Reporting on power, culture and the strange things we all get used to.

I'm Neelam, a freelance journalist, presenter and producer making documentaries, investigations and social-first storytelling.

After 8 years at The Guardian in London, I'm now based in south east Asia, working independently across journalism, documentaries and editorial strategy.

SELECTED WORK FOR
The GuardianUNILADBBC World ServiceBBC ThreeBFISheffield DocFestWePresentgal-demGQHyphenFriezeHuffPost
50K+
YouTube subscribers grown in the first year on The Guardian's It's Complicated
5M+
Views on a single investigation into shrinkflation and corporate greed
50M+
Daily audience at UNILAD while writing social-first news and features
8 yrs
At The Guardian making investigations, explainers and social video
01 · Watch

Watch.

Some of my films look at giant industries and the forces shaping modern life. Others follow the strange ways people eat, travel, consume and live around them. Quite often they overlap.

Why everything feels more expensive now
11:24
01
The Guardian, It's Complicated

Why everything feels more expensive now

Shrinkflation, corporate greed and the quiet extraction reshaping everyday spending.

5.4MViews
31.6%Retention
+17.1KSubscribers
Why Jamaicans can't access their own beaches
13:08
02
The Guardian, It's Complicated

Why Jamaicans can't access their own beaches

How tourism, foreign investment and colonial planning law closed off the country's coastline.

346KViews
33%Retention
+2.3KSubscribers
Porn Laid Bare, Inside the industry
44:36
03
BBC Three, Porn Laid Bare

Porn Laid Bare, Inside the industry

A BBC Three documentary going behind the scenes of the modern porn industry, performers, platforms and the economics shaping it.

Views
Retention
Subscribers
How Private Equity is hollowing out the brands you love
15:42
04
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How Private Equity is hollowing out the brands you love

Inside the buyout-and-bleed model: how Wall Street ownership reshapes everything from supermarkets to children's homes.

86KViews
40.6%Retention
+531Subscribers
How British colonialism increased diabetes in south Asians
12:55
05
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How British colonialism increased diabetes in south Asians

Reporting on the dietary, economic and health-system legacies still shaping South Asian bodies today.

1MViews
40%Retention
+467Subscribers
How ultra-processed foods are making us sick
14:18
06
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How ultra-processed foods are making us sick

The food industry's quiet rewiring of what we eat, and what it's doing to public health.

48KViews
32.7%Retention
+316Subscribers
How TikTok harms boys and girls differently
13:02
07
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How TikTok harms boys and girls differently

What the platform's algorithm serves to teenagers, and the gendered patterns of harm it produces.

26KViews
49.5%Retention
+87Subscribers
How philanthropists are destroying African farms
15:12
08
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How philanthropists are destroying African farms

An investigation into how foundation-funded agriculture programmes reshape land, debt and dependency.

492KViews
33.8%Retention
+9KSubscribers
How Big Pharma blocks cheaper drugs
14:48
09
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How Big Pharma blocks cheaper drugs

Patents, lobbying and the legal machinery keeping life-saving medicine artificially expensive.

33KViews
57.9%Retention
+500Subscribers
Why weight loss drugs are a 'human experiment'
16:24
10
The Guardian, It's Complicated

Why weight loss drugs are a 'human experiment'

Ozempic, Wegovy and the uncomfortable questions sitting underneath wellness culture's latest obsession.

18.5KViews
31%Retention
+34Subscribers
How Bill Gates funds green energy but invests in fossil fuels
13:36
11
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How Bill Gates funds green energy but invests in fossil fuels

Inside the climate philanthropy contradictions, investments, foundations and how the story gets told.

29KViews
51%Retention
+184Subscribers
How the failures that caused Grenfell still exist today
18:31
12
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How the failures that caused Grenfell still exist today

The deregulation, lobbying and cost-cutting decisions that allowed dangerous cladding to continue.

6KViews
38%Retention
+20Subscribers
How gen Z used Discord to overthrow governments
13
The Guardian, It's Complicated

How gen Z used Discord to overthrow governments

Inside the chat-channel organising and online infrastructure behind a wave of youth-led political movements.

24KViews
40%Retention
+50Subscribers
Indigenous activists on tackling the climate crisis: 'we have done more than any government'
14
The Guardian, It's Complicated

Indigenous activists on tackling the climate crisis: 'we have done more than any government'

Reporting with frontline activists on how Indigenous communities are leading the response to the climate crisis.

24KViews
38%Retention
+48Subscribers
14 FILMS · 2022 to 2025
02 · Read

Read.

Writing about culture, travel and the strange ways people, places and power shape each other.

The GuardianMUSIC
DOC STILLDOC STILL

How Glastonbury champions South Asian music

From the Shangri-La fields to the Pyramid stage, the festival has quietly become one of the UK's most important platforms for South Asian artists, reshaping who gets heard, and how.

By Neelam TailorJune 2023
01The Guardian·June 2023↗ Read
WePresentESSAY
EDITORIALEDITORIAL

Fade to gray: why is color disappearing from the world?

In showrooms and living rooms, and on highways and runways, the message is clear: color is out. In an age of minimalism and monochrome, a neutral palette has infiltrated all corners of design.

Words by Neelam Tailor, WePresent
02WePresent·WePresent↗ Read
gal-demCULTURE
ILLUSTRATIONILLUSTRATION

How Bend It Like Beckham went from benchwarmer to blockbuster

Twenty years on, the cult football film that reshaped how a generation saw South Asian girls on screen.

Neelam Tailor, gal-dem
03gal-dem·gal-dem↗ Read
The GuardianTRAVEL
DOC STILLDOC STILL

Waterfall hiking and wild swimming in the Brecon Beacons

A weekend in the Welsh hills chasing cold water, slow walks and the kind of quiet that resets you.

By Neelam TailorNovember 2022
04The Guardian·November 2022↗ Read
03 · Side quests

Side quests.

Playful little investigations into food, trends, status and modern social rituals.

Sometimes this spirals into hosting things, ending up somewhere unexpected, or trying to redesign the interiors of a restaurant. Also a co-founder of Nosey TV, cheeky films by nosey girls.

How Hackney got hooked on Chin Chin wine
NOSEY TV · 2024
FEATURED

How Hackney got hooked on Chin Chin wine

A mini-doc exploring why half of East London suddenly became emotionally attached to suspiciously cheap natural wine.

Made with Scarlet & Bryony · Nosey TV, cheeky films by nosey girls.

04 · About

A bit about me.

Neelam Tailor portrait
Neelam Tailor, London / Bali, 2025

A lot of my work starts with a fairly ordinary part of everyday life — food, housing, healthcare, social media, a weird trend — and ends up asking who benefits from things working this way.

I'm less attached to the format than the story itself. Whether that ends up being a short social video, a documentary, a reported written feature, a podcast or something harder to explain.

Over the last eight years at The Guardian, I worked across video, social and written journalism, helping grow It's Complicatedfrom a brand new YouTube channel into the paper's fastest-growing channel.

I also spent several years running and producing content for The Guardian's Instagram and TikTok accounts, which taught me a huge amount about attention, emotion and why some stories connect while others completely die on arrival.

Before that, I wrote social-first news and features at UNILAD for an audience of more than 50 million people a day.

Along the way I've also worked with BBC World Service, BBC Three, BFI, Sheffield DocFest, WePresent, gal-dem, GQ, Hyphen, Frieze and HuffPost.

Outside of journalism, I'm usually thinking about my yet-to-exist supper club, applying to be on Interior Design Masters, and forcing my friends to try suspiciously blue drinks.

05 · Work with me

How I can help you
tell better stories.

I work with publishers, documentary teams, charities, campaigns and creators with something meaningful to say, helping them shape stories that connect with modern audiences without losing depth, nuance or personality.

AREAS / 05
01

Investigations + documentary development

+

From early research to final structure, I help shape complex ideas into clear, emotionally engaging stories across video, editorial and social formats.

  • Shrinkflation investigation for The Guardian's It's Complicated (5M+ views)
  • BBC Three documentary Porn Laid Bare
  • Multi-part investigations into private equity, ultra-processed food and Big Pharma
02

Social-first strategy

+

Helping publishers, brands and production teams make journalism and content that works natively on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, without losing substance or voice.

  • Grew The Guardian's It's Complicated YouTube channel from 0 to 50K+ subs in a year
  • Ran The Guardian's Instagram and TikTok accounts for several years
  • Wrote social-first news and features at UNILAD (50M+ daily audience)
03

Presenting, filming + field reporting

+

On-camera hosting, interviews, self-shot reporting and social-first filmmaking designed to feel human, credible and visually strong.

  • On-camera presenter and reporter for The Guardian's video investigations
  • Self-shot field reporting across food, climate and culture stories
  • Documentary presenting for BBC Three
04

Scripts, copy + story editing

+

Writing and shaping everything from documentary scripts and social hooks to editorial copy, captions and platform-native storytelling.

  • Documentary and longform video scripts for The Guardian and BBC
  • Editorial features for Frieze, GQ, gal-dem, Hyphen and HuffPost
  • Social hooks, captions and platform-native copy across IG, TikTok and YouTube
05

Audience growth + editorial consulting

+

Helping teams understand what makes people stop scrolling, keep watching and genuinely connect with a story online.

  • 0 to 50K subscribers in year one for The Guardian's It's Complicated
  • 5M+ views on a single investigation into shrinkflation
  • 50M+ daily audience while writing for UNILAD
06 · Contact

Got a commission, internet rabbit hole, or strange corner of the world you want me to investigate?

Emailneelam.freelance@gmail.comLinkedIn/in/neelamtailorInstagram@neelamtailor
Neelam Tailor©︎ 2026Site v2.0