Henri Nannen Prize 2012 Goes To Nick Davies

The Gruner + Jahr publishing house and “Stern” magazine have announced the winner of this year's Henri Nannen Prize for Outstanding Commitment to Press Freedom: “Guardian” journalist Nick Davies.

Davies broke the News International phone-hacking scandal with his research, which is still ongoing. At times against opposition from fellow journalists, he reported on the illegal phone hacking and bribery methods used by the Murdoch empire’s “News of the World” in the UK to get information. While between 2005 and 2007 it appeared as though mainly celebrities and politicians were being phone hacked, in 2011 Davies’ research showed that private individuals, including soldiers, widows and the mailbox of a 13-year-old murder victim, were also hacked. Following public protests and threatened boycotts by advertisers against News Corporation, Murdoch decided to close the “News of the World” after 168 years of publication. The scandal has since spread to the British government and America, where the News Corporation is headquartered. The newspaper scandal is the biggest in British postwar history and has triggered a worldwide debate about the morality and power of the media.

Nick Davies was born Nicholas John Allen in 1953, the son of middle-class parents in the south of England. After a PPE degree at Oxford he began his career as a journalist for a regional paper in Devon. In 1976 Davies joined The Mirror Group, publisher of the tabloid “Sunday People,” as a trainee. In 1979 he became a reporter for the “Guardian” and since 1989 he has written for it as a freelance journalist based in his hometown of Lewes, where he lives with his partner. Davies has three grown children.

Thomas Osterkorn, “Stern” Editor-In-Chief, says: "Press freedom is a vital commodity in any democratic society. Anyone who abuses freedom of the press to justify the massive violation of privacy rights endangers it by bringing about the threat of cuts and sanctions. The media are only credible in their monitoring of the powerful in government and business if they do not use unethical means and also reciprocally monitor each other.

“With his revelations about the phone hacking scandal on an unprecedented scale in England, Nick Davies set in motion a huge process of self-cleansing in the British media, and has thus made an outstanding contribution to the protection of press freedom. At the same time, his courageous and tenacious research has triggered an essential global debate about the power and morality of the press, which was more than overdue in England, the motherland of press freedom. For this, we honour him with the Henri Nannen Prize for Press Freedom."

Gruner + Jahr and its magazine “Stern” are awarding the ‘Henris’ for the eighth time this year. In addition to the award for outstanding commitment to press freedom and a Journalistic Lifetime Achievement award it honours the best journalistic work published in German in print and online media in 2011 . Journalists submitted a total of 872 works from 154 print and online publications for the ‘Henris 2012’ in the categories of Reportage , Investigative, Documentary , Essay, Photojournalism and Special Prize. The prize is endowed with total prize money of €35,000.

The prize-giving ceremony emceed by (German journalist and TV presenter) Judith Rakers will be held on 11 May 2012 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. It will also be streamed live in its entirety for the first time, from 19:30 on www.stern.de.