Newslaundry reporter Prateek Goyal is among the five journalists shortlisted for the Vishwa Nath-Delhi Press Award for Fearless Journalism for 2024. The award will be presented at a ceremony on March 21 in Delhi, where Justice S Muralidhar will deliver the BG Verghese memorial lecture.

The other nominees are Aakriti Handa from The Quint, Bismee Taskin from The Print, Gireesh Jalihal from The Reporters’ Collective and Rokibuz Zaman from Scroll. 

The award, which makes its debut this year, is instituted by The Media Foundation in memory of Vishwa Nath, founder of Delhi Press. It “recognises journalistic work that has demonstrated a fearless commitment to uncovering important truths, challenging power structures across political, societal, business or cultural realms, questioning orthodoxies and upholding the public’s right to knowledge”. 

It also “underscores the resilience of both journalists and their media institutions, whose courage reinforces the foundational role of a free press”.

Other awards

The Media Foundation was set up in 1979 in the aftermath of the Emergency to “protect press freedom” in India. Under its aegis, two other journalism awards will be presented at the event on March 21.

The Chameli Devi Jain Award, named after freedom fighter and community reformer Chameli Devi Jain, focuses on honouring women journalists. The nominees for 2024 are Divya Arya of BBC, Jatinder Kaur Tur from Caravan, Nushaiba Iqbal from IndiaSpend, Roli Srivastava from The Migration Story, Sukanya Shantha from The Wire, and Tapasya from The Reporters’ Collective. 

The newly-instituted Kamla Mankekar Award for Journalism on Gender recognises “outstanding reporting on gender-related issues”. The nominees for 2024 are Nushaiba Iqbal from IndiaSpend, Priyanka Tupe from BehanBox, Shobana Radhakrishnan from Citizen Matters, Tapasya from The Reporters’ Collective, and independent journalists Makepeace Sitlhou, Sanket Jain and Saumya Kalia.

Prateek’s journalism isn’t powered by ads from governments and corporates. It’s powered by people like you, subscribers who see the value in Newslaundry’s work and pay to keep news free. Click here to join their tribe.

And click here to support our new Sena series, The Impunity of India’s Police.