THE Detail has appointed two additional new journalists as it prepares to expand the scope of its award winning reporting.
Claire Smyth and Maresa Fagan have joined The Detail’s team as the website plans to extend its work in Northern Ireland, while also producing major projects in the Republic of Ireland for the first time.
The Detail will widen its reporting across a range of important areas, including additional work on government accountability in Northern Ireland, plus examining the divisions in wider society, including in education.
The new cross-border projects will cover healthcare and the criminal justice systems, while also including special reports on issues facing children across the island.
As part of this expansion, The Detail will work with The Irish Times to produce a series of journalism projects on important cross-border issues.
NEW REPORTERS
Claire Smyth, who joins The Detail’s team, is a former crime reporter who first cut her teeth in journalism working for regional newspapers in England, including The Sentinel, in Stoke-in-Trent. She returned to Belfast in late 2015 after winning a place on the highly-regarded Investigative Journalism Training Scheme run by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme. Despite being at a relatively early stage in her career, Claire has already been shortlisted and highly commended for several awards including Weekly Reporter of the Year in the 2012 Regional Press Awards, Newcomer of the Year and Print Journalist of the Year (Weekly) in the EDF Energy South West Media Awards 2013 and Scoop of the Year in the O2 North West Media Awards 2015.
Maresa Fagan, who is also joining our team, started out in journalism at the Irish Medical Times in 1999 before moving on to work in the regional press where she produced award-winning investigations and reports with the Roscommon Herald. In 2016 she was awarded a merit certificate by the Law Society of Ireland in the Justice Media Awards for an in-depth feature on the need to strengthen the monitoring of sex offenders in the Republic of Ireland. In 2014 Maresa also took home the Regional Print Media Award in the GSK Healthcare Media Awards for a series of articles on emergency health services in County Roscommon and in 2013 she was shortlisted for Regional Journalist of the Year in the National Newspapers of Ireland Awards.
THE FUTURE
Since it was established in 2011 The Detail has quickly become an important voice, attracting national and international recognition for its work.
The editor of the news and analysis website Steven McCaffery said: “Everyone in The Detail is pleased to be welcoming new reporters to our team.
“The Detail has recently enjoyed continued success, winning a string of awards which recognised the standard of reporting across the website, including in our data journalism project, Detail Data.
“Now we are looking forward to delivering more journalism projects than ever before and extending our work.”