This is the official call for entries for the 2026 True Story Award! Published reports from all over the world can be submitted as of now. This truly global journalism prize, which will be awarded for the sixth time next year, is presented to authors in three categories:
True Story Award Research
This award recognises high-quality journalistic research. The assessment takes into account: the scope of the research, the time invested, data analysis, the difficulty of obtaining information and any risks taken.
True Story Award Storytelling
This award recognises the outstanding linguistic quality of a text. The following factors are taken into account in the assessment: structure and composition of the text, combination of facts and prose, narrative elegance, non-fictional literary quality.
True Story Award Impact
This award recognises the impact of a report on society. The following factors are taken into account in the assessment: news value, reader response, possible further consequences in politics, business and society.
Of course, the ideal reportage demonstrates strengths in all three of the aspects mentioned. You must decide in which of the three categories your text should preferably be evaluated. The application procedure will remain unchanged.
Click here to apply and read the participation terms.
The call for entries is open until 31 October 2025 (12 pm UTC). We accept reports published between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025 in one of ten of the most important world languages; or as a translation, if the original was not written in one of these languages. Editors may also submit reports from their publications.
The jury, consisting of renowned experts from the fields of journalism, publishing, teaching and literature, will read and evaluate all texts submitted, nominating one author per category and language region for the True Story Award 2026. A total of 36 journalists will receive an invitation to attend the True Story Award ceremony and the True Story Festival in Bern, Switzerland, from 4 to 8 June 2026. The main purpose of the award is to bring journalists from all over the world together and enable an exchange with audiences in Bern. There, the main jury, consisting of seven representatives of all five continents, will choose three winners from the nominated reports. The winner of each category will receive a USD 20,000 cash prize.
We look forward to receiving your submissions! Join us in this global initiative for transparency and media freedom.
The call for entries for the True Story Award 2026 will begin on 22 September 2025. From this date onwards, texts can once again be submitted in the three categories «Storytelling», «Research» and «Impact».
The winners of the 2025 True Story Award were announced on Friday evening in Bern. National Council President Maja Riniker opened the award ceremony in front of over 300 guests, including the 36 nominated reporters. Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov then spoke about the global threat of fake news and called on the Swiss government to exert pressure on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The highlight of the evening was the announcement of the four winners in the newly created categories “Impact”, “Research” and “Storytelling” by the main jury.
The winner of the True Story Award in the category “Storytelling” is Philippe Broussard for his reportage Looking for the Mysterious Photographer who Snapped the Nazis, published in Le Monde. The jury feels that this text is an “extraordinary example of storytelling, as well as research, one that restores the integrity of an individual who had been sidelined by history nearly a century after the dramatic events he documented. Broussard has given us a powerful narrative that reconnects us to a past that, we now know, was never truly past.”
The winner of the True Story Award in the category “Research” is Sara Abu Shadi for her text The Russian Trap, published in Masrawy. According to the Jury, “this is a meticulous and fearless investigation and reveals the story of foreign mercenaries hired to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Her research vividly exposes the underworld of commercial networks that feed off today’s wars. Abu Shadi gives voice to the people involved on all sides; the recruiters as well as the recruited. She deserves our respect for achieving this in a hostile reporting environment.”
The winners of the True Story Award in the category “Impact” are Alex Perry with Revelations of Atrocities, published in Politico Europe, and Murad Higazy with The Argany Peninsula, published in Mada Masr. The jury feels strongly that this year, two pieces stand out for their unparalleled investigative work and the impact they both have had. “For the first time, the True Story Award honors two winners. The Argany Peninsula tells the story of an Egyptian kingpin who sells freedom to Palestinians trying to escape the horrors of Gaza. The Revelations of Atrocities exposes a campaign of organized violence against hundreds of civilians on behalf of a major French oil company in Mozambique. Both stories are exceptional examples of brave, bold, and impactful reporting at a time when the integrity of journalism is under global threat.”
All three winners receive the sum of US$ 20 000 each (split in two in the category “Impact”). The winners beat out 32 other nominees present in Bern. In total, 1049 entries were submitted from 102 countries in 25 languages. All nominees will present their work to the public at 45 events in the heart of Bern on Saturday and Sunday at the True Story Festival.
The True Story Award is the first globally-oriented journalism award, aiming to set an example and motivate journalists all over the world. Furthermore, its aim is to make reporters' voices known beyond the borders of their home countries, and in doing so, to increase the diversity of perspectives offered in the media.
The True Story Award is conferred by an independent foundation and honors the work of reporters who have distinguished themselves by the depth of their research, the quality of their journalism and its social relevance.
See below for the full list of winners and finalists.
For further information, please contact Daniel Puntas Bernet, curator of the True Story Award: +41 78 662 5447 and daniel.puntas@truestoryaward.org.
True Story Award – Impact
Alex Perry
Revelations of Atrocities at French Energy Giant's African Stronghold
Original Language: English
Country: France
First Published: Politico Europe, Belgium, 26 September 2024
مدى مصر – Murad Higazy
The Argany Peninsula
Original Language: Arabic
Country: Egypt
First Published: مدى مصر, Egypt, 12 February 2024
Finalists:
Paulo Barriga: The Adventures of Ricardo Salgado of Arabia
Pedro Pannunzio: Manipulation Center
True Story Award – Research
سارة أبوشادي – Sara Abu Shadi
The Russian Trap
Original Language: Arabic
Country: Egypt
First Published: مصراوي, Egypt, 23 September2024
Finalists:
Ye Charlotte Ming: German Museums Reassessing Chinese Treasures
Kevin Brühlmann: Greed and Madness in the Berformance Universe
Sarah Stillman: What Makes a Murder?
True Story Award – Storytelling
Philippe Broussard
Looking for the Mysterious Photographer who Snapped Occupied Paris and Mocked the Nazis
Original Language: French
Country: France
First Published: Le Monde, France, August 13, 2024
Finalists:
Kiprop Kimutai: A Stranger in Saint-Paul de Vence
Michael Schilliger: He was 19
Gabriela Ramirez / Tina Xu: Widowed by Europe's Borders
True Story Award Trailer [English] on Vimeo.
A total of 36 feature reports are nominated for the True Story Award 2025. The wide variety of texts published between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024 reflect global current affairs, such as the the ongoing war in Ucraine, the human trafficking in Africa and Asia, threats to journalists in Mexico and other countries or the search for new bacterias to fight the next pandemie. The nominated texts also shed a light on events such as the masspanic at the Haji to Mecca or evidence of strategic production of fake news in the Brazilian elections, and offer insights into missmanagment in large organisations such as the French Giant TotalEngergy, Amazon or the European Parliament. The nominees were chosen from 1049 submissions from 102 countries, written in 25 different languages.
The 36 nominees will be invited to the True Story Festival in Bern from June 20-22, 2025 where their work will be presented to the public at individual events in the centre of the Swiss capital. The three winning texts in the categories storytelling excellence, impact and relevance, and research intensity will be chosen by our Main-Jury and announced at the award's ceremony on June 20.
We congratulate our colleagues on their nomination and look forward to welcoming them in Bern!
Daniel Puntas Bernet
Curator
True Story Award
The fifth edition of the True Story Awards attracted the record number of 1049 texts from 102 countries, written in 25 different languages.
The 36 jury members read them and evaluated them on the premise of the three newly created categories of storytelling excellence, impact and relevance, and research intensity. About 10 percent, a total of 108 texts made it onto a shortlist, which we are publishing here.
«The quality of the entries was extremely high, which naturally made the choice even more difficult this year than in previous years», says Fiona Leney from the English-speaking jury. Former Africa Correspondent Christoph Plate observed «many exciting entries from the African continent – especially those ones looking for solutions to the problems narrated.» Spanish TV-legend Rosa Maria Calaf comments: «The mostly excellent and very diverse entries shed light on relevant stories worldwide, emphasizing the critical role of journalism in building strong democracies that citizens must now recognize and support.» And her colleague Wu Qi adds: «Quality improves year after year. The shortlist in Chinese could definitely have been longer.»
The three texts nominated for each of the twelve world regions/language areas will be announced mid-January. Their authors will be invited to the Award Ceremony on 20 June, and the following True Story Festival, 21/22 June 2025 in Bern, Switzerland.
Daniel Puntas Bernet
Curator
True Story Award
The jury, consisting of renowned experts from the fields of journalism, publishing, teaching and literature, is currently reading and evaluating all texts submitted.
The Shortlist will be published by end of the year.
This will be followed by the nomination of one author per category and language region for the True Story Award 2025. A total of 36 journalists will receive an invitation to attend the True Story Award ceremony and the True Story Festival in Bern, Switzerland, which will take place from 20 to 22 June 2025.
This is the official call for entries for the 2025 True Story Award! Published reports from all over the world can be submitted as of now. This truly global journalism prize, which will be awarded for the fifth time next year, has an important new feature. The True Story Award 2025 will be presented to authors in three categories:
True Story Award Research
This award recognises the quality of journalistic research, taking into account the extent of the research, time invested and country-specific circumstances.
True Story Award Storytelling
This award recognises a reporter's writing talent, taking into account journalistic craftsmanship, truthfulness and narrative elegance.
True Story Award Impact
This award recognises the impact of a report, taking into account the country-specific relevance of a text and its potential impact on society, politics and the economy.
The winner of each category will receive a USD 20 000 cash prize.
The jury will assign all entries to one of these three categories. For you, dear colleagues, the procedure will remain unchanged. Click here for the call for entries and the participation terms.
The call for entries is open until 22 October 2024 (12 pm UTC). We accept reports published between 1 October 2023 and 30 September 2024 in one of ten of the most important world languages; or as a translation, if the original was not written in one of these languages. Editors may also submit reports from their publications.
The jury, consisting of renowned experts from the fields of journalism, publishing, teaching and literature, will read and evaluate all texts submitted, nominating one author per category and language region for the True Story Award 2025. A total of 36 journalists will receive an invitation to attend the True Story Award ceremony and the True Story Festival in Bern, Switzerland, which will take place from 20 to 22 June 2025. The main purpose of the award is to bring journalists from all over the world together and enable an exchange with audiences in Bern. There, the main jury, consisting of seven representatives of all five continents, will choose three winners from the nominated reports.
We look forward to receiving your submissions! Join us in this global initiative for transparency and media freedom.
Good luck and best wishes,
Daniel Puntas Bernet
Curator
True Story Award
Media Release and Pictures:
The winners of the True Story Award 2024 were announced in Bern on Friday evening. Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider opened the award ceremony in front of 300 guests, including the 36 nominated reporters. Afterwards, cartoonist Patrick Chappatte outlined the current state of the global media landscape in an exciting keynote speech. The highlight of the evening was the announcement of the three award winners by the main jury.
Rahul Bhatia (center), winner first price, and Juan José Martinez d'Aubuisson (left), winner third price, with Host Carolin Roth at the True Story Award 2024
First prize goes to a work that stands out for its originality, finesse and scrupulous attention to detail. A man has seen, and he wants to testify, to name names. But he is only one man, and his words are not listened to by the police or the courts. We are in India, the land of exclusion. The man persists: he believes in justice and he will not give in. For two years, the journalist follows the man, investigating what he has seen, his family, his environment and his legal action. In small, elegant and meaningful strokes, he paints a nuanced portrait of a country. The world's most populous country, with 1.4 billion inhabitants. One of the most complex and difficult to tell. Rahul Bhatia brilliantly wins first prize for The Trials of an Indian Witness: How a Muslim Man was caught in a Legal Nightmare.
Second prize is awarded to a story that illustrates the power of persistent digging. A deeply reported expose of wrongdoing against some of society’s most vulnerable members, and the govt failure to protect them. Elegantly written, revealing layers of endemic institutionalized hypocrisy and social duplicity. Thought-provoking in its complexity and presentation of contradictions, second prize goes to the story of a migrant child laborer in a slaughterhouse in the US who is caught in an exploitative system he can’t escape. Congratulations to Hannah Dreier for The Kids on the Night Shift.
The third prize goes to a harrowing, unforgettable piece that thrusts us directly into the bloodstained cell-blocks of a Honduran women’s prison. The journalist vividly reconstructs a massacre of forty-six female prisoners at the hands of rival inmates. Through a combination of courageous reporting inside the criminal underground and firsthand interviews with the women involved, the author provides us with an extraordinary ground-level view of Latin America’s chronic problems of violence, corruption and social inequality. The third price goes to Juan José Martinez d’Aubuisson, for We, The Massacred.
The winners beat out 33 other nominees present in Bern. In total, 942 entries were submitted from 101 countries in 18 languages. All nominees will present their work to the public at 40 events in the heart of Bern on Saturday and Sunday at the True Story Festival.
The True Story Award is the first globally-oriented journalism award, aiming to set an example and motivate journalists all over the world. Furthermore, its aim is to make reporters' voices known beyond the borders of their home countries, and in doing so, to increase the diversity of perspectives offered in the media. The True Story Award is conferred by an independent foundation and honors the work of reporters who have distinguished themselves by the depth of their research, the quality of their journalism and its social relevance.
A total of 36 feature reports are nominated for the True Story Award 2024. The topics of the texts published in 2022/2023 reflect current world events in a wide variety. The nominees were chosen from 974 submissions from 101 countries.
The 36 nominees coming from 24 different countries will be invited to the True Story Festival in Bern from May 24-26, 2024 where their work will be presented to the public at individual events in the city centre of the Swiss capital.
During the festival, the main jury, representing five continents - including Nuruddin Farah from South Africa, China's Xiaolu Guo and American Jon Lee Anderson - will select the three winning texts, which will be announced at the award's ceremony on May 24.
We congratulate our colleagues on their nomination and look forward to welcoming them in Bern!
Daniel Puntas Bernet
Initiator True Story Award
The fourth edition of the True Story Awards attracted 942 texts from 101 countries, written in 18 different languages.
The 36 members of the jury read them, assessing relevance, research intensity, text design, journalistic truthfulness and impact. A total of 99 texts made it onto a shortlist, which we are publishing here.
The quality was extremely high in many of the categories, making the final selection a tough struggle for the individual jurors. Moreover the quality of the investigative work in other regions of the world in particular has increased significantly compared to previous years. In addition to global events such as war, religious conflicts, environmental offences and economic crime, many personal stories stand out in 2023, which recount major events on a human scale.
The three texts nominated for each of the twelve world regions/language areas will be announced mid-January. Their authors will be invited to the Award Ceremony on 24 May, and the following True Story Festival, 25/26 May 2024 in Bern, Switzerland.
With this message we're sending out the call for entries for the 2024 True Story Award. Texts from all over the world and in ten different languages can be submitted. Once again, this truly global Award is looking for the best stories from around the world that illuminate local events from a variety of perspectives.
Click here for the call for entries and the conditions.
The call for entries will run until 5 November 2023 and texts published between 1 September 2022 and 30 September 2023 will be accepted. Compared to previous years, editorial offices can now also submit the best texts from their publications. In the categories «Europe», «World I» and «World II», texts in all other languages - together with a summary in English - are also accepted. The jury, consisting of 36 renowned experts from journalism, will then read and evaluate all texts. From these, three authors from each of the 12 categories will be nominated for the True Story Award 2024. They will receive an invitation to the True Story Festival in Bern at the end of May. The underlying core of the award is the gathering of journalists from all over the world and the exchange with audience in Bern. On site, the 7-member main jury, consisting of representatives from all five continents, will select the three winning texts.
We look forward to receiving your submissions! Join us in this global initiative for transparency and media freedom.
The True Story Award jury is getting three renowned new members: In the category «English» US-American Ken Armstrong and British-Australian Caroline Lees; in the category «German» Austrian Antonia Rados.
Ken Armstrong is a reporter at ProPublica, where he specializes in longform narratives with an investigative base. He has won Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting and explanatory reporting, and shared in two staff Pulitzers for breaking news. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post and The Paris Review. A graduate of Purdue University, Armstrong has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and the McGraw professor of writing at Princeton.
Caroline Lees has worked as a reporter and editor on national newspapers for more than 30 years, including time as the South Asia correspondent for the Sunday Times. She has also reported from Africa, where she covered the 1994 end of apartheid elections from Johannesburg. Caroline has worked as a research officer at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, supervising research projects for journalists from all over the world.
Antonia Rados has been working as a crisis and war reporter for various German media since 1990. She was the only German-speaking journalist to report on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. She has done several reports in the trouble spots Afghanistan, Iran or Egypt. Rados is the author of several non-fiction books. Twice she was awarded the German Television Prize for reports from Iraq and Yemen, and nominated for an Emmy in America for a report from Somalia.
The three new jurors replace their predecessors Jacqui Banaszynski, Michela Wrong and Ingrid Thurnher, whom we would like to take this opportunity to thank for their dedicated work since the beginning in 2019.
Tonight the winners of the third True Story Awards were announced in Bern. In the presence of 200 guests, Mascha Santschi presented this year’s 12 finalists from all corners of the globe. Nicola Steiner, representing the main international jury, presented the global journalism award to the three winners, after which actors from the city’s theatre read the winning texts to the audience.
The winner of the main prize of CHF 25'000 is Marzio G. Mian from Italy. His reportage Hazard to the northeast appeared in Internazionale. The text tells of the first floating nuclear platform of our time, located in the northeast of Russia, on the coast of Siberia, in the port of the city of Pevek. A contemporary Chernobyl on ice, built in one of the most politically, economically and ecologically unstable regions in the world. Mian focuses on a threat that affects us all but that has remained hidden until now. A catastrophe that is not happening but that could happen at any time. A story that reads like science fiction but that could hardly be more real.
The second prize of CHF15'000 goes to Juan José Martínez d’Aubuisson from El Salvador for his text How the MS13 became lords of the trash dump in Honduras, published in Insight Crime. With vivid scenes in a huge mafia-run trash dump in Honduras and testimony from crime bosses in a maximum-security prison, Martínez d’Aubuisson has created a remarkable journalistic document that reveals links between the Honduran state and its underworld. It also warns how state indifference, popular marginalisation, poverty and political opportunism are breeding grounds for the collapse of democracies.
The third prize of CHF 10'000 was won by American journalist Katia Patin for her reportage Poland’s Ministry of Memory spins the Holocaust, published in Coda Story. The text is a chilling account of the struggle against a state-sponsored propaganda machine that seeks to rewrite an ugly chapter of Poland’s past and erase memory from the collective mind. It powerfully underscores the spectre of this history, which is set in Poland but has unmistakable echoes of other regions as countries around the globe move towards a nationalist and often racist right.
The winners beat out nine other finalists present in Bern who, as well as all of the other 24 nominees, will each receive CHF 1'000 in prize money. In total, over 900 entries were submitted from 94 countries in 21 languages.
We are in the final phase of the 2023 True Story Award. Thirty-six stories out of more than 900 entries from 94 countries were nominated by preliminary juries for the respective language areas/world regions. Now the main jury has reduced the shortlist to 12 stories, one per language area/region. Those 12 nominees will travel to Bern for the True Story Festival, starting with an awards ceremony on Friday, June 23 at 8 pm where the three main winners will be announced. On Saturday, June 24, all nominees will present their work to the public at individual events in the city centre of Bern. You can find the whole festival programme here: www.truestoryfestival.org.
Read the texts of the the 12 finalists here…
The third edition of the True Story Awards once again attracted more than 900 texts from 95 countries. Members of the jury read them, assessing relevance, research intensity, text design, journalistic truthfulness and impact. A total of 94 texts made it onto a shortlist, which we publish here.
The contents of these reports reflect current world events. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the economic and social consequences of the Corona pandemic and the consequences of advancing climate change all feature, viewed from a range of geographical and cultural perspectives. Political protest, migration movements, state and individual violence, economic fraud and the oppression of minorities are other themes running through many of the submitted texts.
They not only paint a multi-layered picture of recent events, they offer the reader some unexpected insights. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the authors manage to discern moments of hope and confidence in crisis-ridden times.
The three texts nominated for each of the twelve world regions/language areas are known by now as well. The award ceremony of the True Story Award 2023 will take place on 23 June 2023 in Bern.
Dear colleagues
With this message we’re sending out the call for entries for the 2023 True Story Award. Once again, we are looking for the best stories from around the world that illuminate global events from a variety of perspectives.
We have made a few adjustments to the process due to what we learned in the last several years, also during the long break caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. But the most important aspects remain the same:
The underlying core of the award is the gathering of journalists from all over the world and the exchange with audience in Bern. We are working to ensure that the Festival, which is connected to the award, will take place once again. The expected dates are June 22-26, 2023. Provided the festival takes place, one person per nominated text will be invited to Bern, Switzerland to take part (travel, accommodation, meals included).
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
The main jury of the global journalism award, consisting of seven renowned experts from North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, awarded the first three places and four other published articles after a full-day meeting in the Bernese Oberland.
The winner of the main prize of CHF 30 000 is Jacobo García from Mexico for his same article The Murky Waters of the Caribbean, published in El País.
The second prize of CHF 20 000 goes to the German journalist Nina Schick for her reportage Under the Cross, published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine.
The third prize of CHF 10 000 goes to the American journalist Sarah A. Topol for her reportage The Schoolteacher and the Genocide, published in the New York Times Magazine.
Banafsheh Samgis (Iran), City of the Condemned
Yulia Vishnevetskaya and Misha Yashnov (Russia), The Elusive Star of Soviet Art Brut
Pablo de Llano (Spain), And Thus We Lost the Generation that Changed Spain
Xiaoqing An (China), The Ci Poem on the Burial of Fallen Flowers, the Glue Applicator, and the Love Letter
2026年瑞士伯尔尼首届全球记者奖
Premio global de reportaje 2026 en Berna, Suiza
Prix international du Grand Reportage, Berne, 2026
बर्न, स्विटज़रलैंड में प्रथम वैश्विक पत्रकार पुरस्कार 2026
Premio mondiale per Reporter del 2026 a Berna, Svizzera
世界初のグローバルなリポーター賞、2026年スイス、ベルンで開催
Prêmio global para repórteres 2026 em Berna, Suíça
Первая международная премия для репортёров 2026 в Берне, Швейцария
أول جائزة عالمية للمراسلين الصحفيين 2026 في مدينة بيرن بسويسرا
اولین جایزهی جهانی خبرنگاری 2026 در برن سویس
أول جائزة عالمية للمراسلين الصحفيين 2026 في مدينة بيرن بسويسرا
اولین جایزهی جهانی خبرنگاری 2026 در برن سویس
