Ferret Underground: Furry Christmas

Hi ,

It's the final newsletter of 2023. The Ferret's gradgrind collective of journalists, investigators, irritants and pedants need some time off to recuperate from our biggest year ever.

But don't fret because all your favourite newsletter features (investigations, podcasts, ironic detachment, ennui) will return in the new year with renewed vigour.

This week, we're going to look back at some of our favourite Ferret reporting from this year. Our reporters have each chosen a piece they particularly enjoyed from the last 12 months and think deserves another look.

Have a good holiday period. Here's to another year!

Sian Norris wrote one of the most powerful stories published by The Ferret this year in my view. This Ukrainian investigative feature looked into documented claims of coercion and abuse in cases where traffickers presented themselves to young Ukrainian women as boyfriends, promising safety in a new country.

I read it again this week and was reminded that while we are rightly consumed by the horrors of war in Gaza, there are other conflicts still raging across the world and civilians suffering. For me it's a reminder of vital need to work for peace.

My favourite Ferret story of 2023 was an international investigation by a student journalist called Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi, who travelled to Nigeria to expose how an oil spill - caused by a firm owned by an oil multinational with billions invested in the North Sea - had polluted rivers and destroyed crops.

This was eye-witness reporting to tell how a rural community was under threat from the oil industry. This was David versus Goliath, in terms of the parties involved, an issue exposed by Elfredah's tenacity.

My favourite Ferret story of this year was this expose of dry sewage spills by our data journalist, Petra Matijevic.

It combined lots of classic elements of a good Ferret story: it was forensic, it used an innovative approach to data, and it set the agenda and was raised at Holyrood shortly after.

It was also balanced, one of the key values of our journalism, featuring Scottish Water's response to our findings very prominently. Proof that journalism does not need to erase one side of the story to have an impact.

I'm cheekily choosing a series. Several of The Ferret’s most important stories this year featured in Paul Dobson and Rob Edwards’ series which scrutinised the performance of Scotland’s green watchdog, Sepa.

They not only assessed Sepa’s shortcomings, such as its alleged law breaking by failing to maintain a log of 175,000 pollution permits and to prevent sewage leaks, but also explored how it had been limited by real terms cuts in government funding.

This is a great example of how Ferret series are able to look at key issues – such as environmental protection – in even greater detail than a single article would allow, and from many different angles so that readers are able to get a fuller picture.

I'm choosing one of The Ferret's podcasts this year. Our series looking at the inquiry into the death of Black Scot Sheku Bayoh, who died while being restrained by police in Kirkcaldy.

The podcast - written and presented by Karin Goodwin and Tomiwa Folorunso, and produced by Halina Rifai - was a forensic look at the inquiry into the death of a man described as "Scotland's George Floyd" but overlooked by many in the mainstream media.

It was rightly recognised with a nomination at the recent British Journalism Awards.

Petra Matijevic's exploration of gender inequalities in emergency medical care in Scotland stands out as my top Ferret story of 2023. Through a blend of meticulous data analysis and amplifying the voices of those affected by so-called 'medical misogyny,' the article brings attention to the broader issue of the gender health gap.

This isn't confined to a local context; rather, it reflects an international phenomenon. So much so that Petra's story now features in the opening lines of 'La salute è un diritto di genere,' a book on the gender health gap penned by Italian journalist Alessandra Vescio. It's always brilliant to see the impact (sometimes cross-border) that our stories can have!

Are journalists being targeted in Gaza?

It's the final For Fact's Sake podcast of the year, and we're focusing on the conflict in Gaza, where among the thousands of civilian deaths, scores of journalists have been killed.

We speak to Fiona O'Brien from Reporters Without Borders about why so many journalists have been part of the tragic human toll of the Israeli attack on Gaza, and whether journalists in the area are being targeted by the military.

She also explains how the killing of journalists in the region amplifies misinformation and inaccurate state narrratives about the war.