A local journalism project has teamed up with a national tabloid for a new scheme looking at the impact of insecure work.

The Bureau Local and Daily Mirror have teamed up for the ‘Is Work Working?’ project, which aims to shine a light on issues including poor pay and conditions and zero-hours contracts.

A series of online events and workshops with the Bureau Local, which is part of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and the Mirror will give people the chance to come up with an idea and develop it.

Journalists and community organisers will then support them with the best proposals to research and write their stories, which will be published by both titles in 2021.

Megan Lucero, pictured, director of the Bureau Local, said: “Our collaborative journalism network has been telling us their concerns around the impacts of insecure work for some time.

“With so many people now living the reality of this issue, we want to build a people-powered investigation that amplifies their voices and helps them tell their stories.

“At Bureau Local we always aim to do journalism differently, telling stories with and for communities and sparking change from the ground up.

“By sharing a space with those who experience this issue directly, alongside the Daily Mirror, we look forward to putting that into practice in a new way.”

Mirror editor Alison Phillips added: “In an ever-changing media landscape, we need to constantly challenge ourselves over how we maintain that trust, and we’re excited to look at new models for how we involve and empower contributors in our

“This means finding new ways to create engaged, inclusive journalism – and collaborating to build a story from the ground up with an innovator like Bureau Local felt like too good an opportunity to miss.

“Meanwhile, the issue of exploitation via insecure work isn’t an academic one for us – it’s something vast numbers of our readers experience on a daily basis.

“We expect this to yield a rich seam of stories that will help us understand what is needed to fix this rigged system on their behalf.”