As a new series of Week In Week Out returns to BBC One Wales on Tuesday, June 9 at 10.35pm, series producer Jayne Morgan talks about filming undercover and the relentless chase for facts.
Filming Undercover Bride for Week In Week Out
It usually starts with a phone call and can lead you to places you never imagined you’d end up.
In my 25 years at BBC Wales, the Week In Week Out team has exposed miscarriages of justice and failings in the child protection system. We’ve gone undercover to catch paedophiles preying on children online, exposed fake cancer cures, scandals in residential homes, and we’ve travelled to the Philippines to investigate the trade in live organ donation. We’ve highlighted the neglect and abuse of older people in care homes and we almost bought a husband for £3,000 in an investigation into sham marriages.
We’ve also gone undercover to film the activities of far-right supporters - and most recently the team went undercover to expose attempts to radicalise young Muslims in Cardiff. The group radicalising young people we investigated was subsequently banned by the Home Office and are currently the subject of a police investigation. We were way ahead of the current warnings about radicalisation and we proved it was happening on our doorsteps in Cardiff well before three men left to join ISIS.
But one of the biggest undercover stories we’ve done was the University of Wales. The 120-year-old institution was, in effect, abolished after the programme exposed a visa scam.
Investigative journalism is hard – no subject should be off limits and no one’s immune to questions, but persuading someone to talk to you about things that others want to keep quiet is quite an art.
Often, we’ll get a snippet of information – we’ll spot a statistic or a fact and start to ask further questions about how and why. Very often the real story lies behind a headline. Experience will tell you how and where to ask – but we are so lucky in Wales – most people have a story and don’t mind telling it.
Week In Week Out has tackled some of the toughest issues and at the heart of every investigation is a human story. We spent a year filming with the Warner family from Perthcelyn, having filmed with them ten years before. They let us in and then let us film with them again. It created a huge debate about how we should be tackling child poverty in Wales. It had a big audience but more importantly it shone a light government policies which had done nothing to alter the prospects of the next generation of Warners.
When someone calls us to ask for our help, it’s often at the worst time in their lives. Very often they will call us because all else has failed.
Gaining their trust and convincing them that it’s the right thing to do can take time – but most people we work with on stories can see how sharing their experiences can, and very often does, bring about a change.
Sometimes, the only way to get the evidence we need to substantiate an allegation is to go undercover. This sounds glamorous, but it’s not. We’ve done it in the back of vans and in a range of weird and wonderful locations - perhaps the strangest was in an abattoir for one programme. So no, definitely no glamour involved.
Before going undercover we have to undertake painstaking research to build a body of evidence. Then we go through formal processes in order to get the necessary permission to film covertly. The biggest and constant question we have to ask ourselves is whether it’s in the public interest to do so.
Often the most powerful stories are about things which are in plain sight.
There is nothing more satisfying in this job than getting the evidence you need to make the point – that buzz makes the long hours and the relentless chase for facts all worthwhile. We have a dedicated team of very experienced journalists at Week In Week Out who care so much about the story - they put everything into the job and it’s a privilege to do it.
One of the first things we’re asked by people we meet is “How many famous people have you interviewed?”. The answer is lots. But it’s the extraordinary people we meet who have never been filmed before who stick in the minds - those whose “normal” lives may have been turned upside down by events. And yet they have found the strength to carry on and to tell their stories in the hope of making things better, or easier, for others. They are the ones I remember.
For me, the challenge is always to get our facts right – to be fair, accurate, balanced and never to lose sight of the reason we do this. It should always be about uncovering the truth and making a difference – so that we can tell our audience what’s really happening and why.
Week In Week Out returns to BBC One Wales on Tuesday, June 9 at 10.35pm
