Finalists in the inaugural edition of the CIJJIES – intended to provide peer-drive recognition for the hard graft behind New Zealand investigative journalism – have been announced.

CIJJIES convener Matt Nippert said entries were received across all formats – radio, television, print and online – with an all-star judging panel settling on seven stories to name as finalist in two categories.

Nippert said he was impressed with the quality of entries – particularly in the promising category open to up-and-comers – that showcased a wide range of rigorous and important reporting.

“There’s no way the finalists announced today would settle for bland quotes cut-and-pasted from press releases like this one,” he said.

The main category sees four stories vying for the top prize:

• The misery of Marie, by Jared Savage, NZ Herald
• Our rest home shame, by Nicholas Jones, NZ Herald
• The Valley, by Eugene Bingham, Paula Penfold, Toby Longbottom & Phil Johnson, Stuff
• Waikato DHB spending, by Natalie Akoorie, NZ Herald.

The “Promising” category, open to journalists in the first five years of their career, is contested by three finalists:

• Half a million hectares sold, by Charlie Mitchell, Stuff
• Thirty-two years after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, unrepentant French spy Christine Cabon is found, by Cecile Meier and Kelly Dennett, Sunday Star-Times
• Through the maze: Our mental health journey, by Katie Kenny and Laura Walters, Stuff

This inaugural edition of the CIJJIES has been judged by a panel comprising Nippert, Martin van Beynen, Linda Clark, Mihingarangi Forbes and Rebecca Macfie. Clear conflict-of-interest policies have seen judges excluded from considering work published by colleagues or involving clients.

The awards, run in conjunction with the New Zealand Centre for Investigative Journalism, will see winners crowned during a function at the workmanlike Massey University Café in Wellington on June 9 during this years’ NZCIJ conference.