The i Paper

As Britain’s youngest national newspaper, The i Paper has grown an audience of nought to nine million in barely a decade. This extraordinary growth has been based on trust, transparency and public interest journalism. This year The i Paper’s newsroom has delivered genuine policy change that will help protect Britain’s rivers from sewage, exposed a health scandal caused by modern kitchen renovations, revealed a second Post Office IT scandal linked to wrongful convictions of postmasters, and delivered world-leading journalism on the impact of male sexual assault. Its newsroom is a fraction of the size of the Guardian, the Times or the Telegraph yet delivers high-impact scoops that hold power to account and uncover injustice.

In January, The i Paper’s northern reporter Steve Robson uncovered claims that the Post Office had been wrongly prosecuting sub-postmasters for years before the discredited Horizon IT system was first introduced. Eight months on, as a direct result of his committed reporting, the Government’s independent investigation found that a second Post Office IT system is likely to have been faulty, with concerns about wrongful convictions.

The i Paper has campaigned doggedly this year to prevent dumping of sewage in Britain’s precious rivers and seas. Our meticulous reporting has exposed how water companies use thousands of hidden sewage overflow points to circumvent monitoring. After this story, Labour’s election manifesto included a pledge to extend monitoring to all the areas revealed in The i Paper’s investigation: real public policy change. We also revealed that the Environment Agency was failing to attend 90 per cent of water pollution incidents in England and exposed how water companies had dumped sewage over 5,000 times in a year without a legal permit. Our five-point manifesto to Save Britain’s Rivers has drawn cross-party support, received backing from all major conservation charities and will change the law.

In public health, The i Paper was the first UK newsroom to reveal the deadly impact of modern kitchen renovations: the lung disease silicosis is now being diagnosed in young stonemasons in Britain who cut engineered stone quartz worktops. Reporter Joe Duggan exposed how this specific engineered stone was responsible for a rapid increase in cases of the disease - caused by inhaling toxic silica dust. Since The i Paper’s first article, at least 11 cases have now been recorded, with the youngest aged 27. Pressure on the Government to announce a ban is increasing and Joe's reporting has been widely cited.

The i Paper’s Patrick Strudwick was responsible this year for revealing the second wave of allegations against Kevin Spacey. In a detailed investigation that spanned seven years and immense legal jeopardy, he uncovered new claims against the star. The result was a groundbreaking, scrupulous project that represented a #metoo moment for men.

Sport is also breaking new ground with Chief Football Writer Daniel Storey visiting every club in the English Football League and Premier League at a critical time in the game.

Politically, The i Paper has a unique pledge: only one national newspaper has never endorsed a political party. The i Paper has used this independence in a key election year to deliver public interest political journalism: an intervention by former Labour leader Neil Kinnock; a powerful encounter with Dominic Cummings and an admission from Jacob Rees-Mogg during the campaign that the Tories would lose.

On top of this, The i Paper has defied gravity at the newsstand Mondays to Fridays , and our Saturday to Sunday iWeekend continues to excel as the best-performing national newspaper on the UK newsstand for the third consecutive year. In the last year alone, our freshly designed website, inews.co.uk, has grown its digital subscriber base by nearly 70 per cent.

The i Paper excels in its core mission – delivering trusted, non-partisan public interest journalism time and time again.