European Press Prize

The European Press Prize is an award programme for excellence in journalism across all 47 countries of Europe. It was founded in 2012 by seven European media foundations.[1]

Nominations open each year on 1 November and close in December. In February the shortlists are announced. The prizes are awarded during the European Press Prize Ceremony in April. The first one was in De Balie in Amsterdam in 2013, the 2014 awards were given at the Reuters headquarters in London, in 2015 the European Press Prize visited the JP/Politiken headquarters in Copenhagen and the 2016 awards were presented in Prague with the help of the Forum2000 team. For the fifth anniversary in 2017, the ceremony was held in founding place De Balie in Amsterdam again. In 2018 took place in Budapest at the Open Archives Society.

Founders

The European Press Prize was devised and founded in Amsterdam by the following people and foundations:

In 2015, The Irish Times Trust joined the European Press Prize. In 2017, Agora SA joined the European Press Prize.

The Board

  • Maggie 'o Kane (Chair), The Guardian
  • Ebel Kemeling (Treasurer), Vereniging Veronica
  • Adriaan Stoop, Stichting Democratie en Media
  • Lars Munch, The Politiken-Foundation and The Jyllands-Posten Foundation
  • Yoeri Albrecht, Vereniging Veronica
  • Bernard Poulet, Media Development Investment Fund

Bureau

The Foundation’s Bureau for all organizational and administrative matters is based in Amsterdam. The executive director is Thomas van Neerbos.

Categories

Awards will be given in four separate categories with prizes for each of €10,000:

  • The Investigative Reporting Award for "discovering and revealing facts, exposing hidden news to the public".
  • The Distinguished Reporting Award for "exceptional reporting, telling a story in the best possible way".
  • The Opinion Award for "a remarkable textual or visual interpretation of the world we live in".
  • The Innovation Award for "challenging the current boundaries of journalism with a new idea or method".

From 2013 on, the judges will be empowered to award a special prize for particular excellence in editing, reporting, feature write and advocacy – defying categories and disciplines.

In 2012 the awards were the following:

  • Editing Award for "the editor adjudged to have contributed most to public debate and public understanding".
  • Commentator Award for "the feature writer, columnist or commentator who has done most to illuminate vital issues".
  • News Reporting Award for "the reporter, or specialist writer, whose work has made a decisive impact".
  • Innovation Award for "outstanding innovation - in print or on screen - that contributes to journalism's future".

Preparatory Committee

Before the Jury sees the work, all of the submitted work is reviewed by a preparatory committee. It will start by evaluating all entries and preparing a shortlist comprised out of a maximum of six entries per category. The preparatory committee consists of :

Peter Preston was editor of the Guardian in London for twenty years. He is now co-director the Guardian Foundation. Before becoming editor, Preston worked as political reporter, war correspondent and daily columnist. Today, he writes a weekly page of media comment for the Observer. Preston served as world chairman of the International Press Institute and as chairman of the Association of British Editors. He has published two novels.

  • Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton is the Deputy Editor of The Irish Times. He joined The Irish Times in 1997. Before that he reported for the Observer and The Guardian. Denis Staunton previously worked as Foreign Editor. As a foreign correspondent based in Berlin, Brussels and Washington he has reported at various stages from almost all the countries of the European Union and from the European institutions, parts of the Middle East and throughout North America. He also presents the Irish Times’ World View podcast on foreign affairs.

  • Annette Bruhns

Annette Bruhns is a journalist at DER SPIEGEL in Hamburg since 1995. She started her career as a freelance radio journalist in Berlin. She was a student of the Henri-Nannen-School of Journalism and proceeded to become an editor at Greenpeace Magazine. Since 1995 she has been an editor at DER SPIEGEL, first in politics and later for SPIEGEL science and SPIEGEL history (SPIEGEL Wissen, SPIEGEL Geschichte). In 2004, she wrote a SPIEGEL-book on clandestine children of Catholic priests (“Gottes heimliche Kinder”) together with a colleague. She won the “Journalistenpreis Bio 2006” for a research on European agro-politics; 2012 she and a team won the Richard-von-Weizsäcker-Journalistenpreis for an article on where and how people die. Bruhns is cofounder and was chair of the association “ProQuote Medien”, an astoundingly successful campaign for more female editors-in-chief. Currently, she is in charge of SPIEGEL’s inland news and is correspondent for Schleswig-Holstein. Annette Bruhns, a passionate sailor, is the mother of an 18-year-old daughter and lives in Hamburg.

  • Patrice Schneider

A press freedom enthusiast, Patrice started his publishing career as a journalist reporting from conflicts in Central Asia at the end of the 1980s. Before being involved in media development as Chief Strategy Officer of the Media Development Investment Fund, he held the responsibilities of Managing Director of Netscape Europe, a Principal for the World Economic Forum (The Davos Annual Meeting) and Deputy Managing Director at Lagardère Active – the leading French publishing group and owner of ELLE, PREMIERE and other internationally renowned magazines. Schneider has also worked as a Director at the World Association of Newspapers in Paris.

  • Natalia Chientaroli

Natalia Chientaroli worked as a journalist for Argentinian newspapers La Nación and El Cronista. In 2006, she was part of the founder team of the Spanish newspaper Diario ADN and worked there as an editor until it closed in 2011. By then, she was the Head of Department Madrid. Since 2012 she is part of the staff of eldiario.es.

  • Heikelina Verrijn Stuart

Heikelina Verrijn Stuart is a lawyer, philosopher of law and journalist. She has worked as a broadcaster for Dutch radio and television and for Dutch daily and weekly newspapers. As a correspondent she covered the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the other international courts for Dutch media, the Belgian network VRT, the BBC and the International Justice Tribune. She was director of the Clara Wichmann Institute for Women and Law in Amsterdam. She is currently working on a book about the workings of the Peace Palace. She widely published on criminal law, international law and subjects as revenge, reconciliation and forgiveness in Dutch and international publications and books. Verrijn Stuart is a member or chair of several Dutch advisory bodies on international affairs, human rights, the restitution of art looted during the Second World War, and the commemoration of WW II. She is a member of the board of Stichting Democratie and Media.

  • Uffe Riis Soerensen

Uffe Riis Soerensen is a member of the board of the Jyllands-Posten Foundation. He started his career in journalism as a trainee with the local Danish newspaper Dannevirke-Hejmdal. In the seventies, eighties and nineties he worked with a number of newspapers as a reporter and editor, managing editor and editor-in-chief. From 1999 – 2004 he was editor-in-chief, of the Aalborg Stiftstidende in Northern Jutland. From 2004 until his retirement in 2008 he was editor-in-chief and CEO of the Danish news agency Ritzau’s Bureau. He still writes as a columnist. Uffe has held and still holds a number of positions in international organizations of news agencies, most recently as General Secretary of the News Agencies World Congress and the News Agencies Council.

  • Belinda Goldsmith

Belinda Goldmsith is Editor-in-Chief of the Thomas Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news providing organisation. Belinda is an award-winning journalist who has reported and led news teams from more than twenty countries on political, financial and general news. In this role, she runs a global team of nearly thirty journalists and a large network of stringers covering the world’s underreported stories, focusing on humanitarian issues, women’s rights, climate change, corruption and good governance. She joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2014 after twenty years of working for Reuters. Recruited in Papua New Guinea, she worked for Reuters in Australia, Sweden, the United States and Britain in a variety of roles including head of Investment Banking in New York, Global Editor of Entertainment and Lifestyle, Global Head of Editorial Learning, and, most recently, Chief Correspondent for Britain. She has run courses for journalists in Bhutan, Myanmar and Lebanon for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and is a regular panellist and speaker at universities and in the media on careers in journalism.

Konstanty Gebert (Warsaw, 1953) taught psychology at the Medical Academy in Warsaw from 1979-1983. His career in journalism started after the military coup in 1981, when he worked as an editor and columnist for several underground publications, using the pen name Dawid Warszawiski. He was also closely connected to Solidarność. In 1989 he joined the new independent daily Gazeta Wyborcza as a columnist and international reporter, writing about the Middle East, the Balkans, human rights and international humanitarian law, and Jewish issues. He has worked with independent media in Russia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Africa and Latin America. His collected essays, newspaper articles and columns were published in Poland and worldwide. Gebert is an expert in Jewish history. He has been, and still is, actively involved in several organizations or publications to do with Jewish issues or Jewish-Polish relations, either as a (co)-founder, scholar, advisor or board member. He teaches Polish-Jewish relations at universities in Poland and the United States and wrote eleven books. In 1995, Gebert was co-founder of the MDIF and served as its vice-chair from 1995–2000. He is still a MDIF media consultant. Since 2011 he is Senior Policy Fellow and head of the Warsaw office at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

  • Bartosz Wieliński

Bartosz Wieliński is a Polish journalist and head of the Foreign Department of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. The Gazeta Wyborcza arose from the democratic opposition in 1989 and is still known for its left winged democratic character. Earlier in his career he was the foreign correspondent in Berlin. He covers German and Austrian politics, society, and modern history, as well as European and global security and development issues. His considerable professional accomplishments include interviews with leading German politicians, such as the chancellor Angela Merkel. He is also the author of the book The bad Germany, which presents the twentieth-century Germany, a world full of criminals, fanatics, crime and inventions. In 2013 he won the prestigious Grand Press Award, one of the most important prices in Polish journalism, in the category of press reportage for ‘You’re no. 71’. This reportage was about the atrocities of Austrian children who are being raised by single mothers and live under poor conditions. On top of that Bartosz Wielinski was the winner of the Amnesty International’s Pióro Nadziei Prize for his contribution to a positive change through his journalistic knowledge in respecting human rights.

Jury

The jury is chaired by Sir Harold Evans, editor-at-large of Thomson Reuters and the former editor of the Sunday Times. The other members of the jury are Sylvie Kauffmann, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde and also board member of the Global Editors Network, Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of the Russian New Times and Jørgen Ejbøl, vice-chairman of the Jyllands-Posten Foundation[2]

Sir Harold Evans is one of Britain’s most famous and feted editors. He first edited the Northern Echo in Darlington before moving to edit the Sunday Times in London for 14 years, where his campaigns – for example, on behalf of thalidomide victims – made headlines and helped change laws. He was briefly editor of The Times thereafter, before moving to the United States, where he has served as publisher at Random House and editorial director of several publications, including U.S. News & World Report. He is a noted historian of American life and a world authority on newspaper design techniques. Sir Harold is currently editor-at-large for Reuters.

  • Sylvie Kauffmann - France

Sylvie Kaufmann is editorial director of the French newspaper Le Monde, of which she was editor in chief in 2010–2011. Previously, she was the deputy editor and a reporter-at-large in Asia, based in Singapore. Kaufmann joined Le Monde in 1988 as its Moscow correspondent. Next, as Eastern and Central Europe correspondent, she covered the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent political and economic changes in the Eastern European countries. She then moved to the United States, first as Washington correspondent and then as New York bureau chief. She also covered the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as reporter-at-large. Kauffmann then headed the in-depth reporting section of Le Monde.

Yevgenia Albats was the first Soviet journalist to investigate the Soviet political police, the KGB in the Soviet-era. She is the author of The State Within A State: KGB and Its Hold on Russia. In 1989, she received the Golden Pen Award, the highest journalism honour in the then-Soviet Union. She was an Alfred Friendly fellow in 1990 and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993 and worked freelance for the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and the CNN bureau in Moscow. She has a PhD in political science from Harvard University and teaches at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics University. Albats is the author of four books and currently is Editor in Chief and CEO of the Moscow-based political weekly The New Times, one of the few independent media outlets in the current Russia. She is also a talk show host for two Russian networks.

  • Jørgen Ejbøl - Denmark

Jørgen Ejbøl started his career in journalism with the Aalborg Stiftstidende newspaper. From 1976–1993 he served as editor and editor-in-chief on various newspapers in Denmark such as Fyens Amts Avis, Dagbladet, Weekendavisen Berlingske Aften, BT, Billed Bladet, and Berlingske Tidende. From 1991–1993 he was editor-in-chief and managing director of JydskeVestkysten. In 1993, Ejbøl became editor-in-chief and managing director with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, followed, in 2003, by his appointment as chairman of the board of JP/Politiken Newspapers Ltd., (Jyllands-Posten, Politiken and Ekstra Bladet). As of 2008, he is Vice Chairman of the Jyllands-Posten Foundation. From 2005 Ejbøl has held managerial positions in several media organizations in Denmark and abroad, like APM Print & Trans Press, (Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro), Alta Press, Barnaul, (Russia) and Sermitsiak.AG (Denmark/Greenland). From 2005–2008 Ejbøl was a member of the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize. From 2005–2011 The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute.

Alexandra Föderl-Schmid is correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung for Israel and the Palestine territories. She’s also former editor-in-chief and co-publisher of the Austrian daily Der Standard. She is the first woman in Austrian history to have held such a post and under her direction during ten years Der Standard has continued to do well despite the global downturn in print sales. At Der Standard, Alexandra was previously a Germany correspondent, as well as the Chairwoman of Germany’s Foreign Press Association. She reported extensively on European issues as a correspondent in Brussels. Afterwards, she was chief business editor at Der Standard, before being appointed to editor-in-chief in 2007.


Winners 2013

  • Editing Award

In the Editing category, the Award was won by Ihor Pochynok, Chief Editor of Express a daily newspaper published in Lviv in the Ukraine. Express is a prime example of a local newspaper becoming the opinion leader of its region and assuming at times a national role. Unabashedly political, though not connected to any of the parties, Express went on the barricades during the Orange Revolution, but had no hesitation in criticising the incompetence and corruption of the Yushchenko-Timoshenko government which ensued. It has made enemies in all Ukrainian governments, frequently facing demands to assume a less critical stance – but nevertheless breaking investigative stories that shrug off such pressure.

  • Commentator Award

In the Commentator category, the Award went to Nikos Chrysoloras from Greece, for his article ‘Why Greece must remain in the Eurozone’, published in papers across Europe. Chrysoloras, the Brussels correspondent for the Greek daily Kathimerini, made a passionate plea for his country to stay in the Eurozone. Analysing the supposed reasons for Greece’s current financial and economic woes, he denounced the call for a Greek exit by ‘pundits, the broadsheet press columnists and experts … who claim to know the remedy for a country which they have rarely, if ever, visited and who have no knowledge of its economic and social history’.

  • News Reporting Award

In the News Reporting category, the Award was won by three reporters from Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, Orla Borg, Carsten Ellegaard Christensen and Morten Pihl for their groundbreaking investigative reporting project on Morten Storm, a former agent of the Danish Secret Service. In a series of articles, they exposed how Storm helped the CIA locate Al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was subsequently killed by an American drone attack in Yemen. The story received wide coverage in the U.S. and Europe and fed a crucial debate on the role of European countries in the U.S. ‘war on terror.’ Simply, when is it right for states and their agents to kill?

  • Innovation Award

In the Innovation category, the Award went to Paul Lewis from the United Kingdom, Special Projects Editor of The Guardian in London, for his project ‘Reading the Riots’. Together with Professor Tim Newburn from the London School of Economics and 30 researchers, Lewis launched a year-long research study into the causes of the summer riots in England in 2011. He analysed the mechanisms which led to both the violence and its rapid spread from the capital to other major towns and cities in Britain. It seriously questioned many assumptions about the riots, from the role of social media to the involvement of criminal gangs. Combining investigative journalism and scientific methodology, Lewis developed a unique new approach to investigative journalism, which may prove to become a powerful weapon for other journalists attempting to uncover increasingly complex and sophisticated social developments.

Winners 2014

  • The Investigative Reporting Award

In 2013 Steve Stecklow, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Yeganeh Torbati received the Investigative Award for Assets of the Ayatollah, published by Reuters, United Kingdom.

  • The Distinguished Writing Award

In 2013 the Distinguished Writing Award went to Sergey Khazov for his pieces "Forbidden Islam”, “Vietnam Town” and “The man in orange”, published by The New Times magazine, Russian Federation.

  • The Commentator Award

The Commentator Award went to Boris Dežulović in 2013 for his piece “Vukovar: a Life-Size Monument to the Dead City”", published by Globus, Croatia.

  • The Innovation Award

The Innovation Award of 2013 went to Espen Sandli, Linn Kongsli Hillestad and Ola Strømman for their piece “Null CTRL”, published by Dagbladet, Norway.

  • The Special Award

In 2013 Yavuz Baydar received the Special Award for his work as ombudsman. His columns were censored. The award is a symbol of support for his fight for a free press. In the same year, Editor Alan Rusbridger from The Guardian and editor Wolfgang Buchner from Der Spiegel also received a special award for their persistence and courage in publishing the NSA stories.

Winners 2015

  • The Distinguished Writing Award

The Distinguished Writing Award went to Elena Kostyuchenko for her piece Your husband voluntarily went under fire, published by Novaya Gazeta, Russian Federation

  • Winner of The Innovation Award

The Innovation Award went to the team behind The Migrants’ Files: Surveying migrants’ deaths at Europe’s door: Nicolas Kayser-Bril, Jacopo Ottaviani, Sylke Gruhnwald, Jean-Marc Manach, Jens Finnäs, Daniele Grasso, Ekaterina Stavroula, Alessio Cimarelli, Andrea Nelson Mauro and Alice Kohli. The Migrants Files were published by The Migrants' Files, Italy, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Spain, Greece

  • Winner of The Investigative Reporting Award

The Investigative Reporting Award went to Ander Izagirre for his work How to produce dead guerrillas, published by El País, Spain

  • Winner of The Commentator Award

The Commentator Award went to Nick Cohen for The Cowardice of Nigel Farage, published by The Observer, United Kingdom

  • Winner of The Special Award

The Special Award was given to The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, to founders Paul Radu, Drew Sullivan and a team of amounts others 2015 nominee Miranda Patrucić

Winners 2016

  • Winner of The Commentator Award

The Commentator Award went to Gideon Rachman for his Gideon Rachman Commentary

  • The Distinguished Writing Award

The Distinguished Writing Award went to Justyna Kopinska for her work: Fear – Sick Ward

  • Winner of The Innovation Award

The Innovation Award went to the team behind Killing and Dying for Allah – Five Portuguese Members of Islamic State: Raquel Moleiro, Hugo Franco and Joana Beleza:

  • Winner of The Investigative Reporting Award

The Investigative Reporting Award went to Marion Quillard for her article: Que celles qui ont été violées lèvent la main

  • Winner of The Special Award

The Special Award was given to three projects: Amrai Coen and Henning Sussebach for their Im Gelobten Land; Gert van Langendonck: Op naar Europa and Anders Fjellberg and Tomm W. Christiansen with Våtdraktmysteriet

Winners 2017

Christiaan Triebert (2018)
  • The Distinguished Writing Award

The Distinguished Writing Award went to Felix Hutt, Dialika Neufeld and Claas Relotius for their respective works: 71 Lives, Step-uncle Sam and The Story of Ahmed and Alin

  • Winner of The Innovation Award

The Innovation Award went to Bellingcat journalist Christiaan Triebert for The Turkish Coup through the Eyes of its Plotters

  • Winner of The Investigative Reporting Award

The Investigative Reporting Award went to the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CIJS) for their articles on corruption and crime.

  • Winner of The Commentator Award

The Commentator Award went to Fintan O'Toole for his Irish Times, Observer and Guardian columns on the Brexit.

  • Winner of The Special Award

The Special Award honoured the impressive quality of young journalists entering their work this year and was given to Irina Tacu, Ana Maria Ciobanu, Andreea Giuclea, Christian Lupsa and Oana Sandu for their article Colectiv

Winners 2018

  • Winner of the Distinguished Writing Award

The Distinguished Writing Award went to Micheal Obert for his reportage The Human Captor

  • Winner of The Innovation Award

The Innovation Award went to Bureau Local, a project set op by Megan Lucero, Maeve McClenaghan, Gareth Davies, Charles Boutaud and Kirsty Styles

  • Winner of The Investigative Reporting Award

The Investigative Reporting Award went Stéphane Horel and Stéphane Foucart for their Monsanto Papers

  • Winner of The Opinion Award

The Opinion Award went to Dragan Bursać from Bosnia for his article The third shooting of the boy Petar from Konjic

  • Winner of The Special Award

The Special Award went to Ida Nyegård Espersen for her This crime only requires poverty, internet, and a distant buyer


References

  1. Greenslade, Roy (24 May 2012). "Media foundations launch European Press Prize". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
  2. "Mediehuse stifter europæisk Pulitzer-pris" (in Danish). Politiken. Retrieved 2012-05-28.
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