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March 21, 2017

Former Croydon Advertiser chief reporter Gareth Davies joins Bureau of Investigative Journalism on Google-backed local project

By Freddy Mayhew

Former Croydon Advertiser chief reporter Gareth Davies, who was named Regional Press Awards weekly reporter of the year four times while at the title, has joined The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Davies said on Twitter today: “Bit of news – really pleased to have joined @TBIJ. Working on a special project (more on that next week) & in-depth, public interest stories.”

Davies is understood to be working on the Bureau’s three-year local journalism project that aims to build and analyse large datasets for original stories about local and regional government.

The Bureau was awarded a £500,000 grant from Google’s Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund to carry out the project last year. The first progress announcement is expected next week.

Davies, who picked up his third Regional Press Award on the trot last year, has been an outspoken critic of the decline of the local news industry and his former paper after he took redundancy from the Advertiser last year.

Davies also made headlines when he was issued with a “prevention of harassment” notice by police for doing his job. The notice was rescinded in May 2016 after a two-year legal battle.

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