Paul Bradshaw Profile picture
Nov 26, 2021 18 tweets 8 min read Read on X
🧵It's time for another journey into the world of telling stories through company accounts - this time Naomi Campbell's fashion charity is under investigation!
The story is here: theguardian.com/society/2021/n… But how did the reporter find the details..?
2/ First up: the story *lead* doesn't come from company accounts, it comes from a press release: gov.uk/government/new… — you can get email alerts about announcements from the Charity Commission here: gov.uk/government/lat… ...
3/ ...But a reporter could have found some good story leads on the supermodel's charity much earlier if they'd been looking, as the details of the story show...
4/ You can search for a charity's accounts on the Charity Commission register - here's a search for Fashion For Relief …of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search… - and here's the charity's page …of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search…...
5/ The latest accounts are overdue by 179 days - late accounts are a good reason to check out earlier ones to see why that might be happening, and to make some calls to see if there are any concerns/activity etc. which might be newsworthy (but not defamatory) Image
6/ You can sign up for alerts on the Companies House website for new documents from companies - but annoyingly not on the Charity Commission. So try a tool like Visualping to provide email updates on when a webpage has changed (including late notices).
7/ In this case, the reporter hasn't spotted what's happening - the Charity Commission has - and now they need to scramble to find some background to flesh out a very vague press release.
Some is basic context about what the charity has been doing lately, from news reports... Image
8/ ...but then we get to the more interesting detail from the accounts. It spent less than 1% of its income on "good causes". How does the reporter know this..? (Clue: it's not in the press release) Image
9/ ...Well, the Charity Commission does very usefully provide a breakdown of how much each charity spends on "charitable activities" on the charity overview page …of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search… — but it's not that... Image
10/ For the detail we need to head over to the 'Accounts and annual returns' page …of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search… and download the most recent accounts available.
11/ Income and spending are normally the first set of numbers, here on p6: we can see that £1.6m was spent on "raising funds" but just £5,515 of the funds raised were spent on "charitable activities" - down from over £300k the previous year. Can we find more details? Image
12/ The clue is in the 'Notes' column: this points to extra detail in the 'notes to the accounts' section that comes next.
Note 6, then, on p11, gives more detail on those hefty fundraising costs - £1.5m of them were on "event charges" Image
13/ What about the next paragraph in the story which describes payments to a trustee..? theguardian.com/society/2021/n… Image
14/ ...Well, "remuneration" is always a good place to look - also in the notes to the accounts - and that's where it comes from.
(Related party transactions, at the end of the accounts, is also a good place to check) Image
15/ The reporter could have added further background by searching for the trustees/directors names on Companies House to add information about other companies they're involved in …te.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/officer… Image
16/ So, a vague press release turned into a much more concrete and meaty story by simply using some basic techniques for finding information in company accounts. And a great way to make reporting stand out from all the other stories
17/ ...But it's also a good example of why it's a good idea to check accounts for potential leads. Back in May that's what the Mail on Sunday did — and it may be that it was their reporting that led the Charity Commission to investigate in the first place dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9… Naomi Campbell's charity fa...In addition to the catwalk ...
18/ Thanks to @petewhite for pointing out that the Charity Commission interest in the charity pre-dates the Mail on Sunday article in May - with a compliance case in Sept 2020 mentioned in the press release gov.uk/government/new…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Paul Bradshaw

Paul Bradshaw Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @paulbradshaw

Jan 23, 2023
🧵 It’s time for another roller-coaster thread digging into how one journalist has used company accounts* to get a great story.
This time it's a front page story by @Robert_Booth theguardian.com/society/2023/j…
*Featuring: other useful open sources
2/ The first par is a lesson in concrete writing which has some key factual statements we can start unpacking:
💸 £21m in payments
🎩 He is the "boss"/"owner"
🔎 Multiple breaches of rules
How did the reporter arrive at those facts? The answer isn't as simple as you might think A multimillionaire dementia...
3/ How can we calculate how much a company boss earns? Normally a story like this relies on the company accounts' ‘notes to the accounts’ section on directors’ remuneration where payments to the highest paid director are disclosed. Those payments add up to £29m... Directors remuneration sect...Directors remuneration sect...
Read 24 tweets
Mar 15, 2022
You want 35 tips on interviewing for journalists? Here goes... THREAD. 🧵
#bcujournos
1/ "For the first question, ask a gentle, wise question as it allows them to collect their thoughts and get ready to answer," says @PardeepKalirai #bcujournos
@PardeepKalirai 2/ "Stand out from other journalists - don't ask the same questions as it can bore the interviewee" #bcujournos
Read 37 tweets
May 25, 2021
THREAD! I've reverse-engineered @jimwaterson's excellent article on sex-worker social media platform OnlyFans to show you how to find all sorts of stories in company accounts. Here's the article - theguardian.com/culture/2021/m… - now let's begin...🧵
#bcujournos
2/ First, you need to locate the company behind OnlyFans. It's not called OnlyFans so you can either Google it, or look for an 'About' section on the site that leads you to the company - in this case, Fenix International Limited
3/ Search for the company on Companies House …te.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/103545… - the About page information on the director and address can be used to confirm that you have the right company
Read 30 tweets
Apr 30, 2021
Completing today's double bill on scrollytelling, it's great to be able to welcome another @BCUJournalism alumna to speak to MA students: @carolinebeavon on her "lockdown data story" 104 Days Later artdatahealth.org/104-days-later… #bcujournos
Succinctly expressed point by @carolinebeavon on the methodological issues of using social media to conduct surveys: "We're not gathering data at all - we're gathering testimonials". @Typeform was useful for this because people could upload files (recordings)
#bcujournos
3/ ...but only one person uploaded an audio clip, so @carolinebeavon decided to contact respondents who left details to conduct interviews via Zoom in order to generate audiovisual material
#bcujournos
Read 4 tweets
Apr 30, 2021
Really happy to be welcoming back MA Data Journalism alumna @oliviajlawlor from @f_l_o_u_r_i_s_h to @BCUJournalism to talk to current students as part of a double-header on scrollytelling today
#bcujournos
I had no idea that @f_l_o_u_r_i_s_h had sports-specific #dataviz templates "to map a player's positions on a field/court" (via @oliviajlawlor) app.flourish.studio/@flourish/spor… #ddj
Also useful to consider @f_l_o_u_r_i_s_h's Stories feature as one way of creating animation that you can screencapture as a gif for social - e.g. flourish.studio/2021/01/19/mas… #ddj
Read 5 tweets
Mar 23, 2020
THREAD: As many journalism students are understandably concerned about their work during the disruption caused by #coronavirus, here is some of the advice I've been giving to my students...
1/ Adaptability is a key skill in journalism. This period will see you learning how to adapt in ways that you will draw on throughout your journalism career. See this as a challenge, not an obstacle...
2/ Watch a range of news to see how professional journalists are adapting to limitations on the movement of their sources, colleagues, and themselves — as well as adapting to the news agenda being dominated by one story
Read 25 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(