Tag Archives: paul foot award

Paul Foot Award opens for entries

The annual Private Eye/Guardian Paul Foot Award for campaigning and investigative journalism is open for entries in 2010:

The overall winner will be awarded £5,000, with the 5 runners-up each receiving £1,000 at a ceremony to be held in London on 2nd November 2010. Submissions will be accepted for material published in a newspaper, magazine or on a website between 1st September 2009 and 31st August 2010.

The form can be found at this link [PDF] and the closing date is 1 September 2010.

Read Journalism.co.uk’s coverage from last year at this link.

Audio: Paul Foot Award winner Ian Cobain on investigative journalism

Last night Guardian senior reporter Ian Cobain took the 2009 Paul Foot Award for campaigning journalism for his investigation into Britain’s involvement in the torture of terror suspects detained overseas.

Speaking at the Private Eye and Guardian sponsored award, Eye editor Ian Hislop said investigative reporting had come under threat from both the recession and some key legal actions in the last year:

“[Investigative reporting] needs encouraging for obvious reasons, particularly in a recession: it’s difficult; it’s slow; it’s expensive; it’s risky. There’s no advertising. There are very few local newspapers. People are more interested in the death of the dinner party as a subject to fill a paper.”

Journalism.co.uk spoke to Cobain after the awards ceremony to find out his views on the future of investigative journalism:

And how he selects his subjects:

Paul Foot 2008: The alternative highlights of the night

Journalism.co.uk was very happy to make the acquaintance of Jim Oldfield, one of the runner-ups in the Paul Foot Award, last night. He is the editor of seven community newsletters in South Yorkshire.

He was nominated for the Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers, for coverage of opposition to the proposed construction of an ‘eco-town’ in Rossington.

Oldfield very keen to emphasise the talents and commitment of his reporting team (which consists of one full-time and two part-time journalists), who were also there last night.

After hearing about the Newsletter’s various scoops over a canape or two (J.co.uk now has his ‘The Killer in My Cab’ splash decorating its desk), we got this pic:

Meanwhile, the prize for the biggest cheer of the night definitely went to another runner-up’s supporters: those rooting for the Observer’s Dan McDougall (he is pictured with host Ian Hislop, below). McDougall was nominated for his investigation of child labour in South Asia.

UPDATE (May 2009) – details of the 2008 Paul Foot award winners – Camilla Cavendish and Richard Brooks – can be found at this link