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The Moldovan journalist’s investigation was one of the three candidates for the grand prize of the contest. In the end, the winner in the Investigative Reporting category was named the Center for Journalistic Investigations from Serbia.
At the request of Media Azi, Mariana Rata said that it was a great honor for her to participate in such a competition. “When I registered for the competition, I was rather skeptical – I was candidate number 300 something... When I was told I was on the list of the seven semi-finalists, I was really surprised. Of course I hoped to be named winner in the press investigations category at the award ceremony; but I also understood that I had very strong competitors...,” the journalist told us. However, even if she did not take the grand prize, Mariana Rata believes that this nomination is a major achievement for our investigative journalism. “I succeeded to prove that under harsh conditions and with modest resources Moldovan journalists are able to write press investigations worthy of international awards,” Mariana said.
Four awards were offered within the European Press Prize contest in the following categories: the Innovation Award (Christiaan Triebert from the Netherlands); the Commentator Award (Fintan O’Toole from Ireland) and the Distinguished Writing Award (split between two candidates from Germany: Felix Hutt and reporters’ team “Dialika Neufeld and Class Relotius”).
We shall remind that the material that entered the competition was published in October 2016 and it reports about the production of anabolics in Moldova and their road to the black markets in European countries.