Johann Hari's Acceptance Speech
Full text below - from Johann Hari's website.
The speech has been widely reported:
[This is a rough approximation of what I said, because I was a bit shocked and rambled and can't really remember my exact words.]
I’m just wondering if I can use this Orwell Prize as I.D. next time I get asked if I’m old enough to buy alcohol…
Any political writer loves to think that they are lone rangers who stand alone against the world, but in fact we are totally dependent on so many people who make our work possible, so I’m afraid I’ve got a Gwyneth Paltrow-ish list of people I want to thank, but I’ll try not to cry.
The most important people to thank are the stringers and translators who I work with when I travel to some of the world’s dodgier places – people like Abdul Halim, who I just worked with in Bangladesh, or Idris Ahmed who I worked with in the Central African Republic. They keep you safe, and they take the flak for your stories long after you’ve gone.
I’d also like to thank the journalists and political writers who have shaped my thinking from when I was a teenager, inspired me and in some cases personally encouraged me: Clive James, Polly Toynbee, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and George Monbiot in particular.
I'd like to thank my friends, who help me figure out what I think by constantly arguing with me, and by reading my articles and telling me when I've gone mad - particularly Tanya Gold, Rob Blackhurst, Alex Higgins, Emily De Peyer, Jessica Smerin, Dave Pearson, Anna Powell-Smith, Jospeha Jacobson, Chris Wilkinson and Peter Marshall. A special award for endurance also goes to my wonderful friend Antonia Cedrone, who endured the National Review cruise with me and kept me sane...
I also owe a huge debt to Adrian Hamilton, Cristina Patterson, Simon O’Hagan, Matt Hoffman and everyone on the comment desk at the Independent, and to Louise Hayman and our legal team, who save me from bankrupting the newspaper every week.
But most of all I’d like to thank the two editors I’ve worked for in my career. Simon Kelner has been an incredible boss. There are very few editors who, if you went to them and said that there’s an obscure war in an obscure part of Africa and you’d like to check it out at his expense for three weeks, would say yes. He’s given me guidance and support when I needed it, and freedom when I didn’t. He has let me say anything I wanted, no matter how mad it seemed. He’s backed me with the resources that you need to be a good columnist and not just somebody who sees the world through google, and it’s been a privilege to work for him for the past five years.
And I’d also like to thank Peter Wilby, the former editor of the New Statesman – and this brings up something I feel a bit guilty and anxious about. There’s a lot of media people here tonight, so I think it’s important to talk about, even though it’s difficult.
When I graduated, I suddenly realised that if you want to become a journalist, you have to work unpaid in Central London for as long as two years – and I just couldn’t afford it. There was no way I could. There are a lot of better writers than me out there – people who deserve to win this prize – who fall at that hurdle. They’re out; they go and work in some other less rewarding industry. Basically, if you don’t have rich parents, it is increasingly impossible to become a journalist in Britain – and that is really bad not just for social justice but for the newspapers themselves.
So I went to Peter Wilby, who had published some of my articles when I was a student, and explained the situation – and because he is a man of good left-wing principle, he gave me a £9000-a-year job, and it was enough for me to start in the industry. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here now, and I’m conscious that there are very few people like Peter out there in the media. There are a lot of deserving recipients of the Orwell Prize who are currently being shut out of the industry, and I think we should give a thought for them too.
Thanks again for this, and to the judges too; I’m really really chuffed.