The magic of being able to understand corporate financial statements is that once absorbed, this knowledge can be used to hold all manner of companies and powerful actors to account.

Journalists and activists we have trained have used their new skills to investigate pharmaceuticals, gambling, human trafficking in the restaurant trade, the extractive industries, powerful tech firms, properties owned through shady companies – and many more.

And very often our participants asked us for help in nailing those stories.

“Help” can mean working with journalists from the get go: Building the research, refining data, identifying sources, co-ordinating field trips and, of course, following money.

We enjoy doing this. It’s what makes Finance Uncovered unique.

Training and working with participants on stories is a formula that works.

This is why our participants regularly tell us our Understanding Company Accounts eLearning course is the best training they have ever received. It’s rated at 9.2/10 by the hundreds who have completed it.

New material

This year, we have been building on this solid success. We have introduced new mentor-led courses and workshops – all geared around a specific industry theme.

The foundation of these courses remains Understanding Company Accounts, which consists of four highly produced interactive modules that cohorts take at a structured pace over seven weeks.

But there are two new elements.

We felt that the geostrategic battle for critical mineral resources, especially in Africa, merited closer inspection by our network of journalists.

Are governments, citizens, workers and local communities obtaining a fair reward from companies usually based in Western countries? How is the environment being protected?

So we developed new course material, How to Hold a Mining Company to Account. This is delivered during the seven online seminars we host every week throughout the course.

Second, we pair each participant with an FU expert specifically to help them produce stories using their new skills. Mentors work with the participants both during and after the course.

Every experienced journalist knows that one of the best ways to hold actors to account is to stay on them, watch their every move: The rolling investigation. That’s what we encourage.

We have just completed two cohorts of our new style mentor-led training. Both consisted exclusively of journalists working in Africa.

The early signs are that they are delivering good stories. This is always our aim. Training has to lead to story outputs.

Collaborating

Our first extractive industry cohort included Julius Mbeŵe, a reporter with Malawi's highly respected outfit, the Platform Investigative Journalism.

Julius was interested in investigating Sovereign Metals. In Malawi, Sovereign owns a strategically important asset: the Kasiya mine which contains the world’s largest deposit of rutile and the second largest deposit of graphite - key minerals for the energy transition.

Together as a cohort, we examined Sovereign’s annual filings. We spotted a potential lead involving consultants who had been hired to liaise with community relations in Malawi.

This lead was then useful to another journalist in the same cohort, Linda Soko Tembo, a reporter from MakanDay, an investigative non-profit in Zambia.

The same consultant had previously worked on a copper mine owned by First Quantum Minerals in Zambia.

With our help, the two reporters then began to work together.

Then, as the course proceeded, it emerged that First Quantum was facing possible legal action in the UK over its alleged failure to adequately compensate communities close to its highly lucrative copper mines in Zambia. (First Quantum contests the allegations.)

Suddenly we had potential stories in two countries.

Linda acted immediately, swiftly visiting the copper mine. And then she published an excellent story with Makanday. A short filmed interview with claimants gained 46,000 views on Facebook.

Julius then wrote this exceptionally thorough and well written report for PIJ. It serves as a warning to authorities and communities in Malawi as compensation for residents at Kasiya is being negotiated.

They have now both planted their flags in the ground as a warning to the companies involved that they are being watched.

Encouraging the rolling investigation

For us, these stories are examples of how journalists can yield results immediately.

They do not take months or even years to produce.

• They are achievable and effective.
• They are easily understood.
• They serve the public with important information.
• They demonstrate that basic understanding of financial statements can strengthen a reporter’s armoury.
• This then gives the journalists confidence to apply their new skills again – in virtually any business sector

As one recent participant from a mentor-led course told us: “It's a huge game changer in my reporting.”