Martyn McLaughlin

My name is Martyn McLaughlin, I am an award-winning print and broadcast journalist based in Scotland. I am currently the investigations correspondent at The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper, and its sister title, Scotland on Sunday, having previously written for The Herald.

In June 2020, for the second year in a row, I was named Daily Reporter of the Year at the UK Regional Press Awards for a series of investigations into the Trump Organisation and its financing in Scotland. In May 2021, I was highly commended at the prestigious Wincott Awards for for my investigations into the former US president’s businesses. In November 2021, I was shortlisted at the British Journalism Awards.

In July 2022, I was named regional journalist of the year at the Headlinemoney awards for stories which included an investigation into offshore entities claiming Covid-19 furlough financing via HMRC, and Secret Service payments to Trump’s private UK firms. The judges stated: “This in depth reporting is magnificent. Martyn shows why reporting at that intersection of business and politics is becoming ever more important.”

I have also been shortlisted in the financial journalist of the year and specialist reporter of the year categories at the upcoming 2022 Scottish Press Awards.

My work has been cited in multiple US Congress committee investigations, and has been followed up by the likes of the Washington Post, Reuters, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and Rolling Stone.

From investigative articles, magazine pieces and political sketches through to leader columns, book reviews and personal columns, I have written across nearly every section of the titles and I hope you will find some articles of interest in my online portfolio. Where possible, I have tried to reproduce of the original newsprint pages so as to highlight the photography and design skills of my colleagues, who provide an invaluable skill in giving every writer’s work context and impact. With some of the lengthier articles, I have penned a few memories of how the story came about.

Over the past few years, I have also worked on a series on broadcast projects. These include Fair Isle: Living on the Edge, an observational documentary series I devised and developed for BBC One Scotland, which charts a year in the life of Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited island in Britain, and The Cradle of Football, a half hour documentary I presented for BBC Radio Scotland about plans to revive the remarkable footballing heritage of Glenbuck, the Ayrshire birthplace of Bill Shankly. Please visit the broadcast section of this site for more information and these programmes and other projects.

Thanks for visiting the site, and if there is a potential story, tip-off, or issue you think I should look into, please don’t hesitate to email me at mmclaughlin@scotsman.com or via secure email at martynmcl@protonmail.com. You can also contact me via Twitter, where my direct messages are set to open, and LinkedIn.