The Paul Foot Award is an award given for investigative or campaigning journalism, set up by The Guardian and Private Eye in memory of the journalist Paul Foot, who died in 2004.
The award, from 2005 to 2014, was for material published in print or online during the previous year. The prize fund totalled £10,000, with £5,000 given to the winner and £1,000 to each of five runners-up.[1] The award was discontinued in 2015,[2] but revived by Private Eye in 2017.[3]
2005: John Sweeney of the Daily Mail for his investigation into "Shaken Baby Syndrome" which led to the wrongly imprisoned mothers Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony being freed and resulted in the exposure of the prosecution's chief witness, the paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow.[4]
2006: David Harrison for his three-part investigation into sex trafficking in Eastern Europe published in The Sunday Telegraph, which was praised by the UN and prompted action by British police and the Home Office.[4]
2007: Shared by Deborah Wain (Doncaster Free Press) for her exposé of corruption in the Doncaster Education City project and by David Leigh and Rob Evans (The Guardian) for their investigation into bribery in the British arms trade.[5]
2008: The top prize of £3,000 each was awarded to Camilla Cavendish of The Times for an investigation into the many injustices which have resulted from the Children Act 1989 and the professional cultures that have grown up around child "protection"; and Richard Brooks of Private Eye for his investigation into the mismanagement and financial irregularities surrounding the sale of the UK government's international development business, Actis. Four runners-up were each awarded £1,000:[6]
2009: At a presentation ceremony at the Spin Bar in London's Millbank Tower on 2 November 2009, the £5,000 Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism 2009 was awarded to Ian Cobain of The Guardian for his long-running investigation into Britain’s involvement in the torture of terror suspects detained overseas. Five runners-up received £1,000 each:[7]
2010: Clare Sambrook for her investigating, reporting and campaigning against the government policy of locking up asylum-seeking families in conditions known to harm their mental health, and scrutinising the commercial contractors who run the detention centres for profit. A Special Lifetime Campaign Award of £2,000 was also presented to Eamonn McCann for his 40 years of campaigning journalism on behalf of the victims of Bloody Sunday. Each of the runners-up on the shortlist received £1,000. These were, in alphabetical order:
2011: Nick Davies (The Guardian and guardian. co.uk) for a series of articles that helped to expose the scale of phone-hacking at the News of the World, beginning in July 2009 with the first report that phone hacking went beyond a single jailed journalist. Two years later, Davies, with colleague Amelia Hill, revealed that the News of the World had targeted voicemails left for the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, which led to a public backlash against the Sunday tabloid. The award organising committee praised Davies for his "dogged and lonely reporting" the impact of which forced "a humbled Rupert Murdoch to close the News of the World and abandon his planned buyout of the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB, and forced the country's most senior police officer to resign.[9] The judges commented that "This award is recognition of the cheering truth that the best journalism exposed the worst."[10] Runners-up were Jonathan Calvert and Claire Newell for their The Sunday Times articles exposing corruption in FIFA.[10] Also nominated were:[11]
2012: Andrew Norfolk (The Times) for "a two-year investigation into the grooming and sexual exploitation of teenage girls". The runner-up was Rob Waugh (Yorkshire Post) for his exposure of mis-spending by senior officers of Cleveland Police and abuse of power by ACPO and CPOSA. A Special Campaign Award was made to Stephen Wright (Daily Mail) for his "tireless reporting over 15 years" on the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation and Justice for Stephen campaign.[12] Also nominated were:[13]
2013: David Cohen - (Evening Standard) for his work on gangs, which was part of the Standard’s Frontline London campaign. The Guardian’s Snowden team (James Ball, Julian Borger, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Paul Johnson and Alan Rusbridger) received a Special Investigation Award for its investigation into the extent of mass surveillance undertaken by GCHQ - The Snowden Files: How GCHQ watches your every move. Also nominated were:
2014 (joint winners): Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake (Sunday Times) for "The Fifa Files" in which they reported on a campaign waged by Mohammed Bin Hammam, Qatar’s top football official, and how he exploited his position to help secure the votes Qatar needed to win the bid to host the 2022 World Cup; Richard Brooks and Andrew Bousfield (Private Eye) for "Shady Arabia and the Desert Fix", a long-running investigation into corruption on a contract between the governments of the UK and Saudi Arabia.[15] Also nominated were:
2017: Emma Youle (Hackney Gazette) for her investigation, "The Hidden Homeless: £35m to keep the homeless homeless", which revealed Hackney's enormous, but hidden, homeless problem—highlighting the plight of the thousands who live in temporary accommodation.[16] Also nominated were:
2018: Amelia Gentleman (The Guardian) for her investigation, "Long-term UK residents classed as illegal immigrants", which centred on tightened immigration regulations and the catastrophic consequences for a group of elderly Commonwealth-born citizens who were told they were illegal immigrants, despite having lived in the UK for around 50 years but with no formal paperwork to prove it.[17] Also nominated were:
In addition, the Young Journalist Award was given to Ben Van Der Merwe and Emma Yeomans (London Student) for their investigation, "Toby Young and UCL's secret eugenics conference", about secretive annual conferences at UCL that covered genetic difference and intelligence, which was jointly published in Private Eye.
2019: Emily Dugan (Buzzfeed) for the Access To Justice campaign, reporting the human cost of the degradation of England’s justice and legal aid system.[18] Also nominated were:
2020: Alexandra Heal (Bureau of Investigative Journalism/various outlets) for the Nowhere to Turn series, reporting on how police forces handle domestic abuse complaints against their own officers.[19] Also nominated were:[20]
2021: Robert Smith and team (Financial Times) for "The Unravelling of Lex Greensill", reporting on the Greensill scandal.[21]
2022: Hannah Al-Othman and David Collins (The Sunday Times) for "The Murder of Agnes Wanjiru". Shortlist: