Private Eye is pleased to announce the 10 longlisted entries for the 2025 Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism. The prize commemorates Paul Foot’s lifelong drive to uncover injustice through his work, rooting out corrupt politicians, governmental errors and miscarriages of justice.Padraig Reidy, chair of the judges, said: "At a difficult time for journalism, the breadth and ambition of this year’s entries was impressive, with established print outlets competing with smaller, online-only publications. The variety of the shortlist demonstrates that great investigative and campaigning work can be done by all kinds of outlets. What matters is caring enough – and having courage."
The judging panel also included last year’s winner Tristan Kirk, along with Matt Foot, Janine Gibson, Francis Wheen, Helen Lewis, Julia Langdon and Sir Simon Jenkins. From these 10 entries they will select a shortlist of six, which will be published in issue 1648 of Private Eye, on sale from Wednesday 30 April. The winner of the annual prize, worth £8,000, will be announced on 20 May.
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
The Guardian/Reuters Institute
Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
Brinkhurst-Cuff movingly told the story of Fiona Holm’s disappearance, asking why it was so overlooked. She supplemented her reporting with a wider investigation into how the media covers missing people.
Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
Butler and Halliday reported on how vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP.
Harriet Clugston & Aaron Walawalkar
Liberty Investigates
Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest "crackdown"
The investigation unit at the human rights charity unit looked at British universities’ harsh measures against pro-Palestinian protests and activism, and these institutions’ close cooperation with police.
Jack Dulhanty & team
The Mill
Sacha Lord’s pandemic money
A seven-month campaign exposed how Sacha Lord, night-time economy adviser to Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, received £400,000 of pandemic funding from Arts Council England by rebranding his security company as an entertainment business.
Henry Dyer & Rob Evans
The Guardian
Lord Evans of Watford and lobbying
Thanks to scrutiny of public documents and social media posts – and an undercover investigation – Dyer and Evans showed how Labour peer Lord (David) Evans offered access to ministers.
Sean O’Neill, Fiona Hamilton, Eleanor Hayward
The Times
Fighting the NHS for answers on ME
In 2021, O’Neill’s daughter Maeve died of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), aged 27. Since then, he and his colleagues have investigated how little the NHS understands – and can implement – the best treatments for her condition.
Laura Hughes
Financial Times
Lead poisoning
In this deeply reported investigation into the effects of lead in paint and in the soil, Hughes asked a provocative question: will lead exposure one day be seen as a scandal on the level of asbestos?
Sian Norris
OpenDemocracy
How the British military fails those who report rapes
Norris’s work interrogated whether the military’s approach to investigating allegations of sexual assault – outside the civilian criminal justice system – is stacked against complainants.
Jim Waterson
LondonCentric
Lime bikes and broken legs
Waterson’s Substack newsletter, a plucky challenger to the Standard newspaper, uncovered a spate of broken legs caused by the heavy frames of Lime electronic bikes falling on their riders. Who is regulating this Californian company?
Abi Whistance
The Liverpool Post
Investigation into the Big Help Project
Whistance’s four-part investigation for the Liverpool Post newsletter exposed a housing charity that left residents of its homes living in dire conditions.
