Four years ago, Trust the Evidence began with a simple idea: follow the evidence, ask the questions that need asking, and go wherever the answers lead.
Today, we’re celebrating four years, but this isn’t really a story about us; it’s about the subscribers who read, share, question, challenge and support our work- a community that now stretches across 140 countries and all 50 US states.
Since we began, we’ve published 1,390 posts, with subscribers getting full access to our work. Publications that have generated more than 11 million email views.
But email views tell only part of the story. Add in the sharing, restacking, and republication of our work, the media interest, and the parliamentary questions, and the reach becomes extraordinary. By our estimate, we've had over a hundred million views.
Four years of asking questions
For our anniversary podcast, we look back at some of the investigations and series that have defined Trust the Evidence.
There was our Jon Snow series, and the Transmission Riddle, where we kept returning to questions that deserved closer examination. There have been Tales from the Front Line, bringing attention to experiences and evidence that might otherwise have gone unheard.
We’ve asked the NHS a deceptively simple question: where does all the money go? We’ve investigated the MHRA, scrutinising the regulator, its decisions and the evidence behind them.
And then there are the Freedom of Information requests. Hundreds of them that are ongoing and can be slow and frustrating. Sometimes the answers produce more questions than they resolve, but they can also reveal information that would otherwise remain out of public view. Put it all together, and it’s fair to say: We’ve been busy.
But the numbers that matter are the subscribers
Eleven million email views are impressive. One hundred million views, shares, restacks and republications are remarkable. But none of those numbers matters as much to us as the people behind them. Our subscribers make Trust the Evidence possible.
They give us the freedom to spend time examining documents, submitting FOIs, following trails, revisiting unanswered questions and publishing what we find.
And subscribers don’t just receive our work; they help it travel.
Every forwarded email, shared post, restack and conversation takes the evidence to somebody new. That is how a publication can grow from a relatively small community into something read around the world.
So, on our fourth anniversary, we’d like to say something very simple: Thank you.
And if you’re not yet a subscriber…
Perhaps you’ve arrived here because somebody shared one of our investigations. Perhaps you’ve been reading the free posts for a while, or perhaps this anniversary podcast is your first encounter with Trust the Evidence. If so, we’d love you to join us.
A subscription gives you full access to our archive of 1,390 publications, our investigations and series, and the new work we’re already pursuing. More importantly, it helps make the next investigation possible.
Because after four years, hundreds of FOIs, 1,390 publications and a reach that has extended into the tens of millions, there’s one question we’re asking ourselves in this anniversary podcast:
What’s next?
And we’re nowhere near finished. We have a growing list of questions that need answers, leads that demand following up, and investigations we’re eager to pursue. Four years in, there is more we want to investigate than ever. The difficult part isn’t finding what to do next — it’s deciding where to start.
And if the first four years have taught us anything, it’s that once you start following the evidence, you can never be entirely certain where it will take you.
We can’t wait.
