Stacey Dooley Wins BBC Grierson Trustees’ Award

The Grierson Trust has awarded Stacey Dooley the 2024 Grierson Trustees’ Award, sponsored by the BBC, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the art and craft of documentary.

Dooley is the youngest person to receive the Trustees’ Award. She first appeared on TV screens in 2008 as a contributor to the BBC Three series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts before getting a commission for her first series, Stacey Dooley Investigates. Since then, she has made more than 100 documentaries, exploring subjects such as pollution in the fashion industry, domestic violence, slavey, mass rape and murder and much more.

The trustees were impressed by the way Dooley, who had previously worked as a shop assistant and had no background in journalism or broadcasting, managed to forge a career as a successful documentary presenter who never shies away from tackling difficult subjects.

“Stacey Dooley has brought a refreshing new voice to documentary-making and has consistently brought challenging subjects to new audiences, especially younger viewers and children,” said Lorraine Heggessey, chair of The Grierson Trust. “Her films and series have fearlessly tackled the big issues that affect young, diverse and marginalized people around the world. Her emotional intelligence enables her to build a natural rapport with her interviewees, and she is also willing to challenge those in authority by asking direct, difficult questions. This has earned her respect from audiences and peers alike, and she has regularly been mentioned by our Grierson DocLab trainees as the inspiration for wanting to become a documentary maker. We are all thrilled to recognize Stacey’s contribution to documentary making with this year’s Trustees’ Award.”

The Grierson Awards recognize the best single documentaries and factual series across broadcasters, streamers and online, as well as theatrical releases. This year’s winners will be announced at a ceremony taking place on November 6 in London.