In her spare time during the pandemic, the Evening Standard journalist has been working on a solutions-focused investigation into women being coerced into gangs. She talks about how to cover a tricky topic without an editorial team
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When exploring a sensitive topic, all sorts of considerations can come up, like intruding into personal grief or interviewing vulnerable sources. Normally, an editor or an editorial team is on hand to offer guidance and a second opinion to make sure reporting is fair and ethical.
But that is not an option if you are working alone so it helps to team up with another journalist you can trust.
This was the reality for Abbianca Makoni, a multimedia journalist for The Evening Standard. Throughout the last year, she has been working on a documentary in her spare time with video producer Samson Falodun.
The film, GXNG GIRLS, focuses on the coercion of girls and women into gangs in the UK, and will be released next week (1 February 2020).
In this week's episode of the Journalism.co.uk, Makoni reflects on the documentary, the ethical challenges the duo faced, how they overcame them together, and the advantages of producing documentaries in small numbers.
Since recording this interview, The Evening Standard has discussed working with Makoni to produce more investigative pieces looking at issues affecting communities.
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