Global Shining Light Award 2025

The Global Shining Light Award 2025, presented every two years by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), honors investigative journalism in the Global South conducted under threat, duress, or in the most challenging conditions. For GIJC25, the award is open to stories published or broadcast between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024.

Winning journalists of Global Shining Light Award 2025  will be recognized for their outstanding contributions to investigative journalism, particularly in exposing corruption, human rights violations, and abuses of power, often at great personal risk.

Objectives

• Recognize and honor courageous investigative journalism in the Global South.
• Highlight stories that expose corruption, wrongdoing, or systemic issues affecting the common good.
• Provide a global platform for journalists facing threats and intimidation.

Eligibility Criteria

• Journalists, journalism teams, and media outlets based in the Global South.
• Investigative stories that originated in and impacted a country in the Global South.
• Reports that uncovered corruption, abuses of power, or wrongdoing of significant public interest.
• Journalists who conducted their work despite threats, violence, arrest, imprisonment, or intimidation.

Award Categories

• Small & Medium Outlets – Media organizations with 20 or fewer staff members, including freelancers.
• Large Outlets – Media organizations with more than 20 staff members.

Benefits

• US$2,500 for top winners in each category.
• An honorary plaque awarded at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2025 (GIJC25).
• Winners will be invited to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in November 2025 to receive their awards in front of hundreds of international journalists.

Deadline

The submission deadline is February 28, 2025.

For more details and to apply, click here.