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John Arlidge up for Orwell Prize

Spear's is pleased to announce that John Arlidge, one of our contributing editors, has been nominated in the longlist for the Orwell Prize 2010 for his report from inside Goldman Sachs. John was recently also nominated for the Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award. Full details below.

PRESS RELEASE: ORWELL PRIZE 2010 LONGLISTS ANNOUNCED

The longlists for the Orwell Prize 2010, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing, were announced at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival this evening, Wednesday 24th March at 7.30pm.

Director of the Prize, Jean Seaton, revealed the 18 books, 14 journalists (instead of the usual 12) and 14 bloggers (instead of the usual 12) still in contention for the £3000 prizes during the Prize’s week of political events at the Festival.

Journalism Prize

Owing to the high quality of entries, the Journalism Prize judges opted to longlist 14 entries rather than the usual 12:

Arlidge, John The Sunday Times (Magazine; News Review)

Cobain, Ian The Guardian; G2

Foreman, Jonathan Standpoint

Gentleman, Amelia The Guardian (G2)

Hitchens, Peter Mail on Sunday

Lewis, Paul The Guardian

Loyd, Anthony Standpoint; The Times

McRae, Hamish The Independent

Newman, Cathy Channel 4 News

Ostrovsky, Arkady The Economist; Foreign Policy

Philp, Catherine The Times

Reynolds, David BBC (Radio 4, News online)

Riddell, Mary Daily Telegraph

Verkaik, Robert The Independent; The Independent on Sunday

This year’s longlist shows a distinct trend towards reportage and investigative journalism, notable scoops including Ian Cobain on torture, Paul Lewis on policing and the G20 and Cathy Newman with various UK politics stories.

Peter Hitchens is longlisted for the third time in four years, while The Economist’s Moscow Bureau Chief, Arkady Ostrovsky, is longlisted for a second consecutive year. Mary Riddell was previously shortlisted in 2008.

This year’s Journalism Prize judges are Roger Graef (writer, filmmaker, criminologist) and Peter Kellner (journalist, President of YouGov).

Director of the Orwell Prize, Jean Seaton, said: ‘In the middle of a period when journalism is under pressure and there is gloom about the future, the extraordinary investigative bite of a very large number of journalists is something to be cherished. Journalism may be under pressure, but the Prize shows democratically important journalism is being done.’

This year’s shortlists, of six in each category, will be announced at Thomson Reuters, Canary Wharf on Thursday 15th April at 7pm. The announcement will be followed by a debate entitled ‘Have the political classes been fatally weakened?'

This year’s winners will be announced at a ceremony at Church House, Westminster on 19th May.

The Orwell Prize is Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. Every year, prizes are awarded to the work – for the book, for the journalism and for the blog – which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. Each Prize is worth £3000.