Exposing Industrial Pollution and Creating the ‘Forever Chemicals’ Beat

French investigative journalist Stéphane Horel has won numerous awards for her reporting for her work.

The former Russian literature student has worked for Le Monde for more than 20 years .

She is an ICIJ member since 2024 and has won the Louise Weiss Prize for European Journalism and European Science Journalist of the Year Award 2024 for the Forever Pollution project.

In 2008 , when I wrote my first book “ La grande invasion ” (“ The Great Invasion ”), an investigation into the products that poison our daily lives, the subject was non-existent outside scientific circles.

It wasn't easy to carve out a path and establish credibility as an investigative journalist working on subjects wrongly considered to be non-investigative.

Alcyone Wemaëre is a French freelance journalist based in Lyon .

She says burnout is a widespread problem in our profession and in society in general.

She once found herself hospitalized in intensive care, largely due to a combination of professional and personal stress.

One of her safeguards is that right up to the last line of the wrap-up, I set aside one day a week when I don't work at all.