Michael Nikbakhsh, Austria, is an investigative journalist, founder and host of the country’s first investigative podcast Die Dunkelkammer.
He started his career in 1990 at Salzburger Nachrichten, then worked for numerous media outlets until he joined the weekly news magazine profil in 1999. At the end of 2022, he left profil to start his own media project. Since 2023, he hosts his podcast and works as a freelance investigative reporter for Der Standard. He specializes in white-collar crime covering numerous scandals that surfaced in Austria over the last years, including Telekom Austria, Hypo, Bawag, Meinl, Eurofighter and BVT.
Nikbakhsh teamed up with the ICIJ in 2018 and has since participated in several international investigations, including Pandora Papers and Shadow Diplomats. He is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Knapp Prize (2009), the Rode Prize (2012) and the Ungar Prize (2022).
A jury of Austrian journalists has honored him multiple times - he was named Austria’s Journalist of the year in 2008, Austria’s economic journalist of the year (eight times), and Austria’s investigative journalist of the year in 2015 and 2018.
