The Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism is now accepting applications for its 2022 award. The annual prize, named after the Maltese anti-corruption investigative journalist who was assassinated in a 2017 car bomb attack, recognizes in-depth investigative journalism inside the 27 EU member states. The prize, a lump sum of €20,000 (US$21,000), will be awarded to a single winner whose entry — published between September 1, 2021 and July 31, 2022 — contributes to the "promotion of principles and values of the EU, as enshrined in the European Charter of Human Rights." Applications are due by July 31, 2022.
Source: Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize
A proposed replacement to the UK's Human Rights Act would be a step toward stronger press freedom in that country and offer better source protection for journalists. Per the new Bill of Rights, UK courts would have to prove source disclosure is "necessary in the interests of justice or national security, or for the prevention of crime and disorder" before being granted access to a journalist's confidential sources. Such extraordinary requests would have to prove “exceptional and compelling reasons why it is in the public interest for the disclosure to be made.”
Source: PressGazette
Dmitry Muratov auctioned off his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal for a stunning $103.5 million to benefit youth refugees from the war in Ukraine. The editor-in-chief of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta allowed the medal to be purchased by an anonymous bidder via a global sale at Heritage Auctions. The nine-figure price smashed the previous auction record for a Nobel Prize set in 2014, when a bidder paid $4.76 million for the medal awarded to James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA. All proceeds from the sale of Muratov's medal will go to UNICEF's Humanitarian Response for Ukrainian Children Displaced by War. “I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity,” Muratov said after the auction. “But I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount.”
Source: The Guardian
Sixteen Kurdish journalists were arrested and detained in southeastern Turkey last week for allegedly "spreading terrorist propaganda" as that country's parliament consider passing a new censorship bill. If passed by the ruling parliamentary alliance, the proposed legislation could subject members of the press to up to three years in prison for publishing "disinformation" or governmentally-defined fake news. “Today is one of the darkest days for press freedom in Turkey’s history," European Federation of Journalists vice president Mustafa Kuleli said in a statement. "We stand in solidarity with all Kurdish media workers currently in prison for doing their job and urge for the immediate release of all of them."
Source: Journo (Turkey)
The Bertha Foundation has announced that its fourth annual reporting project will center around the food and agricultural industries. The 2023 Bertha Challenge offers activists and investigative journalists from around the world the opportunity to spend a year as a Bertha Fellow, with a non-residential paid fellowship and a project budget. The program aims for fellows to "take a sharp and penetrating look at food in all its complexity and interconnectedness," from growth, production, and distribution to its environmental impact and food insecurity. Application deadline is June 26.
Source: The Bertha Foundation
Investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr won a landmark UK libel lawsuit filed by a millionaire who claimed she defamed him by discussing his "lies" in leading the Brexit campaign. Though the UK court rejected Cadwalladr's attempt to dismiss the suit as a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation), it did find in favor of her claim that she was acting in the public interest when she characterized Arron Banks, founder of the pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, as lying about his alleged links to Russia in a 2019 TED talk and a series of tweets. In a year-long, award-winning investigation for The Observer, Cadwalladr had exposed data firm Cambridge Analytica and its role in the Trump 2016 and Brexit-Leave campaigns. The verdict is being hailed as a triumph for press freedom.
Source: RSF