. J-Lab is a podcast by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

New laws banning independent coverage of the invasion of Ukraine have forced many news outlets to leave Russia. Meduza claims to be Russia's biggest independent media outlet even though its editors have been based, in exile, in neighbouring Latvia for most of the last 10 years. In recent years Meduza's reporting has ranged from exposing the presence of Russian mercenaries in Venezuela to uncovering the machinations of the Kremin's propaganda apparatus. Now it finds itself reporting the war in Ukraine, but just last week it had to evacuate more than 20 of its reporters from Russia In this episode, we speak with Meduza editor-in-chief and co-founder Ivan Kolpakov who explains what life has been like for Russian journalists under Vladimir Putin, a leader who uses the power of TV to spread propaganda and convince the Russian people of his narrative. Ivan describes how it's possible to operate in exile, and why he believes it will take a long time for independent journalism to help Russian people see through the disinformation and lies. To support the work of Meduza, visit https://save.meduza.io/eu

Our guest this time is Joshi Herrmann, who began the pandemic intending to write a book in the Czech Republic… but instead launched a venture in Manchester that shows there might after all be a viable future for good quality, local news reporting. In just 18 months, Joshi Herrmann has signed up 16,000 free subscribers (and more than 1,000 paid) to The Mill, his weekly email newsletter. And thanks to funding from Substack, he has launched two more titles: The Tribune in Sheffield and The Post in Liverpool. In this episode, you'll hear Joshi explain the business model behind The Mill, describe how its journalism differs from traditional local newspaper reporting, and unpick why he made the switch from working as a national and international journalist. J-Lab is a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

In this episode, our guest is a journalist who has had three features shortlisted for this year's British Journalism Awards – in one, she meets women who clear landmines in Lebanon, in another she talks to female footballers tackling France's on-pitch hijab ban, while in the third she reports on the conditions endured by asylum seekers in the controversial Napier Barracks. With this kind of portfolio, you might expect Jessie Williams to be an experienced, veteran hack – but she is actually a young, freelance foreign reporter in the early stages of her career. Her features have been published in The Observer Magazine, Foreign Policy, The Economist, The Independent, Al Jazeera, The Telegraph, VICE World News, openDemocracy, the Financial Times, Huck Magazine, Middle East Eye, Dazed, The Guardian, BBC Travel, Shado Magazine, Novara Media, Refinery29, The i Newspaper, BRICKS Magazine and The Hackney Gazette. In our conversation, Jessie explains how she got her break in journalism, the kind of stories she likes to report, the importance of working collaboratively on story ideas, the challenge of getting features commissioned and her advice to anyone embarking on their journey as a freelance journalist. J-Lab is a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University. The intro music and sound effects are taken from Into The Fire, a short documentary by National Geographic about the all-female team of Yazidi deminers.

Eliot Higgins is founder of online investigative collective Bellingcat which, over the last 10 years, has used open source investigation techniques to prove that Syria's regime used chemical weapons against its citizens, find evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, and unmask the “kill teams” who poisoned Russian defector Sergei Skripal and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In this episode, Eliot describes how he taught himself open source methods, outlines what makes Bellingcat different to conventional investigative teams and offers advice to early-career journalists. He also explains why Chinese-speaking open source investigators are highly prized... and why he doesn't order room service or leave his underpants unattended. J-Lab is a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

If you've seen Oscar-winning documentary Icarus, you'll no doubt have been astounded by the scale of the state-sponsored doping of Russian athletes. And in this episode of J-Lab – a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University – our guest is Nick Harris, one of the two Mail on Sunday investigative journalists who exposed Grigory Radchenkov, head of the Moscow lab who was at the heart of the scheme. But in the last few years, Nick has been reporting stories that show how widespread doping and medicalisation is across many sports in many countries. Just recently he and colleagues revealed how UK Sport used more than 90 Olympic athletes as guinea pigs for an experimental ketones substance ahead of the London games in 2012. In this conversation, Nick explains the background to his reporting and offers his tips and advice to anyone interested in investigative work.

Annabel Deas, an investigative journalist who works for BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 4, has just won the Orwell Prize for Hope High, a seven-part podcast documenting the year she spent with a community in Huddersfield where a number of children were being exploited by county lines drug dealers. Judges described Hope High as “British public service journalism, impartial and hard hitting, at its best.” In this episode, Annabel explains the background to her reporting, how she won a community's trust and offers her advice to young or emerging journalists who want to do this kind of investigative work. This podcast is brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

The appetite for showbiz and celebrity news has only increased during the last 12 months and our guest for this episode is Katie Hind, showbiz editor at the Mail on Sunday newspaper. In the last year alone, Katie has broken stories that forced Victoria Beckham to withdraw her application for government furlough money; that blew the whistle on James Norton and other celebrities for posting photos of their Audi cars on Instagram without telling followers they were freebies; and that revealed Rolling Stone Mick Jagger had sex with the actor Rae Dawn when she was just 15. In this episode, Katie explains how the role of the showbiz differs from other reporting roles, but also why she believes celebrity stories are a very important part of the newsroom mix. She discusses too the toxic trolling and abuse that she and many other female journalists are having to endure on social media. This podcast is brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

George Arbuthnott and Jonathan Calvert of the Sunday Times Insight team have published the first major book telling the inside story of Britain's battle with coronavirus and exposing failures at the top of government which may have cost thousands of lives. In this episode, George explains the reporting behind the story and discusses the methods used by Insight – perhaps the most successful and certainly the best known investigations team in British newspapers. Insight's long string of successes stretches back to uncovering the Profumo affair, the thalidomide scandal, the discovery of Israel's secret nuclear weapons and more recently the Fifa cash-for-votes corruption. And since joining the Sunday Times, George has exposed a global doping scandal in athletics, human trafficking in the UK and war crimes in Afghanistan by members of the SAS. This podcast is brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our guest for this episode of the J-Lab podcast is Christina Lamb, award-winning chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. Christina has spent more than 30 years covering wars and conflicts around the world. She has written nine books, including one with Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in northern Pakistan because of her campaign for girls to go to school. Most recently, Christina has written a devastating account of rape in modern conflict, and her book, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In this episode, we discuss why it’s been so difficult to convince male editors to publish stories about the atrocities committed against women in wars and conflicts. Christina offers advice on how to interview deeply traumatized people and shares her fears that our interest in foreign affairs has diminished in recent years. She also explains how she got her big break as a foreign correspondent and whether she is happier writing books or reporting for newspapers. This podcast is brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University.

Our guest for this episode is Zing Tsjeng, the executive editor of VICE UK. Most recently, Zing ruffled a few establishment feathers with her Empires of Dirt short-form video series about British colonialism. Zing is a podcaster too, host of United Zingdom on BBC Sounds. She launched the UK edition of women’s website Broadly, while her four-book series, Forgotten Women, explored the untold stories of inspiring women. In this episode of J-Lab – a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University – Zing discusses the importance of journalists passing the microphone to under-represented communities; how reporters should handle the issue of identity; and whether we need to decolonise journalism.

Reporting by journalists like the BBC's John Sudworth has revealed the scale and severity of the Chinese government's large network of detention camps, in which more than a million Uighurs and other minorities are thought to have been detained, mistreated and abused. And in the last couple of weeks, in addition to the heavy restrictions already placed on foreign journalists, China's government has adopted a new tactic: labelling independent coverage as "fake news". In this latest episode of J-Lab – a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University –  we speak to John Sudworth (who had just arrived in Wuhan to report on the latest efforts by international experts investigating the origins of COVID-19). John explains what it's like to be a journalist in China at present, describes the challenges of reporting this story and offers advice to journalists working in countries with authoritarian regimes.   This is the latest in a series of episodes that explores the reporting behind some of the biggest news stories of the last 12 months.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s exclusive investigative report of January 2020 about a multi-billionaire, a royal prince, phone hacking and murder was jaw-dropping. And it won the Guardian’s investigations correspondent in Washington DC a British Journalism Award in recent months. In this latest episode of J-Lab – a podcast brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University – Stephanie explains more about her reporting of revelations that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos had his phone hacked via a WhatsApp message from Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Aside from being CEO of Amazon, Bezos owns the Washington Post newspaper. His phone was hacked just five months before the newspaper's columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Stephanie also discusses some of the qualities and methods of good investigative reporters. You can read Stephanie's January 2020 story here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/21/amazon-boss-jeff-bezoss-phone-hacked-by-saudi-crown-prince

In a year that has seen very little live sport, the Telegraph’s chief football writer, Sam Wallace, unearthed a story that rocked the world of football: plans to reduce the size of the top division in England, scrap or modify some of the cup competitions and introduce B teams. In this episode, Sam gives some insight into how he got hold of these controversial proposals, explains the skills needed to win exclusives like this and offers advice for those seeking to enter a career in sports journalism.

Alexandra Heal is an investigative reporter whose work for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on domestic abuse by police officers won her the Private Eye Paul Foot Award 2020. Alexandra’s reporting has also led to lawyers submitting a nationwide "super-complaint" with police regulators. In this episode, Alexandra explains how her research and reporting discovered close to 90 women with terrible stories of domestic abuse by police forces and the shocking indifference, sometimes even collusion, of fellow officers. You can read her original story here: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-05-01/police-perpetrators-domestic-violence

Vox pops are much maligned, seen by some as the lowest form of journalism. Just filler at the end of a news package on TV or radio bulletins. A tick box exercise to include different voices. But over the last 10 years, the Guardian’s John Harris and John Domokos have discovered that vox pops, done thoughtfully, given time and conducted with an open mind can unearth significant perspectives that escape the notice of opinion polls, think tanks or political advisers. Their award-winning Anywhere But Westminster short films of chance encounters on Britain’s streets have highlighted the real issues facing communities, given voice to people who rarely make the news, and brought their lives, concerns and struggles to the attention of hundreds of thousands of viewers. In this episode, John Harris speaks to Ian Wylie about the origins of the series, recalls some of the key conversations recorded and offers advice for journalists on the importance of showing what's actually going on, rather than trying to predict what is going to happen.

Nick Martin of Sky News was one of the first journalists to report the coronavirus crisis inside care homes. His reporting was eventually praised by health secretary Matt Hancock, who promised to increase access to testing and send more PPE to care homes. In this episode of the J-Lab podcast, Nick – who began his career on the Whitley Bay Guardan, Newcastle Chronicle, Journal and Sunderland Echo – explains the background to his reporting and how the tragic story unfolded. You can watch Nick's reports here: https://news.sky.com/video/care-home-nurse-we-havent-even-got-to-our-worst-point-11972092 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xVeRwX5v9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4UsvwOa8g This podcast is brought to you by the Civic Journalism Lab, supported by Newcastle University.

It was one of the biggest news stories of the year: an important insight into our country’s handling of the coronavirus and a slightly bizarre tale of politics and power in a pandemic. The flouting of lockdown rules had already cost a government scientist and Scotland's chief medical officer their jobs. So when the prime minister’s controversial chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, drove his family the 270 miles from London to Durham – when his wife had coronavirus symptoms and strict “stay at home” guidance were in place – well, that was a big deal. The story was broken by Daily Mirror political editor Pippa Crerar and Guardian reporter Matt Weaver. Both Newcastle University graduates, Pippa and Matt teamed up after realising they were both pursuing tips that Cummings had travelled to the north east. The journalists spent seven weeks working on the story and Cummings' actions and refusal to apologise dealt a blow to trust in the government, and it impacted on people's willingness to follow lockdown rules and guidelines, according to recent research. In this episode of the J-Lab podcast, Pippa Crerar discusses the story with Ian Wylie. You can read the Daily Mirror news story here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dominic-cummings-investigated-police-after-22072579

In this episode, we focus on how journalists are meeting the challenges of reporting the coronavirus crisis. We talk to Nico Piro, a foreign correspondent for Italian TV station TG3, about how he is using mobile journalism skills — learned while reporting conflicts in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, the ebola epidemic of 2015 and refugee crises in Greece and in France — to now report the impact of Covid-19 at home, in Rome. And Stefanie Murray, director of the Centre for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, tells us about some of the ways news organisations are collaborating together to help their audiences get the vital news and information they need... and to ensure that good and responsible journalism survives this crisis.

Official Secrets is the name of a film released at the end of last year, which tells the true story of Katharine Gun, a GCHQ whistleblower who leaked information to the Observer newspaper about a dirty tricks campaign by US and UK intelligence agencies as they tried to justify invading Iraq. On this episode, we speak with Yvonne Ridley, the journalist who received those secret documents. The J-Lab podcast is produced by the Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and can be found on Twitter at twitter.com/CivicJLab

Unlike broadcasters, the UK press – in print or online – has no state regulator like Ofcom requiring it to be impartial. There are many implications to this – and the press must balance this freedom to probe, investigate and criticize with a responsibility to report accurately, ethically, fairly and sensitively. In some people's eyes, there is little to distinguish fake news from flawed journalism. In a "post truth" world; so can we depend on mainstream news organisations to give us the fact-based journalism we need? In 2014, Sir Alan Moses was the unanimous choice of an independent selection panel tasked with appointing the first chair of Ipso, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the largest independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. The J-Lab podcast is produced by the Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CivicJLab

Duncan Campbell was the crime correspondent of the Guardian and chairman of the Crime Reporters’ Association. He has written four books on crime, including his latest, We’ll All Be Murdered in Our Beds, the Shocking History of Crime Reporting in Britain. Most recently, he acted as consultant on King of Thieves, the 2018 film starring Michael Caine and Ray Winstone about the Hatton Garden heist, which was based partly on an article Duncan wrote about the case. Duncan was speaking at an investigative journalism conference at Newcastle University hosted by the Civic Journalism Lab in association with the Centre for Investigative Journalism. And he was interviewed by Zubeida Malik, a journalist and broadcaster who worked on the BBC's Today Programme for 18 years.

HuffPost UK executive editor Jess Brammar, who’s a former deputy editor of Newsnight, gives us her thoughts on investigative reporting in a digital age. And HuffPost UK special correspondent Emma Youle — who is a previous winner of the Paul Foot award — describes how she and colleagues discovered that Kensington and Chelsea council made £129 million from selling property in the years leading up to the Grenfell fire tragedy - money that could have been spent on the tower’s renovation works which may have been fatally compromised by cost-cutting. Both talks were given at a recent investigative journalism conference at Newcastle University hosted by the Civic Journalism Lab in association with the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

In this episode, we hear from someone who has probably done more than anyone else in the last couple of years to highlight pay discrimination. As the BBC’s China editor, Carrie Gracie clashed with the broadcaster over gender-pay inequality and left her role after learning she was being paid much less than her male counterparts. But she continued to fight and was eventually given an apology and back pay, which she generously donated to the Fawcett Society charity.

In this episode on the persona of journalists on social media, we'll hear the thoughts and experiences of Ash Sarkar, senior editor at Novara Media, contributor to the Guardian and Independent and regular commentator on politics and society on BBC Question Time, Newsnight and Have I Got News For You; Susie Boniface, journalist and author who uses the pseudonym Fleet Street Fox in her Daily Mirror column and on Twitter; Chris Stokel-Walker, journalist and author of YouTubers, a book which charts the rise of influencers and explores their personas; and Dr Bethany Usher, former Fleet Street reporter, whose research focuses on persona, politics and the press in mainstream and social media. "Big-name" journalists have some of the largest followings on social media. But how do journalists balance their personal and professional personas on social media? How can they protect their authenticity and credibility while also building a personal brand? Can they be objective and opinionated? And what are the challenges/opportunities this heightened visibility brings them? Listen to this podcast episode to hear what our panel of journalists and academics think.

In this episode on the reporting of Brexit, we'll hear the thoughts and experiences of LEWIS GOODALL, political correspondent for Sky News; LISA O'CARROLL, Brexit correspondent for The Guardian; FERGUS HEWISON, political correspondent for BBC North East; and DR DARREN KELSEY, author of Media and Affective Mythologies Has the media done a better job on Brexit than our politicians? Have voters from around the country been fairly represented by news organisations? Has there been enough diversity of voices and opinions on Brexit? Have we heard the stories that matter? Or been fed too many myths? Listen to this podcast episode to hear what our panel of journalists and academics thinks.

The focus of this podcast episode is artificial intelligence and how it might shape the future of journalism. Taken from our Can Technology Reboot Journalism? event, we hear the thoughts and experiences of PETE DAYKIN, CEO of Wordnerds, whose career has taken him from writing for football fanzines to teaching computers to understand humans. (If you want to watch a version of this podcast and see Pete's slides, visit https://youtu.be/LoQpBhYuwMw) * This podcast is brought to you by The Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and by BBC North East & Cumbria. Follow us on Twitter: @CivicJLab

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have been a huge disrupter for news organisations – and it’s where millions of people now get their fix of daily news. In this podcast episode - taken from our Can Technology Reboot Journalism? event – we hear the thoughts and experiences of KATIE CARROLL, managing editor of the US and UK Daily News function at LinkedIn, which has has built a massive network of more than 600 million users, across more than 200 countries (If you want to watch a version of this podcast and see Katie's slides, visit https://youtu.be/uErMHd67k1I) * This podcast is brought to you by The Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and by BBC North East & Cumbria. Follow us on Twitter: @CivicJLab

As part of our Can Technology Reboot Journalism? event, we hear the thoughts and experiences of Paul Gallagher, who is digital innovations editor at Reach plc, formerly Trinity Mirror, which is the UK’s largest news publisher. (If you want to watch a version of this podcast and see Paul's slides, visit https://youtu.be/3oj4hX_EoQM) For much of the last 20 years, technology has been viewed with suspicion, maybe even as the enemy by journalists who didn’t like seeing their traditional methods and business models disrupted, even destroyed. Are we entering a new phase now, where we’re beginning to see technology as an enabler, that can not only help us solve problems like combatting the scourge of fake news, but empower us to do even better journalism? * This podcast is brought to you by The Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and by BBC North East & Cumbria. Follow us on Twitter: @CivicJLab

In this episode we hear the thoughts and experiences of ADAM CANTWELL-CORN, one of the co-founders of The Bristol Cable, on the opportunities and challenges for community-based journalism. (If you want to watch a version of this podcast and see Adam's slides, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9m41rcgaEw) The crisis in the news industry has in many ways been felt most acutely at the local level where there are no economies of scale and smaller profit margins. In a region like the north east – or the south west - this creates the potential for a serious democratic deficit. While mainstream local media has been struggling to cope with the challenge presented by the internet, community news organiations – sometimes in print, sometimes online – are blossoming. From the Medocino Voice in California, updating residents around the clock about the spread of wildfires, to the Bristol Cable’s investigations into local council actions against rough sleepers, grassroots local journalism initiatives are emerging to fill the gaps. * This podcast is brought to you by The Civic Journalism Lab, a forum for professional, student and community journalists in the north east of England to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s supported by Newcastle University and by BBC North East & Cumbria. Follow us on Twitter: @CivicJLab

Jo-Anne McArthur, award-winning Canadian photojournalist, campaigner and author In this podcast episode, Newcastle University's Civic Journalism Lab meets Jo-Anne McArthur, best known for her We Animals initiative, a photography project documenting human relationships with animals. Jo-Anne was herself the subject of a 2013 documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine, and is the founder of the Unbound Project, which aims to celebrate and recognise female animal activists. Her work has been published in a variety of media, including the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Elle and National Geographic Traveler. (If you'd like to see Jo-Anne's accompanying slides while listening to this podcast, visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv3stU7wTn8) Follow us on Twitter: @CivicJLab

In this episode, Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman describes how she uncovered the so-called Windrush scandal – the wrongful detention and deportation of scores of British citizens whose families came to the UK from the Caribbean in the late 1940s and 50s to help rebuild post-war Britain. Amelia’s reporting led ultimately to the resignation of the Home Secretary, but more importantly, forced the government to loosen its hostile environment for migrants. Amelia was speaking at an Investigative Journalism conference at Newcastle University hosted by the Civic Journalism Lab in association with the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

In this episode you’ll hear highlights from a May 2018 panel discussion which we titled Comedy + Journalism = ?? We’re all familiar with satirical magazines, websites and TV shows like Private Eye, The Daily Mash and Have I Got News For You that deal with national and global news, but what are the opportunities for mixing comedy with local journalism – particularly in these times when many people are as likely to “consume” news from satirical websites as a newspaper? Our panellists: • Paul Stokes, co-founder and publisher of The Daily Mash website, and executive producer of TV's The Mash Report • John Scott, professional stand-up comedian with a monthly political satire show at The Stand • Damon Green, ITN's north of England correspondent • Steve Drayton, BBC Newcastle radio producer and vinylophile who brought his comedy variety show Mr Steve Drayton's Record Player to The Great Exhibition of the North

In this episode you’ll hear highlights from an April 2018 panel discussion which we titled Tuning In, or Turning Off: What Next For Local TV News? Where does local TV news fit in the digital age? How can local TV news be reinvented for the Millennial generation? What are the opportunities for collaboration and innovation? Our panellists: MICHAELA BYRNE, head of news, ITV Tyne Tees ANDREW ROBSON, editor of BBC Look North JORDAN MANN, news editor, Made in Tyne and Wear TONY HAZELL, former station manager, Made in Tyne and Wear

Podcasting is having a major impact on the way we “do” journalism, whether we work in radio or other types of media. In this episode we hear from Lina Prestwood, a former commissioning editor of documentaries at Channel 4 and producer of Fathers and Sons, winner of "Podcast of The Year 2017; Peter Jukes, investigative journalist and co-creator of podcast Untold, about the unsolved murder of London private investigator Daniel Morgan; David MacMillan, a BBC Tees reporter and producer of its monthly politics podcast; and BBC Radio 4 PM reporter Andrew Bomford, whose five-episode podcast, The High Street Abduction, about the disappearance of a little girl from a Newcastle shop, won Silver at this year's Audio and Radio Awards.

How do we bring new voices and new experiences into journalism? In this episode we talk to Joshi Hermann, editor-in-chief at The Tab, Jamie Clifton, editor of Vice UK, Helen Amess, who is outreach manager at BBC North and Michael Segalov, news editor at Huck, about how they each seek to satisfy audiences that other media organisations struggle to reach

What are the challenges and opportunities for local journalism in the north east...and elsewhere? In this episode we hear the views of Helen Dalby, editor of ChronicleLive, and regional head of digital for Trinity Mirror; Gavin Foster, managing editor of the Sunderland Echo, Shields Gazette and Hartlepool Mail; Megan Lucero, head of Google-funded The Bureau Local; Ted Ditchburn, managing director of North News; Matthew Barraclough, BBC’s head of Local News Partnerships; and Andrew McKegney, policy and communication business partner at Newcastle City Council