Follow the Money: The Podcast

Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza – making it the deadliest conflict for reporters in decades. Were their deaths an inevitable consequence of Israel’s war, or has the media been deliberately targeted?
As part of the Gaza Project, dozens of journalists from around the world joined forces to investigate the killings.
Emma and Lise speak to Frederik Obermaier, co-founder of the Munich-based German investigative newsroom Paper Trail Media, who was involved in the reporting. He also led a follow-up investigation into allegations that an Israeli soldier of German origin shot unarmed civilians in Gaza.
Obermaier discusses the resistance he faced reporting on these issues in Germany, where coverage of Israel and Palestine is particularly sensitive.
“The Holocaust puts a certain obligation on Germany and also on the German population. Whenever we see allegations of war crimes, I think it's our duty as journalists to investigate.”

Last year, Lithuanian journalist Šarūnas Černiauskas began investigating his prime minister’s finances. What started as a seemingly small story soon grew into a series of scandals. The government turned against Černiauskas and his colleagues – but they persevered: their reporting ultimately helped force the prime minister to step down.

And yet, that wasn’t the end of the story.

Emma and Lise speak to Černiauskas about the corruption uncovered around EU funds, and how frighteningly quickly a democracy can begin to backslide: “Assaults on democracy, they're going to happen. They are happening now. And solidarity is the only antidote."

Persecution, corruption, and even murder. In this summer series, Emma du Chatinier and Lise Witteman unpack recent groundbreaking stories by fellow journalists from across Europe. How did their investigations impact society? And what does their journalism reveal about the state of European democracy?

In this episode: Journalist Niamh McIntyre went deep into the world of hateful content on social media, investigating the people posting so-called AI slop. She was shocked: many of the creators were not at all what you might expect. And some weren’t even aware that the videos they were profiting from were racist or Islamophobic.

Emma and Lise speak to Niamh about the rise of AI-generated misinformation, the financial incentives driving its creation, and how Meta is to blame. “These content creators aren’t an anomaly. They’re producing the internet that Big Tech companies and AI companies want.”

Persecution, corruption, and even murder. In this summer series, Emma du Chatinier and Lise Witteman unpack recent groundbreaking stories by fellow journalists from across Europe. How did their investigations impact society? And what does their journalism reveal about the state of European democracy?

In this episode: Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée – archeologist Martina Kušnírová – were murdered in their home in 2018. Kuciak was investigating high-level corruption, including alleged connections to people around Prime Minister Robert Fico. After his death, journalists across Slovakia picked up the work Kuciak had been unable to finish. Their revelations, together with mass protests, even brought down the government.
Emma and Lise speak with Lukáš Diko, editor-in-chief of the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak, about what the murder meant for Slovakia, and for the journalists who continued to follow Kuciak’s trail. “We never could have imagined that one of us could have been killed because of journalistic work.”

Europe set sky-high targets for green hydrogen. Today, it’s nowhere near meeting them. Journalist Jesse Pinster traced Brussels’ big hydrogen bet back to one professor: Ad van Wijk. How did his vision become that of Europe?