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Byline Times – Impact

In the first six months of publication, Byline Times had published nearly 800 stories by over 130 journalists and writers with major news revelations from the US, Hong Kong, China, Myanmar, India, Ukraine, and Russia. Byline Times broke the story of the Brexit Party’s PayPal funding scandal which was followed up by many other papers and became subject of the DCMS select committee inquiry.

Another big Byline Times scoop was that 75% of Boris Johnson’s donors were associated with hedge funds who had short positions around a hard ‘no deal Brexit’. The hedge fund story was followed up by the prime minister’s sister Rachel Johnson, the former chancellor Phillip Hammond, and the shadow chancellor John McDonnell raised questions about it in the House of Commons.

Meanwhile, the work of CJ Werleman on the democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard became a major question around her campaign and – in partnership with Byline Investigates – the paper has begun to reveal more about the phone hacking around Prince Harry and other royals and celebrities.

Background – Byline

Byline Times was born out the crowdfunding site Byline.com which has a long tradition of breaking investigative news stories, from the conflict of interest of then culture minister John Whittingdale and the papers over his hidden ‘dominatrix’, crowdfunding the No 1 iTunes hit podcast Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder, to James Patrick’s early revelations about Russian interference in the US, UK and European elections which led to the book Alternative War.

Mr. Whittingdale’s relationship with the woman, whom he did not name on Tuesday, was reported in a series of articles published this month by Byline Media, a crowd-funded news and opinion website. The site published pictures it said showed the minister and the woman on the London subway, and called the relationship “an open secret” in political and media circles in the British capital.

New York Times, April 12 2016

No 10 said Cameron first found out about Whittingdale’s relationship with the sex worker 10 days ago, the spokesman said. Whittingdale did not tell Cameron himself. Cameron found out after the story appeared online.

Guardian, 13 April 2016