Well wouldn't you know, Magnus Ljungkvist, the blogger who first published the damaging revelations that forced Sweden's trade minister, Maria Borelius, to resign, has just been awarded 'Nyhetspriset 2007, Årets avslöjande' [News price 2007, the expose of the year]. The price is a new citizen journalism award founded by political blog Politikerbloggen and PR agency Prime PR (via Hans Kullin).

Regular readers of this blog might remember that Swedish tabloid Expressen contested that it was Ljungkvist who brought down Borelius and claimed to have had the scoop days before it published it. These claims must have been swallowed uncritically by Sweden's Association of Investigative journalists who awarded the tabloid the prestigious journalism price 'Guldspaden 2006' for the very same story.

The purpose of the latter award reads as follows:
"Guldspaden [the golden spade] is awarded to journalists active in Swedish media who through committed and knowledgeable journalism reveals fundamental issues which the public previously was unaware of."

Guess bloggers must be some sort of crazy outcasts, a separate race perhaps: if we're not part of the public, what are we then?