You heard it here first: the judges of the European Press Prize on where the profession is headed

Jennifer Athanasiou-Prins

Jennifer Athanasiou-Prins is the Executive Director of the European Press Prize, a nonprofit foundation that annually awards the best of European journalism. The European Press Prize celebrates and encourages European journalism of the highest quality to help counter the effects of a transforming, pressured market and fragile press freedom - and to stimulate journalists to keep contributing to the quality of European journalism. Additionally, the European Press Prize focusses on offering journalists a source of legitimacy in a time where trust in journalism is declining. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Laws degree with honours as well as a Master of Laws degree in Dutch civil law from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Jennifer specialises in organisational and business development, community building and building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders. Given her legal background, she values governance and equity highly. Due to her bi-cultural background, Jennifer is an advoca...

Clara Jimenez Cruz

Clara Jiménez Cruz is the co-founder and CEO of Maldita.es, a Spanish foundation and nonprofit news organization created to fight disinformation and lies in public discourse through fact-checking and data journalism, which won the innovation European Press Prize in 2021 for its WhatsApp chatbot. She’s also the co-founder of Factchequeado, a project fighting disinformation among Latino communities in the US. After a decade-long career as a TV journalist, Clara, who works regularly with national media organizations in Spain, was appointed to the High Level Group against Disinformation by the European Commission and is the chair of the European Fact-checking Standards Network. She is also a current member of the International Fact-Checking Network Advisory Board. Among other recognitions, she has been awarded a 2019 Ashoka Fellowship and was named Spanish Young Journalist of the Year in 2020.

Cristian Lupsa

Cristian Lupșa is a storyteller, editor, and founder based in Bucharest, Romania. He is currently the chair of the European Press Prize Preparatory Committee. For 13 years he ran DoR, a digital and print magazine that was an important landmark for Romanian independent journalism until it closed in late 2022. His more than two-decades long career has taken him from Romania to the U.S., and back. He co-founded DoR in 2009, and, in 2011, began hosting The Power of Storytelling, an international storytelling conference in Bucharest. In 2020, DoR won the European Press Prize Innovation award, the culmination of a series of experiments it was known for: from launching new products, business models, and formats, to bringing journalism on stage, to creating community. Cristian is a 2014 Nieman Fellow. These days he writes his newsletter Draft Four, coaches young journalists, consults local and regional newsrooms, and still believes well-crafted true stories can connect people, heal wounds, ...

Veronika Munk

Veronika Munk is an award-winning Hungarian journalist with 20+ years of experience. She is working in the management of the leading independent Slovak news outlet Denník N, which has Czech and Hungarian language versions as well. Before her current role, Veronika worked in different leading positions in different leading Hungarian independent news outlets. She was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian independent online news daily, Telex, and before that she was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Index, Hungary’s largest online news daily from where she and her 80+ colleagues resigned in July 2020 due to external political influence on the outlet. Veronika has a media studies PhD and teaches courses on journalism at ELTE University, the largest Hungarian university.

Paul Radu

Paul Radu is co-founder and head of innovation at OCCRP. He founded the organization in 2007 with Drew Sullivan. He leads OCCRP’s major investigative projects, scopes regional expansion, and develops new strategies and technology to expose organized crime and corruption across borders. Paul initiated and led the award-winning Russian, Azerbaijani, and Troika Laundromat investigations, and coined the term “laundromat” to define large scale, all-purpose financial fraud vehicles that are used to launder billions of dollars. He is a co-creator of Investigative Dashboard — a research desk that sifts through datasets to help journalists trace people, companies, and assets — and the Visual Investigative Scenarios software, a tool that lets reporters sketch out the people, institutions, and connections in criminal networks so people can easily follow complex investigations. He is also a co-founder of RISE Project, a platform for investigative reporters in Romania. Paul is an Ashoka Global...

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