THE UNDERTOW
Issue 34 · Six investigations a year · Member-funded since 2020
INVESTIGATIVE MAGAZINE · EST. 2020
Six stories a year. Each one took a year.
The Undertow is funded by 11,400 members and nobody else. No advertising, no proprietor, no sponsored anything. We publish when the reporting is done, which is sometimes fourteen months late.
PUBLISHED THURSDAY · CURRENT
The Dry County
How a water utility sold the same aquifer twice, and the eleven families who noticed. Eight months of reporting, 240 pages of documents, published Thursday.
8
MONTHS
240
DOCUMENTS
11
FAMILIES
THE INDEX
The last twelve pieces
Two years of work, in order. Every one of them is still online, with its documents, its costings and its corrections attached.
14.03.26
THE QUOTA THAT WASN’T
By Elena Mbeki
Fisheries
11 months
22.01.26
NINETEEN DOORS
By Ravi Sandhu
Housing
13 months
03.11.25
THE LONG WARD
By Nora Faulkner
Health
9 months
18.08.25
PAPER RIVERS
By Tomas Beck
Environment
14 months
09.06.25
WHAT THE INSPECTOR SAW
By Nora Faulkner
Care homes
10 months
27.03.25
A SMALL FIRE IN BOOTLE
By Ravi Sandhu
Fire safety
12 months
11.12.24
THE SUBCONTRACTED BORDER
By Yusuf Adeyemi
Immigration
15 months
02.09.24
THIRTY-ONE ACCOUNTS
By Elena Mbeki
Finance
12 months
20.05.24
THE GRAVEL LICENCE
By Tomas Beck
Planning
8 months
08.02.24
NOBODY’S PENSION
By Yusuf Adeyemi
Labour
16 months
15.10.23
THE SILENT REGISTER
By Nora Faulkner
Policing
11 months
30.06.23
COLD WATER, WARM WORDS
By Ravi Sandhu
Utilities
10 months
Members read the full archive, six years deep, including the pieces that were killed by legal and the notes explaining why.
THE COSTINGS
What a year of reporting actually costs
A full investigation costs us between 60,000 and 90,000. Roughly a third of that is legal review. We publish that breakdown for every piece.
Reporter time, nine to fourteen months
One reporter, sometimes two, off everything else.
£34,000
Legal review, pre-publication
Read line by line before anyone else sees a word.
£22,000
Documents, FOI and court fees
240 pages on the current piece. We paid for all of them.
£6,400
Travel, fixers and lodging
Eleven families do not live in one place.
£5,200
Fact-checking, independent second pass
A checker who did not write it and is paid to disagree.
£4,800
Translation and transcription
Ninety hours of tape, typed by humans.
£2,600
TYPICAL TOTAL, ONE INVESTIGATION
£75,000
Six pieces a year. 11,400 members. The arithmetic is not comfortable, which is why we print it.
CORRECTIONS · 23 SINCE 2020
Everything we got wrong is still here
We have issued 23 corrections in six years and every one is still on the site with the original text struck through, not deleted.
OWNERSHIP
Who owns us, and who does not
The Undertow is owned by a trust with a locked purpose clause. It cannot be sold, and no member owns more than one vote.
WHO OWNS US
The Undertow Trust
Holds the title. A locked purpose clause: it cannot be sold, merged or floated.
11,400 members
One vote each. Nobody gets two, including the editor.
The reporters
Copyright reverts to them after five years. Always has.
WHO DOES NOT
No advertiser
We have never sold a page, a slot or a newsletter line.
No proprietor
There is no owner to ring on a Sunday night.
No venture fund
No growth round, so no growth reason to publish faster.
No party, no state
We take nothing from either, and we publish what we are offered.
LETTERS
Three readers, unedited
Printed as received, including the punctuation and the parts that sting.
“
I disagreed with almost everything in the fisheries piece and I renewed anyway, because you printed the reply from the man you accused, in full, on the same page.
R.H., Aberdeen
Renewed February 2026
“
I read the housing piece on a Tuesday and by Friday my landlord had a letter from the council. I do not think those two things are related. I have decided to believe they are.
M.O., Salford
Member since 2023
“
Cancel my membership. Then, twelve days later, put it back. I was wrong about the pension piece. You were slower than I wanted and righter than I expected.
J.T., Belfast
Both emails printed, unedited
MEMBERSHIP
£8 a month, or £80 a year
Students and anyone out of work pay £3 and we do not ask for proof. Membership is the only ask on this page, because it is the only income we have.
REDUCED
£3
a month
Students and anyone out of work. We do not ask for proof and we never will.
—
The full archive, six years deep
—
Every document set we can legally publish
—
The monthly reporting note
MEMBER
£8
a month, or £80 a year
The rate that pays for the work. 11,400 people are on it.
—
Everything in Reduced
—
The costings ledger for every piece
—
Reporters’ open calls, four a year
—
Print edition of each investigation
PATRON
£25
a month
Funds one investigation’s legal review each year. That is the line that kills stories.
—
Everything in Member
—
Named in the annual ledger, if you want it
—
The unpublished-story list, twice a year
JOIN 11,400 MEMBERS
Sign up and read the archive
Six years of investigations, every document set we can legally publish, and the costings for all of it. Cancel in one click, from the same page you joined on.
The Undertow · Owned by a trust with a locked purpose clause · No advertising, no proprietor, no sponsored anything