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Investigations into the Grenfell Tower scandal, an expose of child abuse in Australia, and a bestselling lifestyle book, are among the work by City alumni celebrated in this year’s XCity Award for outstanding journalism.
Nominations for the award, established in 2011 to mark the 25th anniversary of XCity magazine, have been selected by alumni and journalism staff who wish to honour the achievements of graduates over the past year.
This year’s longlist includes those who have demonstrated calm and systematic decision-making in the wake of terrorism and award-winning reportage that has led to changes in the law.
Last year’s winner was Oliver Shah, City Editor at The Sunday Times, for his investigations into Sir Philip Green’s £1 sale of BHS and the pensions scandal that followed. He beat 15 other nominees to win the XCity Award and its £500 prize money.
Five candidates will be shortlisted by the judges and the winner will be announced on XCity Plus later in March. In no particular order, here are the nominees:
Ramita Navai, (Broadcast, 2003)
Nominated for: Reporting on Channel 4 Dispatches for “ISIS and the Battle for Iraq”, which won her the Foreign Affairs Journalism award at the 2017 British Journalism Awards. The judges said Navai “opened up a new road of understanding: cool, direct, inclusive, with a real sense of time and place”.
Megan Lucero, (International, 2011)
Nominated for: Her work as the head of Bureau Local, a division of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism which uses data journalism to help investigations in local communities across the UK. Previously working for The Times, Lucero and her team won awards for revealing the widespread use of blood doping in the Olympics.
Matt Dathan, (Newspaper, 2013)
Nominated for: His investigation for The Sun into European Health Identification (EHIC) cards which uncovered a £200m NHS health tourism scam involving fake national insurance numbers.
Eve Simmons, (Magazine, 2014)
Nominated for: Co-launching and authoring a blog called NOT PLANT BASED, which helps people who have or are suffering with eating disorders in support of the charity B-eat UK. Since its launch earlier this year, the blog has gained 6,000 followers on Instagram and featured in The Times, The Telegraph, Huffington Post and on BBC Radio 4.
Charlotte Hawkins, (TV, 2012)
Nominated for: Continuous work as an Assistant Producer on Panorama. Notable works include: Panorama: Westminster Terror Attack and Panorama: Election 2017 – What Just Happened?
Billy Kenber, (Investigative, 2010)
Nominated for: Exposing drug companies profiting from the NHS. His investigation for The Times found the cost of vital medicines were being hiked by up to 12,500 per cent and helped contribute to a newly reformed law. His work won him a spot on The Orwell Prize’s Exposing Britain’s Social Evil’s shortlist 2017.
Selena Randhawa, (Magazine, 2017)
Nominated for: Her piece of long-form journalism on the indigenous people of Canada. The report, titled:‘Our society is broken’: what can stop Canada’s First Nations suicide epidemic? was produced for her final project and published by The Guardian. It has since been shortlisted for the Amnesty Media Awards 2018.
Salma Haidrani, (Magazine, 2015)
Nominated for: Being an award-winning journalist and writer. Most recently she won the Young Journalist of the Year Award at the GG2 Leadership Awards 2017 for her report on honour killings in the UK (The Debrief), which also won her wide praise from organisations such as Ending Violence Against Women.
Hannah Ewens, (Magazine, 2014)
Nominated for: Her work for Vice over the past year, which included reports on Boots’ refusal to change the price of the morning after pill. Her coverage led her to appear on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC show as well as a number of radio shows.
Sophie Barnes, (Investigative, 2012)
Nominated for: Her award-winning reportage of the Grenfell Tower fire for Inside Housing.
Sophie’s awards have included Housing Reporter of the Year at the International Building Press Awards and being part of the team that won News Provider of the Year at the British Journalism Awards, 2017. She was also ‘highly commended’ in the New Business Journalist of the Year category at last year’s Professional Publishers Association New Talent Awards.
Lucie Morris-Marr, (Newspaper, 1997)
Nominated for: Breaking the Cardinal Pell story in Australia, regarding a police investigation into allegations of abuse against the most senior Catholic official in the country. The story was published in the Herald Sun in Melbourne in February 2016.
Morris-Marr is currently covering the legal proceedings against Pell in Melbourne for CNN.
May Bulman, (Newspaper, 2016)
Nominated for: Her work as Social Affairs Correspondent at The Independent, which has included reporting on homelessness in the UK, the effects of Brexit on the working class and the NHS funding. She was shortlisted for best campaigning and investigative journalism for The Drum’s 2017 Online Media Awards.
Jordan Milne, (Investigative, 2015)
Nominated for: Her handling of the Sky News desk when news broke of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack in May, 2017. In the first hour police were refusing to give information and all she had to go by was Twitter, on which many fake posts were already being published. The responsibility for making the right calls landed solely on Jordan and her quick-thinking and methodical decisions meant no fake news filtered through the system and Sky were able to report live coverage when reports of the attack were confirmed.
Kaine Pieri, (International, 2017)
Nominated for: His footage of the London Bridge attacks in June, 2017, for which he won the Eric Robbins Prize. Pieri filmed material that was published around the world and gave many eye witness interviews.
Isabelle Gerretsen, (Newspaper, 2016)
Nominated for: Her excellent reporting for the International Business Times over the past year, such as her article on the Turkish President telling a young girl she would be an honoured martyr if killed in Syria.
Dolly Alderton, (Magazine, 2010)
Nominated for: Topping the charts with her podcast, The High-Low, on which she discusses a varying degree of topics from water-cooler gossip to hard-hitting politics; and her recently released memoirs, Everything I Know About Love, which made the Sunday Times Top 5 Bestsellers list.
Victoria Seabrook, (Investigative, 2015)
Nominated for: Producing and researching Sky documentary, Ocean Rescue: Dirty Business. The show, which was part of a wider campaign by Sky to raise awareness of ocean plastic, follows the trail of plastic waste through the country and around the world. During her investigations for the show, Seabrook and her team exposed serious flaws in the recycling system, prompting reforms in the system.
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