Career
Joshua Baker began as a researcher at The Times. At 23, he was made foreign news night editor. As a reporter he had several front-page stories in the Times, often centring on issues of terrorism. He also reported on the refugee crisis. [8]
Baker then briefly worked with non-governmental organisations. With Save the Children in countries including Iraq, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Uganda, and Serbia, and also worked with Oxfam in Iraq.
He then moved to work at The BBC Victoria Derbyshire Program under Louisa Compton on a range of UK domestic investigations, as well as reporting from Mosul, Iraq, during the war. He then left to work at ITN Productions as a series director.
In 2016, Baker worked for the American TV show PBS Frontline and The Guardian. While embedded with Iraqi special forces during the Battle of Mosul, Baker was seriously injured in an ISIS vehicle-borne explosive attack, fracturing his spine and suffering shrapnel wounds to his head and back. [9] The film received two Emmy nominations. He later returned and resumed documentary and reporting work in conflict zones.
In 2017, he worked with Ben Zand to investigate slavery along the Migration Trail from Nigeria to Libya. The pair retraced the route in reverse. Baker also directed Stacey Dooley across several investigations and made films with Louis Theroux about sex work, and later the critically acclaimed Louis Theroux: The Settlers.
Baker returned predominantly to the BBC and worked across several complex investigations in several conflict zones. He returned to working with PBS Frontline in a co-production with the BBC to make Return From ISIS.
Baker later moved into hybrid investigations, running a small team to create films, podcasts and written work simultaneously. One of his notable works is the podcast and accompanying documentary *I’m Not a Monster*, co-produced by BBC Panorama and PBS FRONTLINE. [10] - The first series told the story of Samantha “Sam” Sally and her children’s journey into ISIS-controlled Syria.
Following the show's success, Baker was retained at the BBC on a talent contract. His second series focused on Shamima Begum and explored controversies around her journey to Syria. He was the first journalist to secure what she described as her complete account of what happened. One of several revelations that Baker exposed was that Shamima Begum had been trafficked to Syria by a man working for Canadian Intelligence, forcing then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to respond to the allegations. [11] The series was studied in lessons on terrorism at the United States Military Academy
This series has been described as "BBC's most awarded and listened to narrative podcast series to date". [12]
Baker was deployed to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories just a few days after the October 7 attacks for the BBC, to run the in-country longform response, he visited many of the attack sites. Later, he would team up with Isobel Yeungto investigate alleged Israeli war Crimes in The West Bank. It was a front-page story for the BBC. [13] and was awarded best current affairs film at the broadcast awards. [14]
Baker has also investigated the disappearance of American Journalist Austin Tice and was the first to definitively prove that Austin was held by the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad, after recovering secret intelligence files in the immediate aftermath of the regime's fall. The regime had always denied this. [15] He also documented the first formal account that the Syrian regime may have executed Austin Tice. [16]
