Interview: Laura Whitmore on ITV’s Laura Whitmore Investigates

In Laura Whitmore Investigates, Laura Whitmore takes on a series of highly-charged, controversial issues in immersive, investigative films, which will see her using her journalism skills to reveal new insights on each.

In this three-part series, Laura travels within the UK, Europe and the US aiming to illuminate often dark and troubling subjects: the culture of “incels”, rough sex and cyber stalkers.

Laura meets people whose lives are consumed by these issues and the cultures that have evolved around them, their victims and those who are attempting to understand and address how they impact on our lives.

How did the series come about and why were you initially drawn to the project?
“This has been a long time coming and a space I wanted to work in again. I was first approached on
the subject of incels by Rumpus Media and it was soon after a horrific tragedy happened in Plymouth
with a man called Jake Davison, who had been seen talking on incel blogs. I’d seen the words
mentioned in articles online but I wasn’t really familiar with exactly what it meant or the community
or the growing online phenomena.

“We started working on that and then the idea grew into other films covering the other issues that we
wanted to explore. As we investigated incels and how to navigate the online world, that’s where we
learned more about cyber-stalking and rough sex and decide to investigate those too. It naturally
evolved as we started making it.”

You have a background in journalism, is it something you are keen to return to and how did it feel
to throw yourself into such an intense investigative journalist role?
“I started my career in a newsroom, which I both loved and hated simultaneously, because news is
very rarely positive but also very important.

“So, the newsroom is something which I’ve learned from. I’ve always loved asking questions. I get to
ask a wide range of people questions, from working at MTV, interviewing musicians and actors to,
further on in my career, interviewing politicians, and there’s always the same key elements involved,
no matter who you are interviewing. I enjoy storytelling, in all its forms, so I was happy to go back to
it.

“I wasn’t sure if I was cut out to be full time in a newsroom because I find it quite emotionally
exhausting because I get quite attached to stories which is something that a lot of my friends who
work full time in newsrooms and news networks have to remove themselves from. But I think in
documentary making its ok to be a bit more emotive, which is a bit different than doing full time
news.”

The subject matters of the episodes could be considered controversial and quite dark, which may
surprise viewers who know you best as an entertainment presenter, was that a deliberate choice?

“I feel like, from the outside, I might seem like an unusual person to be hosting these shows, I also feel
like I’m probably to best person to do it because of who my audience are and I’d like this to be watched
by a range of people, particularly females of my age or maybe the following I have from all the shows
I’ve worked on. And I think it’s important to constantly challenge yourself and other people around
you and that has been a deliberate choice to challenge.”

How did you approach the interviews and was getting access difficult?
“I was surprised by how many people I got to talk to me. We’re always very honest. I think giving
people time and also getting to places. I travelled a lot, I went to six states within five days, and sometimes when people agree to talk to you, you have to go to them straight away in case they change
their mind.

“I think I try to approach interviews with a lot of empathy but also try to not go in with any judgement.
I think when I was interviewing victims’ families, it’s just giving them space to talk because sometimes
they feel like they haven’t been listened to or heard. So doing something as simple as listening is huge
and I would never try to go in there with, necessarily a card of questions, I just go in there and have a
conversation and see where it takes me.

“I also was very aware that we were dealing with people who have suffered a lot of trauma and this is
the first time I have worked on a show where I have had counselling and I know the victims have been
offered it as well, before and after their interviews and kind of checking back in is very important,
afterwards, especially when the show goes out.”

Did you do a lot of research into these subjects beforehand and what shocked you the most from
what you learned, before or during filming?

“I’m lucky I worked with a great team so I had great researchers and producers on this show. It was a
very, particularly for incels, a very female based crew from DOP to producer of this particular show.
My exec was male but he very much wanted us to take over the narrative and look at it from a
woman’s perspective, so it was very important for a lot of the interviews that it was all females in the
room. The commissioner from ITV is female as well, so that’s very important.”

Were you fearful of meeting the incel members in person, given their extremist views? Did it give
you a greater understanding of why they hold these views?

“I tried to go in with no judgement but of course you have a judgement, I don’t agree with most of the
things that some of the guys were saying to me, but it’s important to give them space to speak and
then afterwards I can challenge them. So, I had time, so some of the interviews went on for two hours,
even though we don’t use the whole interview, but just to get to the place where we want to, you
can’t just jump in with some of these topics, so it’s important to give all our contributors the space
that they need to get to the issues they want to talk about.”

What impact do you hope the series will have on viewers?

“You hope that the series will, first of all open up something that people didn’t even know existed or
realised, like cyber-stalking, just to protect themselves a little bit more and know that the law is there
to protect them. But also to know how vulnerable they can be, even in their own homes, but without
scaring people, without fear-mongering, it’s just about being realistic.

“Also, when it comes to incels and toxic masculinity it’s something that infiltrates all our lives, I know
it has for me, not to the extremes of this documentary, but it’s definitely in our world and how we talk
about people, and how men talk about women online, and also women talk about each other, comes
from that as well. It’s a very real threat and it’s something we need to not just bury our heads in the
sand about but to be aware about and talk about.

“And also, the more we do it, the more, hopefully, the law will be on our side and social platforms, as
well as police forces, will be better at handling it.”

‘Laura Whitmore InvesGgates is on Tue 20, Wed 21 and Thu 22 Feb at 9pm on ITV2 and available to stream on ITVX’.