Freelance investigative journalist Susie Boniface says if journalists have “only one thing to be proud of, you’re in the wrong game”.

Boniface was formerly the anonymous media blogger Fleet Street Fox, unmasking herself in 2013 with the publication of her first book The Diaries of a Fleet Street Fox.

She was a freelance columnist for the Mirror between 2013 and 2025 under her Fleet Street Fox pseudonym, and became a freelance investigative reporter for the title in 2018. She has also had roles as a reporter, columnist, communications consultant, university lecturer at City St George’s, broadcaster, podcaster and author.

Boniface is also an expert on the history of the British nuclear tests and the British nuclear veterans, having spent more than 20 years researching this and leading the Nuked Blood Scandal campaign in the Daily Mirror from 2022. Boniface established that there was a widespread programme of blood, urine, thyroid and x-ray testing on British Cold War nuclear testing troops, which had been denied by government authorities.

What was your breakthrough moment?

There’s one of these on every story, and each time it’s just as important. A chat, a document, a phone call that changes everything. Without that breakthrough you don’t get to work again tomorrow, it’s as simple as that. If anybody says they’ve just had one then they’ve had a very boring career. Every day is a new quest or else what’s the point?

What’s currently keeping you up at night?

Freelance pay rates, which are abysmal. They’re also nonsensical, when newspapers are cutting staff numbers you need to keep up freelance rates to fill the pages.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

A level of enthusiasm that borders on mental illness, which shows no sign of abating although my bank manager wishes it would.

How are things going right now, what’s working?

It seems like only me. Newspapers everywhere have had two decades of cutbacks and are in various states of crippled. TV is about a decade or 15 years behind, and just starting to realise the media landscape is going online where the audience can’t be guaranteed and are responding with the axe.

Streaming is very hard to get into and online work simply hasn’t landed the right business model yet to produce pay that reflects the work and the uptake. Books don’t sell or pay. Journalists have the biggest readership of any point in human history, and it pays less than it did when the Daily Courant set up in 1702. We’ve been seriously let down by industry leaders who failed to spot and monetise the changes, and the dick who decided on free journalism should be strung up as a public menace.

What has been your proudest achievement?

Winning a medal for nuclear veterans in 2022 was an amazing win, but uncovering the Nuked Blood Scandal will matter more. Actually resolving it will be a huge victory, especially for one journalist working alone.

But I’ve been equally proud of all those stories that were done right and fought the good fight – finding out why thousands of pounds went missing from a council-run local leisure centre on the Kent & Sussex Courier in 1998, reporting on community campaigns in Devonport on the Plymouth Evening Herald and becoming the first woman to overnight on a nuclear submarine in 2001, speaking to the UK’s first dad of IVF triplets when I was at the Mail in 2003 or so.

If you have only one thing to be proud of, you’re in the wrong game. You should be proud every day, and if you’re not, either make it happen or go into PR.

Biggest mistake, and what did you learn from it?

Oh this happens every day too. Being slapdash, not checking something, wasting time, believing the wrong people, not spotting my mistakes. They’re all simple normal human failures and can lead to massive journalistic disasters, but usually can be picked up and the pitfalls avoided if you proofread, double-think things, retrace your steps.

Anxiety and fear of failure can be what powers you to do your best, if you don’t let them overwhelm you.

When it comes to leading a team, what do you think works?

Journalists with more experience need to be aware that they are examples to others – inside and outside the industry. So you make your knowledge and ethics totally clear, play nicely wherever possible, and come down on any bullshit like an avenging angel. Also, smile, use first names, and just not be the total dickhead so many others are determined to think journalists must be.

It’s amazing how far just being nice can get you. My best example is probably the management of A Certain National News Desk circa 2000 or so, who were, to a man, the worst bosses, most miserable humans, and most appalling bullies, in the style of a cartoon newsroom. I just do the opposite of those twats.

If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what is it?

Give yourself laughter lines, not wrinkles.

Who or what inspires you and why?

If I’m being positive, my daughter who’s a little social justice warrior who wants to right wrongs, or my family who taught me to fix whatever’s broken. If I’m being more realistic I’d say the biggest inspiration is all the wankers in the world, and the sheer number of people who need to stop doing whatever it is they’re doing. If they packed it in, so would I.

What is your work mantra?

Press on.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog