In 2021, BBC News proudly announced that OnlyFans would ban sexually explicit content after its investigation. Sex workers immediately started scrambling to replace lost income and raise money for those most at risk. The BBC was claiming impact. It was not the kind of impact I thought a newsroom should celebrate. And so I wrote a story about it, which led to several BBC journalists hopping into my DMs to thank me for the piece.

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If I had been working on the BBC investigation, I would have started by speaking with sex workers, because they understood better than anyone what publication could set in motion. Alongside the illegal content on OnlyFans, I would have looked closely at the payment companies, the anti-porn groups lobbying them and the much larger platforms on which so much of the abuse was taking place, before deciding how to frame the findings and what kind of change the reporting should be pushing for.

Journalists cannot predict every consequence of publication, and an uncomfortable consequence is not a reason to abandon a story. We can, however, listen to the people most likely to carry those consequences.

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I am a feminist journalist because power is not equally distributed, and journalism that pretends otherwise will keep missing important parts of the story. Feminism influences where I look for power, whose knowledge I take seriously, how I understand harm, and how I work with the people whose lives are impacted. Someone who is harmed by a system will likely understand that system better than the officials, researchers and organizations usually invited to explain it.

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And when I start reporting or commission a story, I want to know what we hope it will do, who has the power to act and how the journalism needs to reach them. During openDemocracy’s 2021 East Africa investigation, our reporters found health workers offering ‘conversion therapy’ in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, including at clinics run by aid-funded groups or belonging to aid-funded networks that provided essential health care to marginalized communities. The impact we wanted was for the practice to stop while that care remained available, and so before publication we shared our findings with the donors and NGOs involved, asked how they would respond and gave them time to act; several launched investigations or pledged action.

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Some stories should lead to institutional action, while others may provide useful information, offer visibility to a community that has asked for it, or help people understand an issue differently. I want to have that conversation at the start and throughout the reporting.