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.
