Axel Springer : Prize honors the best young journalists of 2018 / International Special Award goes to murdered journalist Ján Kuciak

On Thursday, May 3, 2018, the 27th Axel Springer Prize for Young Journalists award ceremony was held in Berlin. In front of about 250 invited guests, the Axel Springer Academy honored the best up-and-coming journalists in the publishing building. The Axel Springer Prize is awarded with three main prizes in gold, silver and bronze as well as two excellence awards for investigative research and creative implementation. For the first time this year, an international special award was also awarded in recognition of the outstanding work of a young journalist or team of journalists from non-German-speaking countries.

GOLD:

For her report 'Sex, Lies and YouTube', which was published in Reportagen magazine in May 2017, Barbara Bachmann received the prize in the gold category. The article by the 31-year-old told the story of young Italian woman Tiziana Cantone who committed suicide after being the victim of cyber-mobbing.

SILVER:

Ann-Katrin Müller was honored in the silver category for her article in Spiegel titled 'Our Father', which was published in January 2018 and was about two men who were placed as foster children in the care of pedophile men.

BRONZE:

In the bronze category, the jury awarded two prizes to young journalists this year. In her story 'An Entire Life', which was published in Stern magazine in August 2017, prize-winner Nora Gantenbrink tells the love story of a toilet-cleaning team in a disco. In his report 'Problem Children', published in SZ Magazin in July 2017, Johannes Böhme sought out those children displaying behavioral problems he had driven day by day to kindergarten while serving his alternative military service, and asked the question about what effect their social background had had on the children's lives.

CREATIVE IMPLEMENTATION:

Team 22 from the Axel Springer Academy was honored with the Excellence Award for Creative Implementation for their podcast series 'Alyom - Syria's Children, the Toxic Gas & Us', which was released in December 2017 on SoundCloud, iTunes and Spotify.

INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH:

Stefanie Dodt received the Excellence Award for Investigative Research for her television report on TV broadcaster ARD titled 'Accomplices? VW and the Brazilian Military Dictatorship', which was transmitted in July 2017.

Marc Thomas Spahl, Director of the Axel Springer Academy, which awards the prize, said that 'In a time dominated by fake news and decreasing press freedom around the world, quality journalism is becoming increasingly important. With the Axel Springer Prize, we want to encourage young journalists to stand up for their journalistic mission by honoring their excellent achievements.'

Ján Kuciak's sister, with Peter Bárdy, Editor-in-Chief of aktuality.sk, and editorial colleagues personally accept the International Special Award

The first International Special Award was given to the murdered Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak for his research into business relations between Slovak government employees and entrepreneurs and the Italian mafia. His sister Mária Kuciaková, together with Peter Bárdy, Editor-in-Chief of the news portal aktuality.sk, and other editorial colleagues accepted the award in person. Among the guests of the award ceremony was the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Peter Lizák.

Ján Kuciak was an editor on the investigative team at aktuality.sk, which belongs to Ringier Axel Springer Slovakia, from 2015 onwards. On February 25, 2018 Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová were found dead in their house in Slovakia, they had been shot by hitherto unknown perpetrators.

The members of this year's jury:

• Dunja Hayali, speaker (journalist and television presenter, ZDF)
• Stefan Aust (publisher of WELT)
• Markus Grill (Berlin head of the research network of NDR & WDR)
• Sabrina Hoffmann (Editor-in-Chief of BUSINESS INSIDER Germany)
• Prof. Dr. Wolf Lepenies (Publicist and Sociologist)
• Moritz Müller-Wirth, (Deputy Editor-in-Chief Die Zeit)
• Simone Panteleit (radio and TV journalist, Berliner Rundfunk 91.4)
• Niddal Salah-Eldin (Director of Digital Innovation WELT)
• Tarek Khello (freelance TV journalist and rotating jury member as winner of last year's prize)

The main prizes for young journalists are endowed with 10,000 euros, 5,000 euros, 3,000 euros respectively, and 5,000 euros each for the Excellence Awards and the International Special Award. German-language work by volunteers, freelancers and editors, who were no older than 33 years at the date of publication, could be submitted. Proposers were chief editors and heads of journalism schools.

About the Axel Springer Prize for Young Journalists:

The prize has been awarded by the Axel Springer publishing house and the heirs of the publishing house's founder since 1991. It is awarded every year by the Axel Springer Academy around the date of Axel Springer's birthday, which was May 2. The board of trustee members are: Dr. Mathias Döpfner, Rowan Barnett, Barbara Groth, Marc Thomas Spahl, Dr. h. c. Friede Springer, Prof. Dr. h.c. Dieter Stolte, Sebastian Turner, and Dr. Giuseppe Vita. All information about the prize can be found on the website of the Axel Springer Prize.

Comment on the freedom of the press by Peter Bárdy in the inside.app
On Friday morning, May 4, 2018, the inside.app by Axel Springer will publish exclusively a comment on press freedom by Peter Bárdy, editor-in-chief of the news portal aktuality.sk.