In the end my entry didn't make any impression on the long or short list for this year's Paul Foot Award.
I comfort myself with the quality of those on it - with one caveat which I'll come to.
The short list is
Richard Brooks, Private Eye
Camilla Cavendish, The Times
Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard
Warwick Mansell, Times Educational Supplement
Dan McDougall, The Observer
Jim Oldfield, Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers
The longlist (or highly commended but no cigar) are:
Ben Leapman, The Sunday Telegraph; Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, The Sunday Times and
Heather Brooke, Freelance, Freedom of Information Campaigner
Nick Davies, The Independent, City AM, Private Eye and The New Statesman
David Harrison, The Sunday Telegraph
James Lewis, Legal Business Magazine and the Guardian
You can see on the Private Eye web site what the individual stories were that won the journalists their place. Suffice to say that anybody who says investigatative reporting, local journalism and international affairs are dead isn't paying attention.
What was my caveat? I think Gilligan's reporting was part of a campaign by his paper, the Evening Standard, and even if his motives were objective I think the aim of his paper was objectionable.
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