Orwell prize: four Guardian journalists nominated

Four Guardian journalists have been nominated for the Orwell prize for political writing. Amelia Gentleman, Paul Lewis and Zoe Williams have made the long-list in the journalism category and Polly Curtis has been nominated for her Reality Check blog in the blogging category. Prizes are awarded for entries that come closest to George Orwell's ambition 'to make political writing into an art'. The Guardian has also been nominated in the Sony Radio Academy Awards for two audio podcasts. Days in the Life was a programme made to celebrate the 2011 Manchester festival, in which producers Francesca Panetta and Tim Hinman made four historic editions of the Guardian into sound sculptures. Beginning with the Peterloo massacre, they re-created the history of the Guardian with archive voices, eyewitness reportage and music. The Science Weekly podcast was also nominated in Sony's internet category for Sounds of the Space Shuttle - an acoustic tribute to the retiring Nasa shuttle.