Molly Blackall
The i Paper
A confident multimedia journalist, Molly writes, self-shoots video and audio reports and appears on TV and radio.
Molly recently travelled to South Sudan, reporting from snake-infested refugee camps and the border with Sudan to bring this forgotten crisis to UK readers.
Her stories revealed that those fleeing violence in Sudan were dying at the border with its southern neighbour, and shared new and terrifying testimony on life inside Sudan during the war.
She also exposed the horrifying conditions children were being forced to live in after escaping conflict , examining how UK policies may have exacerbated the crisis. A video report and podcast, self-recorded, took readers inside the camps and into the lives of Sudan’s many refugees.
The work was produced in challenging circumstances - around military bases and checkpoints, in 42C heat, in a war-torn country to which the Foreign Office advises against all travel – and led to coverage on Times Radio.
With colleague Richard Holmes, Molly has carried out high profile investigations into the powerful armies active in Sudan.
The pair broke the world exclusive revealing that the Wagner group were operating in the Sudan war, exposed how an “ethical” Dubai investment firm was helping the Sudanese paramilitary group RSF to influence UK politicians, and tracked Wagner’s online recruitment efforts following the mutiny.
In November, Molly travelled alone across three US states to cover the midterm elections, focusing on global themes to bring the events to life for UK readers.
In the rural Texas city of Uvalde, Molly met families who had lost children in the Robb Elementary School shooting, a massacre which loomed large over the ballot, and followed pro-choice campaigners in Georgia, a state with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, as they attempted to prevent the procedure moving underground.
Amid a surge in disinformation globally, Molly travelled to the seat of conspiracy theorist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to find out how tight the grip of conspiracyl remained on US politics a year after the Capitol attack. She then flew to Washington DC to examine what the results meant for the future of US politics.
Following i’s commitment to political neutrality, Molly has sought to provide balanced and compassionate reporting to inform the otherwise polarised debate on international migration.
In April, she travelled to the “new jungle” in Dunkirk, a post-apocalyptic camp for those hoping to seek asylum in the UK, interviewing inhabitants and providing rare insight into the impact – or lack of – the Government’s attempts to deter crossings.
Molly’s reporting caused outrage when she revealed the Home Office had rejected an asylum claim from a Sudanese man based on outdated information which didn’t consider the war in Sudan. After an extensive FOI investigation, Molly also revealed that 1,800 Ukrainians who arrived under UK visa schemes are facing homelessness.