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Frankie Goodway,
Saturday Editor
"Hi there. It’s been a grim week in the UK, with racist riots erupting in Belfast after a stabbing. It’s easy to link the violence there with the Southampton riots a week ago, and the absurd and inflammatory rhetoric about ‘two-tier’ policing that far-right actors across the globe have been promoting in the wake of the Henry Nowak verdict.
“But Belfast, and Northern Ireland, have a distinct and specific history and present that can’t be ignored. Any framing that treats the riots as a response to immigration policy – or Elon Musk – are ignoring that context and failing to listen to reporters on the ground. Which is exactly why we commissioned Lara Whyte.”
Racist riots in Belfast recall the darkest days of the Troubles
Violence put Belfast on lockdown this week. Anonymous instructions circulated on WhatsApp and social media told businesses to close, and called for men to come out onto the streets prepared to fight. It has shocked people across the UK – but it was not new. This is the third consecutive summer of organised racist violence in Belfast: an annual swell of anger ahead of the Orange Order’s marching season in July. It is, however, getting worse each year.
Inside the story
Gareth Davies, our Bureau Local editor, has turned himself into an expert on how the media writes about immigration and the far right, reading more than 1,000 articles in a few months to understand the problem. But part of being an expert is also knowing what you don’t know. So unlike some outlets that have been happy to opine on Belfast without ever setting foot in the city, Gareth turned to Lara Whyte.
They’d been in touch after Gareth’s piece on Reach’s ‘asylum seeker map’ last week, when she told him Belfast had become a far-right hub. She said certain communities had developed radicalised views about immigrants, and that this was a particular problem in the lead up to the Twelfth of July parades. Obviously, she couldn’t have been more prescient.
Meet the developers cashing in on AI intimacy
When Character.AI decided to ban children from its platform, small apps from solo developers rushed to fill the void for personalised, character-based chatbots. Many have only light moderation, lack encryption, and rely on the appearance of intimacy to keep users coming back again and again. Some of the apps lack even basic privacy protections, leaving people’s chats with their AI romantic partners visible to the developers.
⚡ Immediate impact
One of the AI companion apps featured in this investigation – one that let the developer read every conversation users had and see the intimate photos they uploaded – has been pulled offline after our reporting.
Methodist church takes on HSBC over our story
Last year, Josephine Moulds reported how HSBC had helped to raise $1bn for Glencore, a mining giant. That was despite the bank promising to stop funding businesses expanding fossil fuels. Glencore, you see, owns and operates a coal mine six times the size of Manchester: the Cerrejón in Colombia. The mine’s been accused of polluting the water and the environment – hardly a clean investment.
The Methodist church and Epworth, a Christian investment company, are big customers and investors in HSBC – and our reporting got their attention. Now they’ve taken legal action. Glencore has already faced legal action in Colombia over claims the mine has harmed local people’s health and environment, but this new case is being brought internationally, at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Inside the story
Reporters live for the kind of response Andrew Harper, the deputy chief executive of Epworth, gave on Josephine’s story: “Josephine’s reporting matters because it did what all good journalism is supposed to do. It made it harder to look away.” We’re thinking of getting it painted on the wall of the office.
The complaint from the churches and Epworth also makes for powerful reading, regardless of faith: “We trust banks to safeguard our money, and to use it to invest in and support a just and flourishing world, in which communities can live with dignity, and future generations can thrive.” That trust – which can so easily be taken advantage of – is exactly why we investigate. You can sign an open letter to support the case here.
⚡ More impact this week
A sweet one this week – I told you a few weeks ago that we’d sent members of the team (including me!) to Leeds Trinity university to teach them everything we know about investigations. This week a student got back in touch, asking for the template we use when planning how to make our stories have real-world impact. He wanted to make sure his final project achieved the same kind of change we always aim for. A future impact producer in the making!
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What we’ve been reading
🔴 Polymarket, the betting platform that claims the wisdom of crowds turns it into a “truth machine”, has sponsored influencers pushing election misinformation popular.info
🔴 An interview with the man living on the porch of London’s most expensive home theguardian.com
🔴 The World Cup brings together nations across the globe – and the perfect conditions for infectious diseases to spread theconversation.com
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