Maria Delaney is an Investigative Journalist and Editor at The Journal Investigates. She was recently awarded with the Daphne Caruana Galizia Price for Journalism for the cross-border project Lost in Europe where she worked as part of a cross-border team to investigate the disappearance of 50,000 unaccompanied child migrant in Europe.
- Maria first did a bachelor’s degree in Genetics at Trinity College.
- She developed an interest in journalism while writing a science blog focusing on scientific news.
- When meeting scientists at conferences she learned that the funding systems had changed and involved more industry focused research. This pushed her to do a master’s degree in journalism and redirect her career towards science journalism.
“I kind gradually moved into investigative journalism and again not intentionally but because I had a science background, I was quite good at coming up with original stories that was either data based from sources that probably people wouldn’t have normally looked at.”
Maria worked freelance for 7 years, during which she wrote for many different news outlets. She also worked for Europeans scientific papers investigating different topics like monitored breast cancer screenings. In 2019 Maria took on a job as an Investigative journalist at Noteworthy, which is the investigative unit of The.Journal in Ireland. In 2022 she became editor for The Journal Investigates.
At Noteworthy, Maria worked on different stories focusing on health, such as maternity care in Ireland and eating disorders. These themes are sometimes difficult to navigate, as the story depends on the input of sources. When meeting with a source that has experienced trauma Maria explains that while you cannot be their counsellor you can let them know what helplines are available.
“You don’t want to re-traumatize…,the main things it’s not to push someone to do an interview…I did a project on ED disorders, and like some people would have been quite upset, sometimes you have to make a call about whether someone is ready to talk or not.”
While working on a number of investigations that dealt with trauma, Maria explains the importance for journalists to mind themselves when working with certain stories. “… they were huge stories involving a lot of interviews with people that had a lot of trauma. And it really took a toll on me. I … had to take a break from that type of investigation for a month or two…”.
In 2024, Maria was awarded with the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism for a cross-border investigation called Lost in Europe, “That one came about because myself and two other journalists looked at… human trafficking in the fishing industry in Ireland.” Another team of journalists at this conference asked for their help in this investigation to bring an Irish perspective. Maria comments “They’re a lot of work, they take months sometimes years. You can get…good findings where they can have a policy impacting across Europe which can be good.”
In recent years Maria noticed a growth of misinformation, “we would have done this investigation into the far right, a few years ago, and since then it has just grown in terms of misinformation that would be around and like people citing things that have been started off by these groups, things that are becoming more mainstream, so things like anti migrant sentiment.” Maria advises to proceed with even more caution on the ground when talking to sources, “you can’t just rule someone out because they said something that was spread, sometimes they do have a real story behind what they are doing.”