Author: Jordan.Higgins

MEET THE JURY BEHIND THE IJ4EU IMPACT AWARD 2024

Winners of Europe’s leading award for cross-border investigative journalism will be announced on 26 September 2024.

We are thrilled to announce the distinguished jury for the IJ4EU Impact Award 2024! Consisting of renowned journalists and media freedom advocates, the jury’s insights is instrumental in recognizing and honouring the most impactful, ground-breaking, and innovative investigations published between October 2022 and December 2023.

The jury met earlier in August 2024 convened to meticulously review all the nominations and determine the winners for this year’s awards. After thorough deliberations, they have selected three outstanding winners whose work exemplifies the highest standards in cross-border collaborative journalism. The winners will be announced on 26 September during an award ceremony held at IJ4EU’s annual UNCOVERED Conference, in conjunction with the iMEdD International Journalism Forum in Athens.

Here are the members of the IJ4EU Impact Award 2024 jury.

Paul Caruana Galizia became a journalist at Tortoise after his mother was assassinated and since then has won an Orwell Prize special award, a British Journalism Award and Press Award, and other honours for his reporting. With his brothers, he has received a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Lucas-Norman Award for campaigning to achieve justice for Daphne. His book A Death in Malta won the Cornelius Ryan Award from the Overseas Press Club.

Gabriela Manuli is the Deputy Director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), an association of 250 non-profit organisations in 91 countries dedicated to investigative reporting. In 2019, she co-founded the GIJN Women Group, a network created to discuss issues related to women and non-binary investigative journalists. A native of Argentina (and currently based in Budapest, Hungary), she has been a journalist for more than 20 years (working for radio, TV, magazines and newspapers) and has extensive international experience in Latin America, Europe and the United States.

Nik Williams is a media freedom and free expression advocate based in Glasgow, who currently contributes to Index on Censorship‘s work on SLAPPs, digital rights and transnational repression. He is the co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition and the convenor of the Scottish Anti-SLAPP Working Group. At ECPMF, he coordinated the inaugural year of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), which responds to violations of media freedom in Europe. Previously, Nik led Scottish PEN’s campaigning and advocacy, focusing on defamation reform, free expression, digital rights and surveillance policy. Nik is also the co-chair of the investigative journalism co-op, The Ferret.

Saranda Ramaj has been working at newspaper Koha Ditore since 2013. Her coverage includes public procurement, the justice system, and corruption in healthcare. Saranda systematically develops complex research in these fields unveiling irregularities, corruption and organised crime. With her stories, she also has prevented the signing of illegal tenders worth millions that were mainly policy-related businesses. In her eleven years as a journalist, she has been awarded 19 prizes for investigative journalism. Saranda was awarded Journalist of the Year 2022 in Kosovo. Since 2016, Saranda has also been conducting various studies with national and international non-profit organisations, especially in the areas of health policy and human rights.

Christopher Hird is the founder and managing director of Dartmouth Films , which has pioneered new ways of funding, producing and distributing documentaries in the UK. A former investment analyst in the City, he worked as a journalist on the Economist, Daily Mail, New Statesman and Sunday Times, where he was the editor of Insight. He is former managing editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the author of Investigative Journalism Works: The Mechanism of Impact.


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10 investigations shortlisted for IJ4EU Impact Award 2024

Winners of Europe’s leading prize for cross-border investigative journalism will be announced on September 26.

Ten cross-border investigations have been shortlisted for the fourth annual IJ4EU Impact Award, honouring excellence in collaborative journalism in Europe.

An independent jury chaired by Maltese journalist Paul Caruana Galizia will choose three winning teams, which will be revealed on September 26, 2024. Each will receive €5,000.

The winners will be announced at an award ceremony held at the end of IJ4EU’s UNCOVERED Conference, hosted this year by the iMEdD International Journalism Forum in Athens, Greece. Find out more about registering for both events.

Below are the 10 shortlisted entries, in alphabetical order and selected from a pool of nominations by independent evaluators assembled by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, a partner in the IJ4EU fund.

The award is open to cross-border journalistic teams of any kind, regardless of whether or not they have received support from the IJ4EU fund.

Cold Front

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a group of Nordic journalists has been investigating a world of Russian spying, seabed warfare and disinformation, revealing evidence of a complex hybrid war. They have produced a seven-part podcast series, a three-episode TV-series, as well as several articles.

Mariupol Drama Theater

In March 2022, Russia bombed the Mariupol Drama Theater, used as a shelter for thousands of Ukrainian civilians. Using eyewitness testimonies and visual evidence, a team led by Forensic Architecture reconstructed events, countering Russian attempts to erase the truth.

Story Killers

Journalists investigating disinformation are threatened, jailed and in extreme cases, like that of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh, killed. Forbidden Stories gathered more than 100 journalists from 30 media outlets to expose the inner workings of the global, secretive world of disinformation mercenaries.

Suspicion Machines

Governments use welfare surveillance algorithms with little transparency, leading to discrimination against vulnerable populations, this series of collaborative investigations led by Lighthouse Reports reveals as it probes under the bonnet of secretive AI.

The Border Graves Investigation

What happens to those who die trying to reach the European Union? Journalists have confirmed the existence of 1,015 unmarked graves of migrants buried in 65 cemeteries across Europe, revealing how EU migration policy has failed both the dead and the living

The Bruno and Dom Project

Forbidden Stories brings together 50 journalists from 16 news organisations to continue the work of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, killed for exposing illegal activities in the Amazon. “The murderers of Bruno and Dom will not succeed in preventing this story from being told.”

The Forever Pollution Project

An investigation by 18 newsrooms reveals that almost 23,000 sites all over Europe are contaminated by toxic “forever chemicals” found in commercial products. PFAS are linked to cancer and infertility, among a dozen other diseases.

The Jungle

Led by freelance photojournalist Hanna Jarzabek, this investigation lays bare the dire conditions facing migrants and refugees in Europe’s last primaeval forest along the Polish-Belarusian border – and Poland’s double standards in helping asylum seekers.

The Missing Children of Ukraine

An investigation led by the EBU Investigative Journalism Network reveals how thousands of Ukrainian kids are being transferred into Russia from the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin says Russia is saving them. Kyiv calls it genocide.

The Pylos Shipwreck

This investigation by Solomon, Forensis, The Guardian and ARD takes a forensic look at a 2023 shipwreck that killed more than 500 irregular migrants in Greek waters. Contradicting official accounts, the journalists find a failure to mobilise help and evidence that survivor statements were tampered with.

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Paul Caruana Galizia to chair IJ4EU Impact Award jury

The Maltese journalist will oversee the selection of winners of IJ4EU’s annual prize for cross-border watchdog journalism.

Paul Caruana Galizia, an award-winning Maltese journalist, will serve as the jury chair for the IJ4EU Impact Awards 2024, honouring excellence in cross-border investigative journalism in Europe.

Caruana Galizia, an editor and reporter at Tortoise Media, became a journalist after the assassination of his mother, Daphne Caruana Galizia, in 2017. 

Since then, he has won an Orwell Prize Special Award, a British Journalism Award, a Press Award and numerous other honours for his reporting. He and his brothers have received a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Lucas-Norman Award for their campaign to achieve justice for Daphne.

His book, A Death in Malta, won the Cornelius Ryan Award from the Overseas Press Club.

Caruana Galizia’s unwavering dedication to uncovering the truth and his exemplary reporting make him the perfect choice to lead the jury for this year’s IJ4EU Impact Award.

He is the fourth jury chair to oversee the selection of winners of the annual awards, which offer three cash prizes of €5,000 to journalistic teams that have pushed the envelope in reporting on transnational subjects.

Previous chairs were Hungarian freelance journalist Attila Mong; Joanna Krawcyzk, deputy managing director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States; and Shaun Walker, Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Guardian.

This year’s Impact Award ceremony will take place on September 26 at IJ4EU’s UNCOVERED Conference, hosted in partnership with the iMEdD International Journalism Forum in Athens. 

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Heorhii Shabaiev

Heorhii Shabayev is a journalist with Schemes (Skhemy), an investigative news project run by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service. He is a graduate of the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the author of a dozen investigations into corruption in the government, the construction industry, and in large state-owned enterprises.

Charlotte Alfred

Charlotte Alfred is an investigative editor and journalist. She runs Lighthouse Reports’ War Winners newsroom which investigates exploitation and profiteering in countries emerging from conflict, in partnership with local and exiled journalists. Previously based in the Middle East, she has worked in news, documentary and longform, reporting on migration, misinformation, corruption and conflict.

Twitter: @charlottealfred

Anna Myroniuk

Anna Myroniuk is the head of investigations at the Kyiv Independent. Anna has run investigative projects on human rights, healthcare and illicit trade. She also investigated political and corporate misconduct and alleged wrongdoings in the Ukraine army’s leadership. Anna holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from the City University of London. She is a Chevening Scholar, the European Press Prize 2023 winner, the winner of the #AllForJan Award 2023, an honoree of the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Media & Marketing list, the runner-up in the investigative reporting category of the 2022 European Press Prize, and a finalist of the 2022 Ukraine’s National Investigative Journalism Award and the 2020 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award.

Twitter: @AnnaMyroniuk

Elena Loginova

Elena Loginova joined OCCRP in 2017 as an investigative reporter. She has been a team member on the Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files, and Pandora Papers projects. Elena also worked as a filmmaker for Slidstvo.Info, an OCCRP member center in Ukraine. In 2021, she received the Ukrainian “Honor of Profession” award in the investigative journalism category for her documentary Break the Bank.
Elena was a reporter/producer for the investigative documentary Killing Pavel about the murder of Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sheremet. The documentary won the 2017 Investigative Reporters and Editors medal (USA) and the 2018 DIG award (Italy). She has a degree in International Information from National Aviation University.

Twitter: @ElenaMultipass

Jelena Prtorić

Jelena Prtorić is a freelance journalist who has reported for a wide variety of publications in English, French and her native Croatian. Her work has focused on gender and human rights, migration, the environment/climate, and social movements through an investigative and (often) cross-border lens. Since 2020, Jelena has been collaborating with Arena for Journalism in Europe, working on the development of the Arena Climate Network and curating the program for Dataharvest – a European investigative journalism conference.

Carlos Perez Maestro

Carlos Perez Maestro works in the Unit “Audiovisual and Media Services Policy” in DG CONNECT of the European Commission. This unit develops policy and legislation in the field of audiovisual media services, with a particular focus on the application of Audiovisual Media Services Directive and on policies to strengthen media freedom and pluralism. Carlos Perez Maestro has spent most of his career in DG CONNECT, where he has been dealing with telecoms regulation, broadband deployment policies, consumer issues, universal service, net neutrality, and online disinformation.

Parcival Weijnen

Parcival Weijnen is a freelance investigative journalist and co-founder of Investigative Collective Spit, a non-profit co-op formed by eight freelance investigative journalists in the Netherlands.
He writes about corruption, tax havens, fisheries, environmental issues, government, etc. His stories have been featured in De Groene Amsterdammer, Vrij Nederland, Trouw, Financieel Dagblad, Zembla, Argos, and several broadcasting corporations and newspapers for local media.

Twitter: @ParcivalWeijnen