The judges for the Orwell Prize 2012:
Book judges
Miranda Carter
Miranda is a writer and biographer who won the Orwell Prize for Books 2002 for Anthony Blunt: His Lives. Her latest book is The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the Road to World War One (2009).
Helena Kennedy
Helena is a barrister and an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues. She is a member of the House of Lords, chair of Arts and Business, produced the Power Report (2006) and was a founding member of Charter 88 and previously chair of the British Council. She is a board member of the Media Standards Trust, a trustee of the British Museum and the Booker Prize Foundation, and patron of many charities. Her book, Just Law, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2005.
Sameer Rahim
Sameer has worked in literary journalism for five years, reviewing both fiction and non-fiction. He currently works as assistant books editor at the Daily Telegraph. He was a judge for the 2011 Forward Prize for poetry.
Journalism judges
Brian Cathcart
Brian won the Orwell Prize for Books in 2000 for The Case of Stephen Lawrence. Now the professor in journalism at Kingston University, he was previously deputy editor and foreign editor of the Independent on Sunday and has written for outlets including The Independent, Financial Times, New Statesman, The Big Issue, The Guardian and Index on Censorship. He was specialist adviser to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s inquiry into press standards, privacy and libel (2008-10) and is one of the founders of the Hacked Off campaign.
Ian Hargreaves
Ian is professor of digital economy at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. He worked for the Financial Times for 11 years before joining the BBC as managing editor, and then director, of News and Current Affairs. He rejoined the FT as deputy editor before leaving to edit The Independent in 1994 and the New Statesman in 1996. He conducted the Hargreaves Review of intellectual property and growth, the report, Digital Opportunity, being published in May 2011, and wrote Journalism: A Very Short Introduction (2005).
Blog judges
Suzanne Moore
Suzanne is an award-winning journalist, currently writing for The Guardian and the Mail on Sunday. She has previously written for Marxism Today, The Independent and the New Statesman (where she was contributing editor). She stood as an independent during the 2010 General Election, for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.
Hopi Sen
Hopi has been shortlisted and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Blogs. He started working for the Labour Party in 2000 (after ‘escaping a lucrative career in advertising’) as northern region press officer, and later in other roles including head of campaigns for the Parliamentary Labour Party. He now works for a member of the House of Lords.
Sean Dodson
Sean is a a senior lecturer of Journalism at Leeds Metropolitan University and Worcester University. He has contributed to the Guardian for ten years and recently wrote a chapter of this year’s The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial.