Power Brokers won the 2007 Global Shining Light Award presented in Toronto, Canada
Power Brokers was a comprehensive investigation into the energy crisis that caused massive power outages in villages in Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Albania. The series exposed the questionable power deals cornered by shadowy businessmen operating across the Balkans. These deals brought huge profits to power traders but have resulted in exorbitant electricity rates that impoverished citizens cannot afford. Power Brokers was the result of the collaboration among six reporters: Paul Christian Radu and Sorin Ozon from the Romania Centre for Investigative Journalism, Eldina Pleho and Alison Knezevic from the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Stanimir Vlaglenov from Bulgaria, and Altin Raxhimi from Albania.
According to the judges, this award-winning series serves as a model for investigative journalism. It demonstrates the power of teamwork in reporting a highly complex issue and in piecing together a story using public documents and extensive interviews in the Balkans and in Europe. It was a risky undertaking that scared off other potential team members.
“What set Power Brokers apart was that these stories were written under the harshest conditions in societies where access to information is often non-existent and where investigative reporters face harassment, imprisonment and even death for simply doing their jobs,” said Luz Rimban, member of the judging committee. “Selecting the best among the number of entries was a difficult task, but we were unanimous in our choice.”
Gangsterism and the Faulty Legal System won the 2008 Global Shining Light Award presented in Lillehammer, Norway
Sonali Samarasinghe and the Sunday Leader decided enough was enough. What started as an attempt to follow-up on the beating of a bar patron by the son and body guards of a powerful government minister became an investigation that exposed how that government minister used his power and connections to the Prime Minister, to run roughshod over the media and the justice system. Samarasinghe tracked down all the people connected to the beating and in the process found many other people, including police officers and lawyers with stories of corruption and brutality by the government minister and his son.
The stories ran four days of stories over three months and after the last story aired thugs broke into the newspaper offices, burned down the presses, torched the papers being loaded onto trucks for delivery and assaulted three newspaper employees. A month later, Minister Silva broke into the offices of the state controlled television station, outraged that the station had not broadcast a certain politic story. He manhandled the News Director and threatened the staff. The staff of the station stood up to the Minister.
This story showed the importance of cultivating sources, convincing people to talk and gathering the documentation to back it all up.