Szabolcs Panyi

Szabolcs Panyi was selected for the 2021 European Press Prize shortlist with ‘How Orbán Played Germany, Europe’s Great Power.’

Szabolcs graduated from Eötvös Loránd University Budapest where he studied Hungarian language and literature. Between 2013 and 2018, he was an editor and political reporter at Index.hu, Hungary’s largest independent news site. In 2017, he helped launch VSquare.org, a cross-border investigative journalism initiative in the Visegrád region. At Arizona State University, he studied investigative journalism on a Hubert H. Humphrey (Fulbright) Fellowship in 2017-2018. In the fall of 2018, he joined Hungarian non-profit journalism center Direkt36.hu, where he mainly works on stories related to national security and foreign policy. He received the Transparency-Soma Award annually recognizing best Hungarian investigative journalism in 2015, 2016 and 2020. He was shortlisted for the European Press Prize in 2018 with his story titled ‘Satan’s hand: Russian meddling behind Budapest’s metro chaos.‘