Nick Davies
The Guardian

Phone hacking at the News of the World

IN July 2009 the Guardian published a front-page story which began to disclose the well-concealed truth about an extraordinary scandal. Since then, it has published a string of stories revealing internal paperwork from the News of the World. The rest of Fleet Street has continued to ignore the story.

The original story reached back to a one-day court hearing in January 2007 in which one private investigator and one journalist admitted to illegally intercepting the voicemail messages of eight people. This version had been endorsed by the Murdoch newspaper group who employed the journalist; by the Metropolitan police; by the Press Complaints Commission; and by the then editor of the offending paper, Andy Coulson, who had announced his complete ignorance of this “rogue reporter’s behaviour”.

But the Guardian disclosed that the News of the World had just paid out more than £1m to suppress a legal action which had threatened to reveal that a series of private investigators had been hired by Murdoch journalists to use illegal methods against thousands of public figures – a picture of systematic crime which had escaped the notice of the Murdoch Group, the police, the PCC and Andy Coulson, who was by now working for the leadership of the Conservative party.

Back to Paul Foot 2011 » The Paul Foot Award 2025

The prize commemorates the late Paul Foot’s lifelong drive to uncover injustice through his work, rooting out corrupt politicians, governmental errors and miscarriages of justice. The winner of the annual prize, worth £8,000, will be announced on 20 May.

Padraig Reidy, chair of the judges, said: “At a difficult time for journalism, the breadth and ambition of this year’s entries was impressive, with established print outlets competing with smaller, online-only publications. The variety of the shortlist demonstrates that great investigative and campaigning work can be done by all kinds of outlets. What matters is caring enough – and having courage.”

The judging panel also included last year’s winner Tristan Kirk, along with Matt Foot, Janine Gibson, Francis Wheen, Helen Lewis, Julia Langdon and Sir Simon Jenkins. They selected the following shortlist, in alphabetical order:

Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
The Guardian/Reuters Institute
Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
Brinkhurst-Cuff movingly told the story of Fiona Holm’s disappearance, asking why it was so overlooked. She supplemented her reporting with a wider investigation into how the media covers missing people.

Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
Vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP. Labour has now set up an independent review.

Laura Hughes
Financial Times
Lead poisoning
In this deeply reported investigation into the effects of lead in paint and in the soil, Hughes asked a provocative question: will lead exposure one day be seen as a scandal on the level of asbestos?

Aaron Walawalkar & Harriet Clugston
Liberty Investigates in partnership with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian
Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest “crackdown”
The investigation unit at the human rights charity looked at British universities’ harsh measures against pro-Palestinian protests and activism on campus, and the institutions’ close cooperation with police.

Jim Waterson
LondonCentric
Lime bikes and broken legs
Waterson’s Substack newsletter uncovered a spate of broken legs caused by the heavy frames of Lime electronic bikes falling on their riders. Who was regulating this Californian company?

Abi Whistance
The Liverpool Post
Investigation into the Big Help Project
Whistance’s four-part investigation for the Liverpool Post newsletter exposed a housing charity that left residents of its homes living in dire conditions.