The Tip Off

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-haras...

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 a...

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 H...

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 de...

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-slav...

For years Alon Aviram and Adam Cantwell-Corn followed a story - a story that took them to dingy warehouses, stake-outs in cars, and undercover work in ice cream vans. This is how the Bristol Cable tracked alleged wrongdoing in one of the city’s well-known businesses. The multi-award winning investigation took years and had big impact… this is how they did it. Read all about it: https://thebristolc...

This week we offer you a taste of something new... enjoy an extract from new podcast series The Immaculate Deception. Fertility doctor Jan Karbaat was renowned for getting amazing results. Women who were desperate for children would visit him at his Rotterdam clinic and always leave pregnant. But when the clinic closed, rumours began about the methods Karbaat used to achieve his success. The child...

Journalist Louise Tickle is one of a handful of reporters who covers a secretive and little known area of UK life… the family courts. In this episode she explains the many challenges she faces in reporting even the most egregious cases of wrong-doing, and talks through a potentially precedent setting case. Read all about it: https://openfamilycourt.wordpress.com/ https://www.patreon.com/louisetick...

While researching the effects of the One Child Policy in China, LA Times journalist Barbara Demick stumbles upon an extraordinary story: twin sisters, one of whom was forcibly adopted away to the USA. Barbara sets off to find the missing twin, and reunite the family.  Read all about it: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-07/how-a-journalist-discovered-and-reunited-identical-tw...

Hundreds of miles apart, journalists Jessica Purkiss and JD are working to get answers. They are looking for accountability and justice for an Afghan man named Masih. Masih’s entire family was wiped out in an airstrike, on his house in a remote part of Afghanistan.  This is the story of how Masih worked with journalists around the world to get to the truth.  Read all about it :  htt...

Jodi Kantor was given a beat and had been pointed at a tweet - a single tweet, without any names included that would set her on a months-long investigation. Teaming up with Megan Twohey, the two New York Times’ journalists set off to uncover one of the biggest scandals of the decade: a slew of allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. (Weinstein and lawyers representing his former company...

In a crowded tent at Latitude Festival, journalist Charlie Mole explains how he tracked back how a conspiracy theory had grown and developed, finally ending up on US national news. In this show, recorded in front of a live audience, Charlie explains how the death of a young Democrat staffer, sparked an elaborate story about revenge killings, secret leaks and shady forces at work. Help support the...

After working for years to put together the pieces of how a massacre had gone unsolved, Barry and his team publish their findings. But that is far from the end of the story… This is how Barry got sucked into the story himself - after being arrested and taken to court, all for trying to report the truth. Read all about it: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/31/northern-ireland-judge-rebuk...

The violent, protracted conflict known as The Troubles claimed many innocent victims in Northern Ireland. But one atrocity stood out for journalist Barry McCaffrey - the massacred of six men in the quiet, tiny village of Loughinisland. The killings stuck with him, in part because it seemed so clear who the suspects were, so why were they walking free? Barry explains how he spent years digging into...

Amelia Gentleman’s work exposing the Windrush Scandal is some of the most impactful and well-renowned journalism of recent years. But where did it all begin? Amelia explains how a simple email she received while on holiday, set off a chain of events that would lead to arguably the biggest story of her illustrious career. Read all about it: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-windrush-betrayal/ame...

A video of an extrajudicial killing haunts Aliaume Leroy - but how do you get to the truth from a short film posted on social media?  Aliaume found himself banding together with open source investigators across the world in a race to uncover the truth behind the atrocity. This is the story of how they did it. Read all about it : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-45599973/cameroon-atr...

Back in 2000 Jim DeRogatis received a fax that would change the course of his career forever.  This is the story of how one journalist stayed on a story for decades, continuing to report allegations of abuse while the rest of the world covered its ears. Read all about it : https://www.abramsandchronicle.co.uk/book/soulless-the-case-against-r-kelly/ Hosted and produced: Maeve McClenaghan Produ...

Brexit. It is all anyone is talking about. But while politicians argue and wring their hands, what is going on behind the scenes? Alice Ross and Lawrence Carter, part of Greenpeace's Unearthed team, set out to find out and discovered one way that lobbyists might try to get their ideas in front of the right people. Read all about it: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/07/29/iea-hard-brexit-think...

Madlen Davies has been reporting on a concerning topic for years: the rise of antibiotic resistance and superbugs. Her reporting started in the UK but she soon realised she would need to travel further to get the real story. Here she talks about one international reporting trip... a story with a tragic ending. Read all about it: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2018-08-08/scourge-supe...

Ashley Fantz often covers police press conferences as part of her day job at CNN. But a few years ago she would attend one that would set her on a months long journey, forensically piecing together the evidence to reveal the systematic destruction of vital police evidence. This is the story of how a team at CNN revealed widespread issues in sexual assault investigations, across the USA. WARNING: T...

Ep.28 W1G What connects a wide-screen TV in the toilet, a faked blockbuster film and an elaborate Las Vegas heist? Turns out... it's one address in central London. This is the story of how Oliver Bullough followed a tangle of financial crimes back to the source, discovering a far-from-transparent system on the way! Read all about it : https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/19/offshore-centr...

Ep.27 Mother Lorna Tucker doesn’t think of herself as a journalist, more of a collector of stories. So years ago, when she stumbled on a story that needed to be told, she knew she wouldn’t stop until the truth came out. This is how she helped to document the stories of several Native American women who had undergone forcible sterilisation in the USA. Correction: Maeve mistakenly refers to former U...

Shiv Malik thought he was onto something special. He’d been working with a source who was offering incredible insights into the UK terrorist scene. And now, this same source was saying he was ready to turn his back on his past life and he wanted Shiv to tell that story. Then things fell apart. Shiv's book The Messenger will be released in June 2019. Read all about it: https://www.waterstones.com/b...

Just a quick one to say thanks for all your support in 2018 and to update on plans for what comes next...... oh and to announce Maeve's part in a charity Christmas single.... yes you read that right! We don't ask for much at The Tip Off but we'd be overjoyed if you'd spend just 99p to buy The Sounds of Christmas by Podcast Al-lStars. All money raised goes to Samuel's Charity which provides treats...

A court case, a mysterious witness and an envelope at the Post Office... this is the story of how Sam Bungey and Jennifer Ford unravelled a decade old murder case. Recorded in front of a live audience as part of Audible's Spoken Worlds Festival- Maeve hears how Sam and Jennifer made the smash-hit podcast series: West Cork. Read all about it: https://www.amazon.com/West-Cork/dp/B0792BWQWT Hosted an...