Paul Foot Award 2009 shortlist announced

The shortlist for the annual Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism has been announced.

The Private Eye and Guardian prize is given in memory of Paul Foot, the campaigning journalist who died in 2004; the overall winner receives £5,000 and the runners-up £1,000.

The judges for this year's prize, to be awarded on November 2, include Brian MacArthur (Chair), Clare Fermont, Bill Hagerty, Ian Hislop, Richard Ingrams, Simon Jenkins, and Alan Rusbridger.

The shortlist:

• Jonathan Calvert and Clare Newell, Sunday Times (financial and legislative abuses in the House of Lords)

• Ian Cobain, The Guardian (investigation into Britain's involvement in the torture of terror suspects detained overseas)

• Ben Leapman, Sunday and Daily Telegraph (MPs' expenses investigation)

• Paul Lewis, The Guardian (investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests)

• Rob Waugh, Yorkshire Post (investigation into 'cavalier' spending at Leeds Metropolitan University; investigation into Leeds City Credit Union)

• Stephen Wright and Richard Pendlebury, Daily Mail (investigation into lawyer Shahrokh Mireskandari)

Full citations available at Private-Eye.co.uk.

Among those highly commended in the longlist: Susie Boniface, Sunday Mirror (Nuclear test veterans campaign); Martin Hickman, Independent (Quest for palm oil for British consumers, devastating the rainforest); Dan McDougall, News of the world / (Observer Exploitation of child workers for British high street retailers); Melanie Newman, Times Higher Education Supplement (£36m corruption at London Metropolitan University); David Rose, Vanity Fair and Mail on Sunday (Campaign for former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed).

• Journalism.co.uk coverage of the 2008 awards
• Paul Foot 2008: The alternative highlights
  

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