A tragedy in the English Channel got Aaron Walawalkar thinking. How could it be that people were dying, their boats sinking in one of the busiest stretches of water in the world? This is how Liberty Investigates went to battle over FOI rejections, knocked on doors and analysed shipping data to reveal the shocking reality behind deaths at sea. Read all about it: https://libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/coastguard-effectively-ignored-19-reports-of-small-boats-before-november-2021-tragedy/...
Oct 23, 2023•26 min•Season 10Ep. 68
The horizon near Ali’s house is filled with flames. Owen Pinnell and Jess Kelly, from BBC Arabic, can't stop thinking of them. And back in the UK, Unearthed's Joe Sandler Clarke is digging into his own investigation. This is the story of how journalists worked with citizen journalists and scientists to delve into the impact of oil drilling around Basra, Iraq. Read all about it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cm32 https://projects.unearthed.greenpeace.org/big-oil-iraq/ https:/...
Aug 08, 2023•31 min•Season 10Ep. 67
You will have heard about the BBC Newnight interview with Prince Andrew - it was a seismic scoop that reverberated around the world. But how did it happen? The answer is one woman: Sam McAlister. This is how she bagged the interview of the decade. Read all about it: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Sam-McAlister/Scoops--The-BBCs-Most-Shocking-Interviews-from-Prince-And/27025330 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtBS8COhhhM https://variety.com/2023/film/global/netflix-prince-andrew-film-scoop-g...
May 05, 2023•35 min•Season 10Ep. 66
Hannah Al-Othman sits in her car in front of a stranger’s house. Inside is a man who might be responsible for a woman’s death. A man whose name is known to a lot of people, but who has not yet been brought to justice. In this episode we hear how Hannah and her colleague David Collins uncovered a shocking story of silence and inaction. Read all about it: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-believe-british-soldiers-killed-my-sister-agnes-wanjiru-now-i-want-the-truth-rbc69q9pf https://www.t...
Apr 06, 2023•27 min•Season 10Ep. 65
We're between series of The Tip Off now - and planning lots more great episodes for you, but while we do, why not take a listen to Silenced. A new podcast from human rights organisation ARTICLE 19 Silenced tell the Stories of journalists and activists around the world, whose governments attempt to rein them in and cover up the truth. Take a listen to this episode, in which Matthew Caruana Galizia, journalist and son of the late investigative journalist Daphne Caruana-Galizia, speaks to hos...
Jun 16, 2022•32 min
Rob Cribb had an idea for an investigation, an idea so big it was almost impossible to envisage how the work could be done. But then, it came to him.... This is the story of how more than 100 journalists across Canada banded together to reveal the shocking levels on lead in tap water across the country. Read all about it: https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/lead-in-water.html https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2019/11/04/how-we-did-it-inside-the-tainted-water-investigation...
Jun 02, 2022•22 min•Season 9Ep. 64
Who gets to tell the stories we hear? On this episode we hear from citizen journalists - two women with lived experience of homelessness and surrounding issues, as they talk us through a ground-breaking project. Warning: this episode contains some explicit language and mention of sexual violence. Read all about it: https://groundswell-listenup-hub.org/ Sign up to the Listen Up Hub's mailing list: https://groundswell.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=898f9a6f3bf48a747d1b...
May 19, 2022•23 min•Season 9Ep. 63
How do you investigate a group that is shrouded in secrecy by its very nature? This is the story of how two journalists - Patrick Lohmann and Marnie Eisenstadt tracked down dozens of people, to reveal the concerning goings on in an AA-type support group. Read all about it: https://www.syracuse.com/butternutters/#:~:text=The%20organization%20called%20%22The%20Syracuse,Post%2DStandard%20investigation%20has%20found . This show is a co-production of Studio to be. Hosted and produce...
Apr 29, 2022•26 min•Season 9Ep. 62
Where do you start in unravelling one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the UK system? For Nick Wallis it all began with a tweet. This is the story of how Nick’s tenacity, with over a decade of reporting, exposed a scandal of unimaginable proportions. Read all about it: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-great-post-office-scandal/nick-wallis/9781916302389 This show is a co-production of Studio to be. Hosted and produced: Maeve McClenaghan Co-Executive Producers: Joaq...
Apr 14, 2022•33 min•Season 9Ep. 61
Hi Tip Off Listeners - We are working hard on new episodes for you, and have some more great stories coming up this series. But this week we are taking a dip into our archive. As the Russian regime is accused of breaking international law and committing untold atrocities in Ukraine, we're re-publishing the first of a two-parter, originally published in 2018. This is the story of how Heidi Blake and her team of journalists at Buzzfeed UK revealed a series of deaths, all on British soil and all li...
Apr 07, 2022•27 min•Season 9Ep. 60
One December day, Samira Shackle found herself in the midst of an unfolding, global story. Drones had been spotted flying around Gatwick Airport. But weeks, then months passed, and no drone operators were ever found. Samira lays out how she dug into the mystery and revealed all was not as it first seemed. Read all about it: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/01/the-mystery-of-the-gatwick-drone https://samirashackle.com/karachi-vice/ This show is a co-productio...
Mar 24, 2022•28 min•Season 9Ep. 59
Annabel Hennessy was reporting on another case when she heard a name that would change everything. A lawyer, expert in First Nations’ rights, told her about Jody Gore - a woman convicted of murder with little weight given to the years of domestic abuse she suffered. This story unravels how Annabel’s groundbreaking series of articles led to real change in Western Australia. WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of domestic abuse and may not be suitable for all. If you or a loved one is ex...
Mar 14, 2022•27 min•Season 9Ep. 58
What do you do if the data you need doesn’t exist? When the pandemic hit I couldn’t stop wondering about how the impact of lockdown, sickness or bereavement on people’s ability to pay their rent or mortgage. I wanted to know more, but I couldn’t do it alone. This is the story of how a group of more than 20 journalists, all across England and Wales, came together in one of the largest court-reporting projects of its kind. Read all about it: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021...
Feb 26, 2022•29 min•Season 9Ep. 57
Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones think they have everything they need to finally expose Jimmy Savile’s abhorrent crimes. But as their transmission date gets nearer, their BBC bosses start to pull back. This is the story of how the BBC came to drop the Newsnight investigation into Savile and the seismic consequences of that decision. This is the second part of a two-episode story . Read all about it: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/02/jimmy-savile-bbc-journalists-risked-jobs-reveal-trut...
Feb 17, 2022•41 min•Season 9Ep. 56
Meirion Jones has had a strange feeling about Jimmy Savile for some time and he thinks he may have a way to probe further. When Savile dies, Meirion teams up with Liz MacKean to try and get to the truth. This is how Liz and Meirion pulled together the pieces - in an attempt to finally bring Savile’s crimes to light. Many thanks to Liz MacKean's family for allowing me to use audio from an un-aired interview in 2015. This is the first part of a two-episode story - stay tuned next week for part 2. ...
Feb 10, 2022•26 min•Season 9Ep. 55
Zak Garner-Purkis is sat in a fastfood restaurant - his attention laser-focused on the men gathering across the road. He is trying to work out who these man are, how they have come to be there, and whether this is what modern day slavery looks like in 21st century London? This is the story of how Zak went undercover to expose a shocking system of exploitation in the construction industry. Read all about it: https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/agenda/investigations/how-i-bought-slave-labour-in-lon...
Jan 27, 2022•26 min•Season 9Ep. 54
Stay tuned - we will be back very soon with more stories behind the headlines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 31, 2021•2 min
Creator and host of The Tip Off, Maeve McClenaghan has written a book, and it is now out in paperback. No Fixed Abode: Life and Death Among the UK’s Forgotten Homeless tells highly personal, human and sometimes surprisingly uplifting stories of real people struggling in a crumbling system. The book goes behind the scenes of the dramatic, winding investigation that revealed - for the first time - how and when people were dying homeless in one of the richest countries in the world. This paperback ...
Jun 24, 2021•2 min
Cheats: we love to hate them. But in this climate of fast news, short attention spans, 280 characters, do we ever get the full picture? Cheat!, a new podcast from Somethin’ Else, digs underneath the surface to tell the inside stories behind some of the biggest scandals in contemporary history and introduces you to the flawed protagonists at their heart: controversial and contentious figures from the world of pop culture, business, sport, politics and love. Available now wherever you get your pod...
Jun 01, 2021•8 min
Sarah Turnnidge started her journalism career at local papers so it was there she first encountered press releases from police forces. But over time Sarah started to wonder - did they tell the whole story. In this episode Sarah talks through her meticulous data project which revealed a worrying disproportionality when it came to information put out about black criminals. Read all about it: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/metropolitan-police_uk_603fa18ec5b617a7e411ffc5 This episode ...
May 13, 2021•20 min•Season 8Ep. 53
Andrew Gold, a freelance journalist, is feeling out of his depth. He is in a church hall on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and the priest he is there to see is not happy. This is the story of how Andrew tracked down a man who claimed to be exorcising demons. WARNING: contains descriptions/audio of supposed exorcisms, which some might find upsetting. Read all about it: BBC Three Exorcism The Battle for Young Minds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78hW8qVIWI Andrew's podcast: On The ...
Apr 29, 2021•30 min•Season 8Ep. 52
Pete Murimi has stumbled upon a horrifying hypothesis - that people are snatching children from the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. Now he is working for BBC Africa Eye and is on the trail. Working with Njeri Mwangi Marc Perkins (Editor) and Tom Watson (Exec), this is how the BBC investigations team exposed a shocking tale. Read all about it: BBC The Baby Stealers https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08yjy5r/africa-eye-africa-eye-the-baby-stealers https://www.youtube.com/w...
Apr 15, 2021•32 min•Season 8Ep. 51
To commemorate getting to our 50th episode we look back at what happened next after some big stories went out. Jane Bradley, Samir Jeraj, Natalie Bloomer and Aliaume Leroy broke some great investigative scoops, but the story didn’t end there. The impact of their work continues to reverberate and impact change - here’s what happened next. Hosted and produced: Maeve McClenaghan Theme music: Dice Muse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 01, 2021•19 min•Season 8Ep. 50
In late winter 2017 I was struck with what I thought was a simple question… how many people were dying while homeless? It turned out nobody knew the answer - so I set out, with colleagues around the country, to find out. In this episode I dissect one of my own investigations, focusing on the reporting process around one man’s death. I go deeper and tell more of these stories in my new book No Fixed Abode: Life and Death Among the UK's Forgotten Homeless. The book is on sale now in ha...
Dec 12, 2020•28 min•Season 7Ep. 49
Samir Jeraj and Natalie Bloomer have decided to team on to take on an investigation… they want to know if and how police forces are sharing information with immigration officials, and they are about to uncover some shocking findings. Read all about it: https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/04/05/met-police-hands-victims-of-crime-over-to-the-home-office https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/08/11/sex-worker-robbed-at-knifepoint-faces-deportation-after-cont https://www.politics.co.uk/ne...
Oct 08, 2020•27 min•Season 7Ep. 48
Omar Radi is working in dangerous circumstances. His journalism is exposing how tribal lands are being snatched away from inhabitants in Morocco, only to be sold off at exorbitant rates. He knows this work is making him enemies… but he has no idea just how serious things will get. Support Omar: Sign the Amnesty International Ireland petition: https://www.amnesty.ie/urgent-action-morocco-stop-harassing-journalist-omar-radi/ Write to or tweet at your Moroccan Embassy, in the UK: https://www.morocc...
Sep 15, 2020•28 min•Season 7Ep. 47
Peter Geoghegan is standing on a train station platform when he sees it - a large advert in a free-sheet newspaper that will set him off on an investigation into the dark world of campaign spending. In this episode we hear how he worked to unravel the secrets behind the Brexit campaigning by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party - as he attempts to follow their funding to the source. Read all about it: Peter’s book Democracy For Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics is out now https://www.h...
Sep 11, 2020•23 min•Season 7Ep. 46
BBC journalist Ellie Flynn is nervous, she is about to go undercover to meet a man who is offering a bed in his flat, but there is a catch… For weeks Ellie travelled the country meeting men who were advertising rent in exchange for sex. This is how she produced a documentary for BBC Three about this shockingly prevalent practice. Read all about it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05y93q5 Hosted and produced: Maeve McClenaghan Production support: Alice Miliken Theme music: Dice Muse This ...
Jun 11, 2020•30 min•Season 6Ep. 45
HuffPost UK's Nadine White is onto a story- following allegations of fraud and wrong-doing in a well-publicised British church. But why has no-one else spotted the story? Could it be because these are black victims? In response to Nadine's findings, SPAC Nation denied the allegations and said that it has thousands of members and police should carry out the review and take whatever measures they deemed fit. Read all about it: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/spac-nation-pastors-church-knife...
May 21, 2020•30 min•Season 6Ep. 44
Ayo Awokoya had an idea and she couldn’t let it go. This is how a talented and tenacious freelancer followed her instincts to uncover a shocking story - revealing modern day slavery practices happening in European agriculture. The work later won the Frontline Club Award for Print. Read all about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/20/tomatoes-italy-mafia-migrant-labour-modern-slavery Hosted and produced: Maeve McClenaghan Production support: Cheeka Eyers Theme music: Dice Muse T...
May 07, 2020•39 min•Season 6Ep. 43
