J-Lab

Oct 30 2024 42 ep. 35 mins 254
J-Lab Podcast artwork

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.

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J-Lab Episode 42: An ethical approach to crime reporting and true crime content, with Bethany Usher

Oct 30 2024 56 mins  
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

J-Lab Episode 41: Breaking the RAAC in schools story with Jessica Hill

May 16 2024 37 mins  
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 p

J-Lab Episode 40: Going undercover with Paul Morgan-Bentley of The Times

May 03 2024 35 mins  
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 imp

J-Lab Episode 39: Reporting the Grenfell cladding scandal, with Martina Lees of the Sunday Times

May 23 2023 24 mins  
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 re

J-Lab Episode 38: Analytical journalism with BBC Newsnight's Hannah Barnes

Mar 31 2023 31 mins  
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,

J-Lab Episode 37: Reporting family courts with Louise Tickle

Jul 28 2022 30 mins  
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

J-Lab Episode 36: Reporting Russia with Meduza's Ivan Kolpakov

Mar 16 2022 31 mins  
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 Ve

J-Lab Episode 35: Reimagining local news with Joshi Herrmann of The Mill

Feb 01 2022 33 mins  
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 news

J-Lab Episode 34: Freelancing as a foreign correspondent, with Jessie Williams

Dec 08 2021 22 mins  
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. W

J-Lab Episode 33: Open source investigations with Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat

Nov 04 2021 30 mins  
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 Skrip