Anyone, anywhere
Every country and territory on earth, every profession and none, any age over 16, alive or — by exception and with the family's agreement — recently deceased.
Photos · Elissa Garcia, Jana Shnipelson, Constantinos Kollias, Joseph Quam / Unsplash
Rules and safeguards
How this is run, in full
An award is only worth as much as the process behind it. Here is the whole process, including the parts that are inconvenient for us.
Eligibility
Who can be nominated
A truth told at a cost
The nomination must rest on something the person disclosed, published, testified to or refused to conceal, and on a real consequence they bore for it.
Already public
We only put on the ballot what is already in the public record. Truth Icons never breaks a story and never handles unpublished material.
Not us
Staff, council members and their families cannot be nominated, and nobody may nominate themselves into the count twice.
Politicians and public officials
Eligible — under four conditions
Ministers, legislators, mayors, judges, diplomats, police officers, inspectors and civil servants can be elected Truth Icon. Some of the costliest truths ever told were told by people inside the building, and almost nowhere honours them for it.
A specific act, not a career
The nomination must name one verifiable thing they disclosed, published, testified to or refused to conceal. Being a good politician is not the award. Telling a truth that was expensive to tell is.
Against their own interest
The truth must have cost them something — their office, their party, their promotion, their protection, their safety. Revealing an opponent's wrongdoing is ordinary politics; revealing your own side's is not.
Not during their campaign
Nominees who are standing for election are held over until after the vote in their country. We will not become a campaign asset, and an honour that arrives in the last month of a race is worth nothing to anyone.
Heads of state and government wait
Serving heads of state or government are not eligible while in office — the award would read as an endorsement of an administration rather than of an act. Once they leave office, the act itself becomes eligible like any other.
And the balance rule:
where a nomination concerns a serving official, the honorary council checks it against the same test used for everyone else and publishes its reasoning with the result. We honour the act, we say plainly what the act was, and we say nothing at all about the person's politics.
Safety and consent
The rule that overrides every other rule
If honouring somebody would endanger them, we do not honour them. No exceptions, no matter how good the story is.
We ask before we publish
Wherever a person can be reached, directly or through a lawyer or organisation, we ask before their name appears on any ballot.
Silence is not consent
If we cannot reach them, we publish only what is already widely reported, or we describe the case without naming them at all.
No is final and instant
A refusal removes the nomination the same day, permanently, with no record kept and no reason asked for.
Consent can be withdrawn later
Including after they have won, after the award has been sent, and after the citation has been published for years.
We never publish operational detail
No addresses, no family members, no travel, no employer that is not already central to the published record.
In doubt, we do less
Where the risk is unclear and the person is unreachable, the nomination is held, not published. A missed award is recoverable; a person is not.
The vote
How the ballot is protected
One person, one vote
Each voter confirms a single email address per month. Addresses are used to deduplicate and are never published, sold or used for contact unless the voter opts in. Duplicate and automated votes are discarded before the count, not after.
Brigading and bought votes
Coordinated mass voting from a single source, disposable-address farms and paid campaigns are removed. Where an organised campaign is detected in favour of a nominee, we publish that fact alongside the result rather than quietly adjusting the numbers.
The count is published
Totals per nominee, the number of countries represented and the number of votes discarded are all published with the result. If a month is compromised beyond repair, we say so and re-run it.
Ties and near-ties
A tie produces two icons for that month. Both receive the award, both are published, and both go forward to the annual shortlist.
Timing
Nominations are open continuously. Voting runs from the first day of each month to 23:59 UTC on the last day. Results are published on the first working day of the following month.
Disputes
Contested facts about a nominee are referred to the honorary council of the Truth Teller Society, whose decision is published with reasons. A nominee may be removed mid-ballot if a claim is shown to be false.
Limits
What Truth Icons is not
Not a leak platform
We do not receive, hold or transmit documents, by any channel. If you have material, take legal advice and go to a newsroom with a proper secure-drop system.
Not a court
Election as a Truth Icon is a public honour, not a finding of fact about anybody the disclosure concerns.
Not a political instrument
Nominees are honoured regardless of which government, company or cause their revelation embarrasses — including causes we support.
Not for sale
No entry fee, no sponsored nominee, no donor vote. Any attempt to buy a place is published as an attempt.