Salford journalism graduate wins prestigious Private Eye Paul Foot Award
Salford journalism graduate Hannah Al-Othman has won the prestigious Private Eye Paul Foot Award for investigative and campaigning journalism along with her colleague David Collins.
Hannah is currently a journalist at The Sunday Times and was nominated for their investigation into the murder of Kenyan sex worker Agnes Wanjiru, revealing a disturbing culture of misogyny, secrecy, and impunity in the British army.
The Paul Foot Award was set up in memory of revered investigative journalist Paul Foot, who died in 2004 at the age of 66. His accolades include the Journalist of the Year, the Campaigning Journalist of the Year, the George Orwell Prize for Journalism and in 2000 he was honoured as the Campaigning Journalist of the Decade.
On winning, Hannah said: "I am absolutely thrilled to win this award, alongside my colleague David Collins. It took weeks of painstaking work to bring this story to light, tracking down and speaking to dozens of people in the UK and in Kenya, but we both believed in the importance of the story from the start, and we really wanted to help Agnes Wanjiru's family see justice.
“I loved my time at Salford and learned so much about journalism that is still useful to me today. I never expected to be able to get a national newspaper job back in Manchester, but I'm so pleased with how everything has worked out so far - and it all started at Salford!"
Hannah and David have also been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize where independent panels award prizes to the writing and reporting which best meets the spirit of George Orwell's own ambition 'to make political writing into an art'.
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