The New Zealand Herald has won an international award for its multimedia investigation into the billion dollar hair trade.
Black Gold was a six-month investigation into the unregulated hair extension industry which exposed how human hair is being harvested from children in China and the unsavoury conditions of workers in Chinese hair factories.
Investigative reporter Olivia Carville and visual journalist Mike Scott spent two weeks in rural China documenting the hair trade and their multimedia project was published on the Herald website via the immersive storytelling platform, Shorthand.
Today it was announced that Black Gold was the overall winner of the Most Visually Compelling category of the inaugural Shorthand Awards, chosen from more than 100 entries worldwide.
Shorthand is a long-form digital platform used by media outlets around the world to publish rich content. Last year more than 1500 stories were published through Shorthand from news organisations such as the BBC, the Guardian, the Telegraph, theSydney Morning Herald and the Age.