Deadline nears for investigative journalism awards entries

Submissions from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe are especially encouraged and there is no entry fee for the competition.

Formerly the ICIJ Awards, the prizes were renamed in 2008 in honour of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was slain by militants 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 world significance. A five-member jury of international journalists will select the winners.

Two US$5000 (about R37 700) first-place prizes will be awarded, one to a US-based reporter or news outlet and the other to a non US-based journalist or news outlet. Five additional finalists will each receive US$1000 (about R7500) prizes.

Past winners have included a TV4 Sweden investigation of Russian overfishing in the Barents Sea, a SABC expose of an Anglican bishop accused of conspiring with the Rwandan government to kill Tutsis and a New York Times series on deadly Chinese counterfeit drugs.

Last year's awards attracted 86 entries from 24 countries, involving reporting in more than 60 countries. The awards will be presented at the 6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in April 2010.

For further information and awards' criteria go to www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/icij/awards.