Lucy Johnston (born 1969) is a British journalist, currently health editor of the ''
Sunday Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet ...
'', and previously a staff reporter and investigative journalist for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
''.
Johnston was a member of the original editorial team of ''
The Big Issue
''The Big Issue'' is a United Kingdom–based street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer ho ...
'' in 1992. She has become known for her investigative articles on London's drug culture, deaths in police custody, animal research, and the pharmaceutical industry, and for her campaigns to improve healthcare provision to the elderly and mentally ill.
Education and career
Johnston was educated at Culford School in Bury St Edmunds. She moved to London in 1992 to work as a volunteer for ''The Big Issue'', becoming a reporter with the newspaper's original editorial team, before working her way up to news editor, then assistant editor. She was known from then until 1996 for several investigative pieces, including on deaths in police custody and street drugs in London.Swithinbank, Tessa ''Coming Up from the Streets: The Story of The Big Issue'' Earthscan, 2001, pp. 51, 70, 74, 96, 258.
*Clifton, Helen "Still coming up from the streets" ''The Journalist'', June/July 2011, p. 14.
*Rogers, Simon and Brooks, Xan "A decade on the streets" ''The Guardian'', 10 September 2001.
Tessa Swithinbank writes that Johnston was headhunted by ''The Observer'' in 1996 as a result of her ability to work with the kinds of sources few journalists were able to access. After several years with ''The Observer'' as a staff reporter, she joined the ''Sunday Express'' investigations team in 2001, later becoming health editor. She has conducted undercover investigations for the newspaper, including one in 2001 where she took a job as a care assistant in Lynde House, a nursing home owned by Westminster Health Care, which was headed by Chai Patel. Her story was highly critical of the treatment the elderly residents were receiving; Patel, at the time a government adviser on care of the elderly, later sold the company and resigned from his government post. She has also campaigned in the ''Express'' to highlight the treatment of people with mental-health problems, and has written articles opposing the requirement that pensioners pay for medical treatment while in nursing homes.
Reception
Johnston won a commendation in 1998 from the Natali Prize for Journalism, awarded by the
International Federation of Journalists
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is the largest global union federation of journalists' trade unions in the world. It represents more than 600,000 media workers from 187 organisations in 146 countries.
The IFJ is an associate ...
, for "Barred from animals' kingdom," an article in ''The Observer'' on the conflict over land rights in northern Tanzania between the
Maasai people
The Maasai (;) are a Nilotic peoples, Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, near the African Great Lakes region.
and the establishment of the Mkomazi National Park, a conservation area for animals.
In 2001 she and a colleague, Jonathan Calvert, won a
Genesis Award
The Genesis Awards are awarded annually by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to individuals in the major news and entertainment media for producing outstanding works which raise public awareness of animal issues. Presented by the HSU ...
from the
Humane Society of the United States
Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Humane Society International (HSI), is a global nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scop ...
for a ''Daily Express'' article, "Terrible despair of animals cut up in name of research," on
xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation (''xenos-'' from the Greek meaning "foreign" or strange), or heterologous transplant, is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another.Huntingdon Life Sciences. Johnston was shortlisted that year for a "Journalist of the Year" award by
Mind
The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
, the mental-health charity, and in 2012 the ''Sunday Express'' won Mind's "Making a difference award" for its "Crusade for Better Mental Health" campaign, with the work of Johnston and a colleague, Ted Jeory, highlighted in the citation.
An article by Johnston in the ''Sunday Express'' that was critical of the cervical cancer vaccine,
Cervarix
Cervarix is a vaccine against certain types of cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV).
Cervarix is designed to prevent infection from HPV types 16 and 18, that cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases. These types also cause most HPV-induced ...
, was the subject of a complaint to the
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Ind ...