The European Press Prize is an award programme for excellence in journalism across all 47 countries of Europe. It was founded in 2012 by seven European media foundations: The Guardian Foundation, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Jyllands-Posten Foundation, Politiken Foundation, Media Development Investment Fund, Vereniging Veronica and Stichting Democratie en Media. In 2015, The Irish Times Trust Limited joined as a member organisation, and Agora SA followed two years later. In 2020, the organisation Luminate became a member. The prizes are awarded each year in five different categories during the European Press Prize Ceremony. The first ceremony was at De Balie in Amsterdam in 2013, the 2014 awards were given at the Reuters headquarters in London, and in 2015 the European Press Prize visited the JP/Politiken headquarters in Copenhagen. The 2016 awards were presented in Prague with the help of the Forum2000 team. For the fifth anniversary in 2017, the ceremony was held in founding place De Balie in Amsterdam again. In 2018 it took place in Budapest at the Open Archives Society. In 2019 the prizes were awarded in Warsaw at the headquarters of Gazeta Wyborcza. As the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited a live ceremony, the winners of 2020 were announced online. The organisation is based in Amsterdam.
Jury
The jury chooses each winner from a shortlist, selected out of all of the submitted work by the preparatory committee. Each of the award categories has a maximum of six nominees on the shortlist. Currently, the panel of judges is composed of:
This award is given for "discovering and revealing facts, exposing hidden news to the public".
2014: Steve Stecklow, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters, UK, "The Assets of the Ayatollah";
2015: Ander Izagirre, El País, Spain, "How to produce dead guerillas";
2016: Marion Quillard, Revue XXI, France, "Those Who have been Raped raise your hand";
2017: Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, for their series of articles on corruption and organized crime;
2018: Stephane Foucart and Stephane Horel, Le Monde, France, "Monsanto Papers";
2019: Christo Grozev, Roman Dobrokhotov, Daniel Romein, Bellingcat, United Kingdom, "Unmasking the Salisbury Poisoning Suspects: A Four-Part Investigation";
2020: Annemarte Moland, Even Kjølleberg and Ruben Solvang, NRK, Norway, "Trigger Warning".
Distinguished Reporting Award
This award is given for "exceptional reporting, telling a story in the best possible way". Until 2017, the category was called Distinguished Writing Award:
2014: Sergey Khazov, The New Times magazine, Russia, "The Man in Orange", "Vietnam Town" and "Forbidden Islam";
2019: Madeleine Schwartz, The Guardian, United Kingdom, "The end of Atlanticism: had Trump killed the ideology that won the cold war?";
2020: Beata Balogová, SME, Slovakia, "How We Stopped Being Comrades".
Innovation Award
This category awards journalists for their inventive or groundbreaking way of storytelling.
2013: Paul Lewis, The Guardian, "Reading the Riots";
2014: Espen Sandli, Linn Kongsli Hillestad and Ola Strømman, Dagbladet, Norway, "Null CTRL";
2015: The Migrants’ Files team, The Migrants’ Files, Italy Switzerland, France, Sweden, Spain and Greece, "The Migrants’ Files: Surveying migrants’ deaths at Europe’s door";
2016: Raquel Moleiro, Hugo Franco and Joana Beleza, Newspaper Expresso, Portugal, "Killing and Dying for Allah - Five Portuguese Members of Islamic State";
2017: Christiaan Triebert, Bellingcat, The Netherlands, "The Turkish Coup through the Eyes of its Plotters";
2018: Megan Lucero, Maeve McClenaghan, Gareth Davies, Charles Boutaud, Kirsty Styles, for their organisation Bureau Local;
2019: Guillermo Abril and Carlos Spottorno, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Germany and El País semanal, Spain, "Palmyra, the other side";
2020: Decât o Revistă team, Decât o Revistă, Romania, "How DoR organized an all-team pop-up newsroom in Transylvania".
Special Award
The Special Award is optional for the jury and allows them to single out high quality journalism that they think deserves special recognition. This could be awarded to an individual journalist, news organisation or specific piece of journalism.
2016: Gert van Langendonck, NRC, The Netherlands, "Off to Europe"; Amrai Coen and Henning Sussebach, Die Zeit, Germany, "In the Promised Land"; Anders Fjellberg and Tomm W. Chriistiansen, Dagbladet, Norway, "The Wetsuitman";
2017: Irina Tacu, Ana Maria Ciobanu, Andreea Giuclea, Christian Lupșa and Oana Sandu, Decât o Revistă, Romania, "Colectiv";
2018: Ida Nyegård Espersen, Jyllands-Posten, Denmark, "This crime only requires poverty, internet, and a distant buyer";
2019: Forbidden Stories team and partners, for their organisation Forbidden Stories;
The first edition of the Prize involved two categories that were discontinued the following year. The Editing Award went to Ihor Pochynok for his publications in the Ukrainian Newspaper Ekspres. The News Reporting Award went to Orla Borg, Carsten Ellegaard Christensen and Morten Pihl for their piece "Morten Storm", published in Jyllands-Posten. The Investigative Reporting Award and Special Award have since been added to the categories, as well as the Distinguished Writing Award, which was later named Distinguished Reporting Award. The Commentator Award was later changed to Opinion Award.
Cartoon Award
In 2019, the European Cartoon Award was founded to honour and encourage European cartoonists. The winner of the first edition will be announced in October, 2020.
