Stoke and Huddersfield papers report on torch relay costs

Stoke Olympic torch relay costs

The Stoke Sentinel and Huddersfield Examiner have reported on Freedom of Information requests from Help Me Investigate about torch relay spending.

This is Staffordshire report on the £189,730 cost of the relay to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, while The Huddersfield Daily Examiner’s Linda Whitwam asks “Was [the £56,000 cost] worth it?” Continue reading

Stoke Sentinel on Help Me Investigate: “Collaboration is king”

This Is Staffordshire’s digital publisher David Elks has written about Help Me Investigate in the Stoke Sentinel’s ‘DaviddotElks’ column following his involvement in our investigation into corporate torchbearers. He writes:

“Collaboration is such an obvious idea because it allows people to focus on their skills, but team-work doesn’t necessarily come naturally to reporters. It should.

“For the seven years that I was a business journalist at The Sentinel, there was a constant desire and pressure to find stories which would make the front page ‘splash’.

“I would be incredibly loathed to share any tip-offs or contact information if I thought another colleague might use it to break news that I could report myself.

“But I’ve had to change my attitude as I’ve moved to reporting on the web. Why?

“Because it’s almost impossible to do everything yourself.”

We delayed our post on the photo of two corporate torchbearers Tom Foley and Christos Angelides exchanging a ‘torch kiss’ to allow the newspaper to run the story first. The story was later picked up by the Daily Mail.