PINF and Changing Ideas are delighted to launch the Tenacious Journalist Awards 2027, offering £12,000 awards and dedicated support for journalism aimed at achieving social change. Applications open now!
The best journalism doesn’t just investigate stories and keep people informed. Great journalism identifies an injustice and changes things. That’s what we call tenacious journalism.
For the last two years, in partnership with Changing Ideas, founded by David Graham, PINF has supported 18 Tenacious Journalists to uncover the truth and drive real change.
The 2026 cohort have put an array of topics under the microscope: illegal children’s homes, adult adoptee healthcare, factory farm pollution, illegal gambling, suicide-enabling websites, faulty health-tech, US evangelical money in UK politics, the treatment of Leicester garment workers and London’s informal health networks.
Tenacious journalists have secured political commitments that can be used to hold the government to account, prompted policy discussions in Westminster and built coalitions for change. Through peer support and coaching, the awardees built their confidence and skills, while staying laser-focused on the impact of their projects.
The second year of the Tenacious Journalist Awards has continued to demonstrate the impact of great journalism. So, we’re delighted to announce that PINF and Changing Ideas are launching a third round: the Tenacious Journalist Awards 2027.
PINF’s Executive Director, Jonathan Heawood says: "It has been a privilege to work alongside such dedicated and thoughtful journalists over the last two years. We believe that every community should be able to benefit from exceptional reporting, so we're delighted to continue working with Changing Ideas to support a third cohort of Tenacious Journalists next year."
When, where, how and how much?
We expect eight prize winners to be selected and awarded £12,000 to produce journalism, across any media, that makes a difference to society. Awardees will join a dedicated peer-learning group to support each other through their projects, helping to overcome challenges they face as they work. There will also be the support of a specialist Impact Editor to help journalists turbocharge the positive impact of their work.
To be eligible for the award, applicants need to be an individual journalist or independent news organisation with a turnover below £2m and no commercial or political affiliations. They must be based in the UK and be focused primarily on public interest news – ethical and impartial journalism that informs and empowers the public.
The funding may be used to enable new journalism, complete an existing piece of investigative work or a combination of the two. Crucially, the project must highlight a social issue and aim to achieve change.
Applications are now open, with a deadline of 5pm, Monday 23 November 2026. We hope to make final decisions in December, with monthly peer-to-peer sessions running from January. Applicants will be asked to describe:
- The planned outputs of the project (e.g. articles, a podcast)
- The short-term changes they hope to see (e.g. raising awareness, prompting debate, uncovering information)
- The longer-term effects that they hope the project will have (e.g. policy change, changes to practices, funding changes)
- The extent to which they have already developed their project (e.g. put in FOI requests, worked on the issue for years)
- Whether they have a publisher/platform on board for the project
- The approach they will use to maximise their impact (e.g. working with campaigners, producing supporting evidence, engaging policymakers)
- Three examples of their work that demonstrate their commitment to high-quality ethical journalism with a positive social impact
- How the award and support would enable their work in ways not otherwise possible.
What works?
In reviewing the projects over the last two years, several themes emerged as pillars of success. We think these could be useful for anyone considering how to boost journalism in the public interest.
- Creating networks. Several journalists acted as networkers, variously connecting campaigners, editors, other journalists, politicians or victims in their constituencies. Journalists played the role of ‘connective tissue’ for their issue.
- Alerting politicians and policymakers. Projects had success in alerting the relevant politicians at different levels with the stories happening in their area, affecting their constituents.
- Providing solutions. Projects didn't just highlight issues — they provided solutions, with some following the ‘solutions journalism’ methodology and others ensuring their reporting included constructive ideas to tackle problems.
- Honesty regarding complexity. Projects didn’t simplify or collapse complex problems into ‘clickbait’ — they acknowledged and reckoned with difficulties and sensitivities, even where this risked being perceived as bias.
- Curiosity. At the heart of the projects were real human stories — stories of lived experience — understood as a result of journalistic curiosity and tenacity to tell the truth and encourage positive change.
- Strength in partnerships. Several projects saw success by partnering with bigger media titles to ensure their stories reached a bigger audience... and to help those bigger titles to improve their methods, like on reporting missing people.
- Momentum matters. Projects with quick outputs really took off as journalists gained connections and ideas on their theme. This made their potential for impact expand exponentially — each published story elicited more responses and follow-ups, and greater impact.
Applications are open now, so get your ideas in by Monday 23 November.
We can’t wait to see the impact that the third cohort of tenacious journalists will make with their investigations.
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