Manisha Ganguly
The GuardianDr. Manisha Ganguly is an investigative journalist and filmmaker covering the intersection of technology and human rights. A pioneer in using open-source investigations to expose war crimes, her work has been cited by the United Nations, UK Parliament, and led to EU and US sanctions — reaching over 300 million viewers across four wars. A European Press Prize laureate, two-time Amnesty International Media Awards winner, and recipient of the George Weidenfeld Prize for Courageous Reporting, she is writing her first book, on impunity. Her doctoral research was the first to study the impact of OSINT and AI on investigative journalism. She is investigations correspondent and visual forensics lead at The Guardian, formerly of the BBC.
Her shortlisted pieces were:
- ‘A deadly scheme’: Palestinians face indiscriminate gunfire at food sites
- European missile group MBDA selling parts for bombs that have killed children in Gaza
- What is ‘home’ now? A woman’s two-year search for safety in the ruins of Gaza
- Inside Taganrog: beatings, electrocution and starvation at prison where Ukrainians were tortured
Ganguly writes in a highly readable investigative style. Her human centred storytelling is evidence driven rather than rhetorical and exemplifies the qualities the Orwell Prize seeks to honour: reporting with clear political purpose, intellectual courage, and rigorous critical thought. Through meticulous forensic analysis, eyewitness testimony, and accessible prose, she documented how aid distribution was weaponized to cause harm. The work combines moral seriousness with evidential precision, embodying Orwell’s ideal of journalism that exposes injustice while making complex political realities understandable to a wide audience.
– Sayeeda Warsi, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2026
