Abstract
Once again British Journalism Review was proud to be associated with the Paul Foot Award for investigative or campaigning journalism, shared this year by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert of The Sunday Times, for their investigations into corruption at the heart of FIFA, and Richard Brooks and Andrew Bousfield, of Private Eye, for their long-running expose of British connivance in Saudi Arabian corruption.
The awards were made on February 26 at Bafta, in central London, by Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, co-sponsors of the award with The Guardian. The winning teams each received £3,000.
The other shortlisted entrants for the main award, each of whom received £1,000, were:
Richard Pendlebury, Daily Mail, for his three part series into the lives of migrant communities. He spent a year researching and cultivating personal contacts across two continents, building trust within groups to allow him to tell their stories.
Claire Newell, Holly Watt, Claire Duffin and Ben Bryant, Daily Telegraph, for their investigation into the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid, which saw the team work on the ground in Miami and New York, gathering evidence of direct payments to officials with votes.
George Monbiot, The Guardian, who, following the winter floods, investigated the impacts caused by bad farming practice and the perverse subsidies that encourage it. Monbiot found that while trees and shrubs in the uplands absorb water and prevent floods, subsidies are conditional on keeping the land bare.
Mark Townsend, The Observer, for his investigation into sexual assaults on women held at a UK immigration detention centre.
Dominic Ponsford and Will Turvill, Press Gazette, who campaigned to protect confidential journalistic sources following the publication of the Metropolitan Police's 56-page report into the “Plebgate” affair.