Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
From war zone dispatches to undercover exposés, Simon Murphy is an award-winning journalist.
Now a senior news reporter at the Mirror, he has worked in Fleet Street for over a decade.
Earlier this year, Simon reported from Ukraine – going inside hospitals and an underground school in a visit to a frontline city. For his Orwell prize entry, he worked with charities to cover the scandal of homeless women. The special investigation exposed the true scale of women sleeping rough. The probe formed part of the Mirror’s hidden homeless series, which was knitted together with a short documentary.
Simon is a five-time finalist at the British Journalism Awards, including winning New Journalist of the year in 2015. In 2024, he was a finalist in the business, finance and economics category for his Post Office scandal investigations.
His shortlisted pieces are:
Simon Murphy’s reporting for The Mirror was not only incredibly well written, but also excited me that red top newspapers are highlighting such a pressing issue in such an ethical way.
– Lorna Tucker, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Rough is a MyLondon reporter-led project which aims to expose the horrific scandal of homelessness in London.
No one can deny the issue is getting out of control in the capital, with Trust for London data suggesting the number of rough sleepers has increased threefold since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. Sheltering in shanty towns or under exposed dual carriageways, MyLondon went looking for these people.
We hope by bringing photos and unique voices to as wide an audience as possible, this scandal might be recognised for what it is.
MyLondon’s shortlisted entry is:
The team from MyLondon exploited the full versatility of online storytelling to create a hugely engaging package of distinctive writing, photography, data and graphics that took the reader to the heart of London’s homelessness crisis. It was a terrific effort that made room for surprising angles and different tones.
– Robert Booth, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Daniel Hewitt, David Williams and Imogen Barrer’s shortlisted pieces are:
This podcast blew me away and was almost unrelentingly shocking. Daniel Hewitt deserves huge credit for the huge tenacity he has shown in getting under the bonnet of the way some social housing tenants have been treated by the state.
– Caroline Wheeler, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
David is the Investigations and Campaigns Editor of the London Evening Standard. He has won many prestigious UK press awards, including Campaign of the Year, the Cudlipp Award for campaigning journalism, the Paul Foot Award for investigative campaigning journalism and the London Press Club Edgar Wallace Award for fine writing. He is a Harkness Fellow and author of three books, including People Who Have Stolen From Me (Picador) and Chasing the Red, White and Blue (Picador). In 2010 he founded the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, which has since raised £60M for charities tackling poverty, inequality, homelessness and exclusion.
His shortlisted piece are:
The panel was highly impressed by David’s dedicated commitment and the well-researched focus on timely challenges.
– Ligia Teixeira, Chair of Judges, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Niall Christie is a Scottish journalist with a strong focus on politics, social justice, and the third sector. He currently writes for Third Force News (TFN), Scotland’s only dedicated media outlet for charities and voluntary organisations in Scotland. While working for local newspapers he was nominated for Scotland’s Young Journalist of the Year, and has gone on to write and report for national news outlets across the UK. He joined TFN in 2022, working to highlight the challenges facing third sector organisations in Scotland and beyond. Originally from Dundee, he now lives in Glasgow with his wife and son.
His shortlisted pieces are:
We were impressed by this expose of the impact of Taylor Swift’s world tour on people in temporary accommodation in Scotland. The journalists were swift to spot the consequences of evictions for hundreds of families and persisted with the story to hold the authorities accountable for breaking the law.
– Robert Booth, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Katharine Swindells is deputy features editor at Inside Housing, covering social housing and homelessness, where her work has seen her named one of journalism’s 30 Under 30 by the Press Awards and PPA. Previously, she was a data reporter at the New Statesman, and is passionate about using human-centred data journalism to shed light into dark corners, such as in her shortlisted project, which tracks the numbers of toddlers and babies living in temporary accommodation in every council in the UK.
Her shortlisted pieces are:
Katherine’s project with Inside Housing to count the toddlers and babies living in temporary housing filled a black hole in official data. It was the kind of careful and diligent journalism that shines light on darkness and led to a change in the way officials gathered their figures.
– Robert Booth, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Greg Barradale is a senior reporter for Big Issue. His work aims to expose the human impact of systemic issues on some of society’s most vulnerable.
His report on the life and death of Simeon McAnoy formed part of an investigation into the deadly toll of new synthetic opioids, in which he also reported on a wave of drug deaths in Birmingham and obtained data showing how paramedics’ rising use of an overdose-reversing drug could point to the true scale of the threat nationally. The reporting led to calls for change from MPs on all sides.
His story detailing the experiences of homeless and pregnant refugees came in the wake of long-running reporting on refugee homelessness. In 2023, he uncovered how refugees were being evicted into homelessness, and was the first to reveal government U-turns. Despite changes in policy, refugee homelessness remains widespread.
Action – and inaction – on homelessness often stems from the heart of government. As Labour entered government, Greg told the story of how Tony Blair attempted to end rough sleeping as prime minister and how far he got.
His work has previously won an MHP 30toWatch award for News and Investigations, and seen him shortlisted for feature writer of the year at the BSME Talent Awards.
If you’d like to get in touch with Greg for media appearances or with a story, you can contact him at Greg.barradale@bigissue.com.
Greg Barradale’s shortlisted pieces are:
The panel was very impressed by the powerful personal stories and diverse perspectives Greg brought to the forefront, offering a crucial human lens on the complexities of homelessness.
– Ligia Teixeira, Chair of Judges, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Arkady Ostrovsky is an award-winning author, journalist and translator. He is Russia and Eastern Europe editor for the Economist and the host of Next Year in Moscow podcast
He has three decades of experience reporting and analysing domestic and foreign affairs in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. His cover stories and special reports have helped to shape Western policy and thinking about the region. He joined the Economist in 2007 after 10 years with The Financial Times.
He holds a doctorate degree from Cambridge University in English Literature. His book The Invention of Russia won the 2016 Orwell Prize. His translations of Tom Stoppard’s plays have been staged in Moscow.
His shortlisted pieces are:
Arkady Ostrovsky’s Escape from the Meat Grinder is beautifully written. It pulls you in and doesn’t let you go.
– Maryam Moshiri, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Mark Townsend has reported for the Guardian and its former sister newspaper, the Observer, for almost 25 years, covering many of the world’s major stories. Currently a senior reporter on the Global Development desk, he covers international politics, inequality and human rights. His many accolades include Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards and the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils.
His shortlisted pieces are:
The emotional impact of Mark’s coverage of the Sudan conflict – where unimaginable brutality is a mundane reality – is amplified by his coolly dispassionate reporting. His documenting of the wilful blindness and hypocrisy of nations and institutions serves as a rebuke to them – and to all of us. Exemplary coverage of an “unfashionable” war
– John Pienaar, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Hannah Barnes is an Associate Editor and Writer at the New Statesman, where she focuses on the topics and stories shaping the world we live in. An award-winning journalist, she spent 15 years at the BBC specialising in analytical and investigative journalism on both television – for BBC Newsnight – and radio. Hannah produced, edited and reported a variety of Radio 4’s best known news and current affairs shows. Her book – Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children – is a Sunday Times Bestseller and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
Her shortlisted pieces are:
We were struck by the forceful clarity of Hannah Barnes’s writing. Whether using her own experience of trauma in childbirth to shine a light on an under-reported element of becoming a parent, or challenging the growing censoriousness of British public life, Barnes’s writing was purposeful, clear and refreshingly lacking in cliche.
– Matt Walsh, Chair of Judges, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Dani Garavelli is a freelance journalist, feature writer and occasional broadcaster who works for publications including the London Review of Books, Herald Scotland, Prospect Magazine, The Guardian, The Big Issue and The Bell. She has also made several BBC
Radio 4 documentaries including Scotland’s Uncivil War on rifts within the SNP, and Waiting for the Van on one activist’s attempt to set up a safer drug consumption vehicle.
Her shortlisted pieces are:
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Sarah O’Connor is a columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times, where she writes about employment, technology and economics. She first joined the FT in 2007, and she has reported from London, Washington DC and Reykjavik. Her first book, on work and technology, will be published in 2026 by Allen Lane in the UK and Godine in the US.
Her shortlisted pieces are:
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, broadcaster and author. She writes long form journalism for the Guardian, the Financial Times Magazine and the Sunday Times Magazine. A regular voice on BBC Radio 4, Jenny writes and presents the documentary series The Gift, and has reported for BBC One’s Panorama and Channel 4’s Dispatches, as well as making 13 films from across the globe for Channel 4’s Unreported World. Her first book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, was published in 2020 and has been translated into eleven languages. Her second book The Price of Life, was published in March 2024.
Her shortlisted pieces are:
The hallmark of all of Jenny Kleeman’s reports is her empathetic analysis of people with extraordinary ambitions or in life-changing circumstances. Her writing brings out the humanity of her subjects with emotional intelligence and great sensitivity. Her writing on American pronatalists, or Israelis who want dead soldiers to live on through harvesting their semen, never stooped to cliche or caricature, even when it shocked. Orwell wanted good prose to have purpose and reject humbug, and Kleeman’s writing fits that mould.
– Matt Walsh, Chair of Judges, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Alexander Clapp is a journalist based in Athens. He writes for the London Review of Books and The Guardian Long Read and has been an Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a fellow at the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles. His first book, Waste Wars, examines the global trash trade.
His shortlisted pieces are:
His writing is exceptional. The prose flows effortlessly. He writes in an artful and clever way. He inserts humour especially in his piece on Ecuador where his black humour gives context, brings place and his characterisation is spot on.
– Maryam Moshiri, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2025
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Charles Thomson investigates crime and corruption for Newsquest. He is a four-time ‘Weekly Reporter of the Year’ and two-time ‘Crime & Investigative Reporter of the Year’ at the Regional Press Awards.
His years-long investigation into an Essex paedophile ring exposed a notorious child abuser as a secret police informant. Along the way, he became the first UK journalist to obtain deceased offenders’ criminal records under Freedom of Information. The stories won the Ray Fitzwalter Award and were shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award.
His investigation into Jason Moore’s murder conviction unearthed new evidence, now the basis of an appeal bid.
His shortlisted pieces are:
Posted on May 8, 2025 by Eric Blair -
Andrew Harding is a BBC foreign correspondent and author. He’s been living and working abroad since 1991, in the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa. Andrew has recently reported extensively on the war in Ukraine and on the small boat crisis in the Channel. He’s the author of three acclaimed non-fiction books and is currently based in Paris.
His shortlisted entries are:
Posted on May 22, 2024 by James Tookey -
A superb account of the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by one of the world’s most astute observers of global affairs. Trofimov explains how the bloodiest war Europe has seen since 1945 broke out, and sets out with admirable clarity what is at stake for Ukraine, as well as for the rest of the world.
Peter Frankopan, Chair of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing panel 2024
Posted on May 22, 2024 by James Tookey -
The Achilles Trap is a rigorous, expertly controlled account of what Steve Coll calls the “march to disaster”: the US’s decades-long dealings with Saddam Hussein, characterized by fateful miscalculations and misunderstandings on both sides – a “cascade of errors”, as Coll puts it – and culminating in the catastrophically misjudged American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A staff writer at the New Yorker and author of several previous books about US involvement in the Middle East, Coll traces the vicissitudes of the US’s relationship with Hussein from his rise to power in 1979 and inauguration of Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons programme, through the precarious collaboration forged with the Reagan administration during the Iraq-Iran war, to the decisive unravelling of relations after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing botched efforts of the CIA to covertly overthrow Hussein. Partly based on 2,000 hours of Hussein’s taped meetings with advisers – which the US discovered during the invasion and some of which Coll accessed by suing the Pentagon – Coll’s intricate, absorbing narrative illuminates the role of political folly, hubris and naivety in a region that continues to be roiled by devastating conflicts.
Lola Seaton, Orwell Prize for Political Writing judge 2024