And of course the team at Background Briefing who jumped into a difficult project with such enthusiasm and dedication.

Thanks to Loretta Florence, Fanou Filali, Max Chalmers, Ben Sveen, Ingrid Wagner, Leila Shunner, Thomas Oriti and Justine Landis-Hanley – you're all superstars.

This wouldn't have been possible without the support of my amazing team at ABC News Story Lab.

Teresa Tan, Georgina Piper, @mattliddy.bsky.social and Cristen Tilley each played crucial roles in bringing this to life.

The core of this was 18 recorded interviews with Alliyah, their friends and family members.

Things got real.

I particularly want to thank Alliyah's parents, Jackie and Scott, for revisiting a difficult period with me.

Above all, I'm honoured that Alliyah trusted me to tell their story.

They gave legal consent to be identified as the victim of a sexual crime – which opened all kinds of doors for asking questions about who failed them.

It's an incredibly brave and powerful choice.

The Favourite is the product of 18 months of conversations with Alliyah, their family and closest friends – not to mention an anonymous police detective, several teachers and all the documentary evidence we could dig up.

The first episode drops on Saturday.

“The old logic — that people naturally drift right as they age — is breaking down,” says Intifar Chowdhury, a lecturer in government at Flinders University.

“This is widening the gap between people who have a slice of Australia versus people who don’t.”

It was an honour to pick up the Gold Lizzie for Best Journalist, which is a testament to the support I've received – from colleagues in Story Lab and at the ABC more widely – to be ambitious in my journalism and chase original stories.

The dataset – from TransitionZero – goes back to 2017, letting us see how quickly its grown since then (in some countries, anyway).

We also collaborated with RN's Future Tense to make a podcast of the same story: www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...