The award was announced by MÚOSZ on 4 August as part of its monthly press prize, which recognizes outstanding Hungarian journalism.
The film, "The Sajó Catastrophe: The Story of the Red River," produced as a result of this investigation, examined how highly toxic, arsenic-contaminated mine water has been flowing into the Sajó River since February 2022, and why, more than four years later, no lasting solution has been found.
For months after the leak began, the contaminated water poured unchecked into the river. That flow has never fully stopped: while its volume has dropped considerably over the past four and a half years, mine water continues to reach the Sajó to this day, according to the investigation.
The documentary reconstructs both the environmental and political dimensions of the crisis. Reporters spoke with residents of the affected region, including the activists who first sounded the alarm over the river's contamination, as well as the political decision-makers responsible for addressing it - testing, on camera, how each side accounts for a disaster that has outlasted its own news cycle.
