It’s Indie News Week: A look back at some of our scoops, their impact and how we got the stories
Plus why not come to our drop in event in Northampton on Friday from 11am to 2pm.
This week, NN Journal, along with many other independent news outlets from up and down the country, is writing about the importance of independent news. It’s a growing sector - with new publications setting up regularly - but it is not a financially healthy one. Many of the publishers, like NN Journal are being produced on a shoestring, by local reporters like me, who firstly do it because we love the job, but also because we realise the need for the service.
Paid for and powered only by our loyal readers, NN Journal always steers clear of the official line circulated in press releases by the public sector media machines and instead tries to get behind the story, and present the facts that perhaps the authorities wanted to keep hidden.
Since I began NN Journal with fellow founder Natalie Bloomer back in 2021, NN Journal has produced a number of stories that have gone on to make a local impact.
We have written about a wide range of subjects from homelessness, domestic abuse, the finances of our local authorities, the activities of our MPs and elected councillors.
But the scoops NN Journal has produced don’t come out of nowhere and rarely drop into our laps. They start with a tip off, an observation, a passing remark and then the graft goes into getting the story fully formed and on the record. It involves numerous phone calls, (I always like to have our information from at least two sources) quite a bit of online research and thought. Knowledge gained from having lived in Northants for decades and working in the patch for years, also subconsciously feeds into what I write and send out to readers.
To mark Indie News Week, here are some of our past stories, plus the background on how we pulled off some of our scoops.
If you do decide to sign up today, you can view all of our story archive (more than 800) and the Public Interest News Foundation (which has set up this first Indie News week) will also match fund any subscriptions we gain this week. So if you’ve been on the fence, or been meaning to get round to it, please do so today.
If you don’t want to commit to a regular subscription you can donate here. This donation will also be matched. We’re using the platform Buy me a coffee, but the donations won’t pay for beverages, instead it will help pay for our planned election coverage and some additional reporters.
And if you’re free, come along to the N Live radio studio in St John’s Street in Northampton on Friday between 11am to 2pm. Find out more about NN Journal and N Live and tell us your views about where you live.
Complimentary coffee and cake is on offer and we could even tell you some of our more surreal reporting moments including the one about the car chase and the private investigator.
Wrongly imprisoned pub landlord sues council for millions
This exclusive story came to us via an anonymous leak of the council report. Just months after it was founded, the new North unitary authority had convened a private meeting in June 2021. A confidential report had sworn councillors to secrecy, saying that to talk about its contents would increase the council’s financial burden and also said there were strict reporting restrictions imposed by the high court ‘and a breach of that could lead to prosecution of any individual for contempt of court’.
The story was about Geoff Monks, a landlord of three thriving pubs in East Northants, who had been prosecuted by the former East Northants District Council for food safety offences. He went to prison for 57 days in 2003 after not paying his fine and he lost his businesses, but in 2015 his conviction was quashed. He had been in a legal dispute with East Northants council for a few years, but the matter had not been publicly known about.
And it appeared that in June 2021, the new council was also trying to keep the matter private.
We asked the council to provide us with details of the reporting restrictions and when it could not do so, we spent a few weeks corresponding with the high court. In the end, it became clear there were no reporting restrictions and so in the public interest we published the story.
Exclusive: Miscarriage of justice landlord sues council for up to £14m damages
By Sarah Ward A landlord wrongly jailed in a miscarriage of justice is suing North Northamptonshire Council for just under £14m in damages. Former owner of upmarket pub The Snooty Fox in Lowick, Geoff Monks, was sent to a category A prison in 2003 after not payi…
We regularly keep tabs on those elected to parliament to represent our communities and after noticing that MPs surgeries seemed to be a thing of the past, we wrote this exclusive piece:
How accessible are our MPs?
By Sarah Ward Northamptonshire’s MPs appear to have quietly dropped their weekly surgeries with some now instead offering appointment-only surgeries in secret locations.
Our exclusive about former police, fire and crime commissioner Stephen Mold calling his newly appointed chief fire officer Nikki Watson, ‘a bitch’ led to his decision to stand down from office.
Our revelations about what he said in a private meeting with firefighters, led to mass condemnation from local police and fire staff and also from national bodies, making his position untenable.
His demise started with his unwise decision to appoint close friend Nicci Marzec, to the fire chief, despite no experience of being in charge of such a large service, and no operational fire experience.
NN Journal was among the first to question this appointment, knowing of the close friendship that existed between the pair. We were to write about concerns and throughout the several months the saga went on we used our well placed contacts, plus a large amount of confidential tip offs from insiders, to break a number of exclusives.
Questions asked about why police commissioner appointed member of his team to fire chief role
By Sarah Ward There is widespread concern about why Northamptonshire Police and Fire commissioner Stephen Mold has appointed a member of his own staff to take on the job leading the county’s fire service. The fire brigades union (FBU) and members of the statutory panel which holds the commissione…
Education is a huge local and national issue, especially the difficulties many children with special educational needs can face accessing the right support.
The family of Callum Woodcroft, a Raunds teenager who tragically took his own life after suffering from school phobia, exclusively shared their personal story with us last year.
‘School phobia led to our son’s suicide’
By Sarah Ward “It was extreme school phobia. We can all say ‘Oh I’m scared, I’ve got my driving test next week’, ‘Oh I’m scared I’ve got a meeting and have to stand up in front of people and talk’ and we sort of understand what anxiety feels like when you say that. Times it by a million just …
We also have had contributions over our three years in business, from wonderful writers and this piece by University of Northampton lecturer and former political journalist Kate Ironside went down very well after the 2021 local elections which saw the Conservatives returned to power after the collapse of the county council.
Failure rewarded: What can we make of Northamptonshire's election results?
By Kate Ironside, Senior Lecturer, University of Northampton and former political journalist One of the fundamental premises of democracy is that if politicians perform badly, the voters can kick them out at the next election.
Most weekend’s we have a cultural piece from local writer Julia Thorley. Here’s a recent one about local author Will Adams, who has lived an extraordinarily creative life.
If you have any cultural events you would like Julia to write about you can email Julia at julia.thorley@googlemail.com
It’s great to read properly researched and well written reports on local issues. Such a contrast to the copied and pasted PR releases that pass for so called journalism.