26/04/2010

UK Journalists Win Top Award

The Guardian's David Leigh along with Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean of BBC Newsnight have been named as the UK winners of the 2010 Daniel Pearl Awards.

The UK journalists were recognised for their part in the collaborative series by four European news outlets.

Along with several other journalists they memorably reported on 'Trafigura's Toxic Waste Dump' which exposed how a powerful offshore oil trader tried to cover up the poisoning of 30,000 West Africans. It was one of the largest class action lawsuits ever brought before the British courts.

The journalists, responsible for uncovering the truth, were Kjersti Knudsson and Synnove Bakke from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp.; The Guardian's David Leigh, Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean of BBC Newsnight and Jeroen Trommelen of de Volkskrant (Western Europe).

Aram Roston, The Nation (United States), took the other top spot with his surprising exposé "How the US Funds the Taliban".

He investigated how pentagon military contractors in Afghanistan routinely pay millions of dollars in protection money to the Taliban to move supplies to U.S. troops. The project was sponsored by The Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.

In addition to the two winners, the judges awarded a special Certificate of Recognition to T. Christian Miller, ProPublica; Doug Smith and Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times; and Pratap Chatterjee, freelance (United States), for their impressive series "Disposable Army," which reported on how injured civilian contractors working for the U.S. military have been abandoned by Washington.

The judges said they were impressed by the "scope and depth" of the various entries, which showcased stories from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, as well as from North America and Western Europe.

ICIJ Director David E. Kaplan said: "The quality of reporting shows that investigative journalism is alive and well around the world,"

"This was an extraordinary set of stories, done by an extraordinary array of journalists," added Center for Public Integrity Executive Director Bill Buzenberg.

The Daniel Pearl Awards are unique among journalism prizes in that they were created specifically to honour cross-border investigative reporting.

This year's biennial competition attracted an impressive 85 entries from 40 countries. An international panel of five judges selected seven finalists, from which they chose one U.S. winner and one international winner.

(LB/GK)

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