Citation for the overall winner of the 2008/09 Taco Kuiper Awards:
Mail & Guardian – The Arms Deal
The
Mail & Guardian’s extraordinary commitment to the complex arms deal
story is bearing fruit as they have in the last year revealed
substantially more detail, slowly but surely.
The paper, its editor and
staff deserve recognition for their doggedness, chipping away at the
edifice of secrecy and steadily filling in the detail of what must rate
as one of the most important stories of this era.
It is a hydra-headed
tale, and they have been chasing every aspect, using the full range of
investigative techniques: cultivating sources, accessing court
documents, chasing down US records, and using the internet to track
down individuals in obscure places.
They have presented their story in
a readable, graphically-rich way and made it people-centred. This story
has not ended (indeed, one of our judges said it was like one of those
horror films in which the villain never died) but if this remains a
national issue then it is largely because of the excellent work of the
Mail & Guardian team.
The Mail & Guardian's award-winning stories:
Smokes, sex and the arms deal contd.
How arms bribes were paid contd.
Some of the front pages relating to the Arms Deal investigationÂÂÂ
Read the Taco Kuiper runners' up stories – Carte Blanche and City Press – and the keynote address by David Leigh, an investigative journalist in the UK who has dedicated much time and effort to uncovering the UK arms deal.
