Entries for the 2011 Daniel Pearl Awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting are now being accepted. The awards honor the best in cross-border investigative journalism. Submissions must be postmarked no later than July 1, 2011.
The awards are granted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Formerly the ICIJ Awards, the prizes were renamed in 2008 in honor of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was slain in Pakistan in 2002.
Held biennially, the competition is open to any professional journalist or team of journalists of any nationality working in any medium. To be eligible, the investigation — either a single work or a single-subject series — must involve reporting in at least two countries on a topic of global significance. A jury of international journalists will select the winners.
Two $5,000 first-place prizes will be awarded, one to a U.S.-based reporter or news outlet, and another to a non-U.S.-based journalist or news outlet. Five additional finalists will each receive $1,000 prizes.
“The Daniel Pearl Awards provide us a special opportunity to recognize exceptional cross-border investigative reporting,” said Acting ICIJ Director Bill Kovach. “It is an opportunity to call to wider public attention the dedication and courage of journalists around the world who seek to monitor the people and institutions of power and uncover the inconvenient truths about current events.”
The awards are unique among journalism prizes in that they specifically honor cross-border investigative reporting. Past winners have included a collaborative series by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp., The Guardian, BBC Newsnight, and de Volkskrant about toxic waste dumping in Africa and a surprising exposé by freelancer Aram Roston, with The Nation, on payoffs by U.S. military contractors to the Taliban. The last Pearl Awards attracted 86 entries from 24 countries, involving reporting in more than 60 countries.
The winners will be announced in October at this year’s Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev, Ukraine. There is no entry fee. For application information and awards criteria, please visit ICIJ’s Daniel Pearl Awards website.