Freelance Journalism Awards 2025 Shortlist!

Let's see who our finalists are

Oct 01, 2025

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Drum roll please! It is time to announce the shortlist for the Freelance Journalism Awards 2025.

Before we get to the big announcement we want to say it took a lot of work to get to this point. We had some staggeringly good entries and an awful lot of you submitted your work. Don’t be disheartened if you didn’t make it this far, the competition was very tough. It shows just what an amazing bunch you are. Most media outlets would completely collapse if they didn’t have their hardworking freelancers so everyone take a little bow.

Now to the serious part. The FFJ team went through the entries very carefully and then had a very long meeting (over a lovely brunch) to whittle down the shortlist for this year’s six categories. These have now gone to our independent judges to make the final verdict. We will announce the winners in the newsletter at the end of this month.

Best specialist journalist - sponsored by Literature and Latte - Makers of Scrivener and Scapple

Gabriella Jozwiak
Specialising in global development, Gabriella submitted pieces covering Tigray, Nepal and Ukraine. See one of her pieces on why the UK aid agency is investing in getting kids out of institutions here.
David Cox
As a health journalist David covers a wide range of topics but to showcase his work he selected contaminated cancer medicines, funding being pulled for a key AIDs drug, and the science of pre-eclampsia.
Liz Cookman
In her role as a freelance foreign correspondent, this year Liz has covered forest fires and anti-government protests in Turkey, the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and the cost of Trump’s aid cuts.
Lauren Jarvis
Sustainable travel is Lauren’s beat with topics from sustainable cruising to community-driven conservation projects, citizen science initiatives and ethical wildlife tourism encounters.
Rosie Taylor
As a freelance journalist specialising in women’s health, Rosie focuses on highlighting the crisis in maternity care and giving a voice to families affected by care failings, including this article on poorer families being denied NHS compensation.
Peter Yeung
Peter covers the climate crisis and environmental issues. He wrote about indigenous farmers in remote southern Kenya, nature defenders in cloud forests of Ecuador and activists in Mexico fighting against Coca Cola.
Melanie Gouby
For the past 15 years, Melanie’s work has focused on the Congo Basin and the intersection of conflict, natural resources, the environment and human rights. Read her piece on how scientists are now unravelling the secrets of Congo’s rainforest.
Rebecca Pitcairn
Rebecca pivoted a few years ago to specialising in writing about wine. Here’s her piece about a vineyard in Hampshire initially planted by the family behind Sainsbury's.

Best news story - Sponsored by Paydesk

Khaled Shalaby was shortlisted for his exclusive ‘Palestinian child in Gaza documentary row holds BBC responsible for fate’
Rachael Healy entered her piece bringing scrutiny on ‘Fresh crisis at “toxic” Strictly as ex-staff claim they faced sexualised comments and cruelty’
Kathryn Torney submitted this shocking piece reporting ‘More than 1,200 arrests for non-fatal strangulation since new NI law introduced’
James Moules was shortlisted for his scoop reporting the ‘MoD gives military training to over a dozen countries with poor human rights records’
Hannah Fearn brought to light stories of lockdown in child prisons titled ‘Like a dog in a kennel’

Best feature - Sponsored by the NUJ London Freelance Branch

Emily Withers entered her radio documentary on ‘The dramatic rise of Saudiwood’
Jessie Williams was shortlisted for her piece on ‘The Palestinian women preserving the ancient art of tatreez’
Harriet Grant spent years working on this topic before publishing this piece titled ‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one’
Adele Waters brought about changes in guidelines after her article about ‘The “barbaric” procedure that leaves women traumatised, in agony and no longer wanting to have sex’
Max Daly tells the tale of of London’s changing street gangs, gentrification, the human side of organised crime, and how it’s hard to get out the game in ‘A Hackney story’
Grace Livingstone did extensive on the ground reporting for her article ‘It’s not drought - it’s looting: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking water’
Jennifer Sizeland pulled together scientific studies with experts and local knowledge for her article on ‘Noxious gas from giant Manchester landfill ruining the lives of residents’
Tom Faber set out to tell the stories of queer elders in his piece ‘Gay old time: inside the UK’s first LGBT+ retirement home’

Best investigation - Sponsored by the NUJ London Freelance Branch

Keaton Stone spent years exposing the Mohamed Al-Fayed and Harrods abuse scandal - see the full BBC documentary here
Will Coldwell investigated the death of Robbie Robson, who was murdered by a colleague while working on a Qatari oil rig
Will Neal uncovered how Moscow’s ties to the Georgian regime ran through Kensington and Chelsea
Adele Walters found out how the Royal College of Physicians got into a mess over physician associates
Finbarr Toesland interrogated how US religious groups are exporting conversion therapy to Europe
Nick Thompson looked into the scammers targeting Instagram influencers

Best opinion writer or columnist

Oliver Haynes writes about French politics and has been known to cause a stir including for this piece on how liberalism went wrong for Macron
Olivia Petter has a weekly Independent Voices column focusing on women’s issues, such as this one on changing room harassment
Hannah Fearn uses her specialist knowledge from reporting on social affairs to bring vital issues to light, including this article calling for scrapping of the DWP

Best early career journalist - Sponsored by Women in Journalism

Zulaikha Khan submitted her piece on Where are all the muslim journalists in sports media?
Antonia Langford reported on The exiled Putin critics fleeing Georgia as Russia tightens its grip
Ellie Philpotts wrote about her experience with blood cancer for a specialist publication
Lucy Frewin gave voice to Fed up Edinburgh tenants ‘waiting three years for repairs’ at their block of flats
Yvette Cook looked at the power of tourism to bring change to women in Saudi Arabia
Matt Dennis reported on how Canada’s first nations shaped the first winter Invictus games

New FFJ Podcast episode

In this week’s episode we discuss financial support for freelance journalists. We speak to Mary Kearns of the Journalists’ Charity and Sophie Pacellini of the Rory Peck Trust to understand how they can help freelance journalists and the wide range of grants and workshops they offer.

Listen now wherever you like to get your podcasts or click the link below.

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