Guardian journalists John Harris and John Domokos have won the Orwell prize for journalism for revealing “deeper truths about the inequalities of society” through their video series.
Harris and Domokos won the award for their series Anywhere But Westminster, which has been running for more than 10 years, chronicling the tumultuous political events of the decade.
The prize is awarded for commentary or reporting, which comes closest to the writer George Orwell’s ambition to “make political writing into an art”. The pair were previously nominated for the 2020 Orwell prize for Journalism.
The judges were Carrie Gracie, former BBC China editor; Clive Myrie, multiaward winning journalist; Iain Martin, editor, publisher, and co-founder of Reaction; Kamran Abbasi, doctor, and executive editor for content at the British Medical Journal; and Rosie Blau, editor of the Economist’s 1843 magazine.
Gracie, the chair of judges, said the pair’s winning entry “rose to the Orwell challenge” by “getting up and down the country, talking to ordinary people, listening so hard to their stories and putting those stories at the heart of our understanding of contemporary Britain”.
In a recorded acceptance speech, the winners paid tribute to the quality of the year’s shortlist, and also dedicated the award to the people who had taken part in their videos. “It’s a great honour and thrill to receive this prize,” Harris said, “particularly because of George Orwell, who has always been a great influence and lodestar for us both.”
Myrie said: “The winning entry encapsulated the very best of what the Orwell prize is all about. Giving voice to their subjects in their own words, the two Johns revealed deeper truths about the inequalities of society, so graphically exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“This was a fascinating, curated journey along roads journalists don’t travel as often as perhaps they should around Britain. It was a deeply affecting series of reports, respectful of those so often disrespected, simply by virtue of the fact that they are poor.”
Every year the Orwell Foundation awards the Orwell prizes for the best politically engaged writing and reporting, from fiction to investigative journalism.
The Orwell Foundation also revealed the winners of its prize for political writing, for political fiction, and for exposing Britain’s social evils. Annabel Deas won the latter award for Hope High, a seven-part podcast documenting the year she spent with a community in Huddersfield.
