LISTEN: Our journalists take you inside their #GuptaEmails story

The treasure trove of leaked Gupta emails contains at least 200,000 documents, and journalists estimate they will still write stories on these for months to come, if not years.

We take you behind the roughly 100 stories so far and talk to the Sunday Times and The Times journalists who have been tucked away in our #GuptaEmails war room.

In this second episode of Stolen, the journalists share their concerns and fears that despite all their hard work to uncover proof of political influence, tax evasion and corruption, those who are implicated might still get away with it.

As one journalist remarks, the lack of political and legal action so far is alarming, which hints at the extent of state capture in South Africa.

Even so, these journalists choose to focus on the value and importance of their work rather than their fears – and, in some cases, the dangers associated with this kind of investigative reporting.

But almost as importantly, they know they need to keep the public interested, explain why this is an essential story, and root out the apathy that inevitably comes with years of delay and lack of action.

Listen from the start

In the first episode of Stolen, The Times editor Andrew Trench and deputy Sunday Times editor Sthembiso Msomi explained some of the initial steps they took to verify the emails and decide on a strategy to deal with such a mass of information.