Barbara Conway (journalist)

In 1977 she joined The Daily Telegraph where she created and wrote the column "Scrutineer", also concerned with financial skulduggery.

[3] During this period she published her first two books, a guide to investor rights (illustrated by the cartoonist Peter Maddocks),[4] and an exposé of maritime fraud, on which she became an expert when breaking the news of the complex "Salem affair" of 1979–80, in which Lloyd's of London received a fraudulent claim for over $56m., the largest claim of its type in Lloyds's history at the time.

[6] During this period the financiers she critically investigated included Asil Nadir, Tiny Rowland, and Sir James Goldsmith, whom she so infuriated that he said he hoped she would "choke on her own vomit".

[10] However, after a short while "her duties did not prove as fulfilling as journalistic investigation", and in 1988 she joined the newly formed business and economics unit of the BBC,[11] in which capacity she gave numerous broadcasts.

She also acted as a freelance journalist,[12] and as an editor in the early pioneer information provider network Micronet 800 (see illustration, right).