Becoming a journalist is nearly impossible "if you don't have rich parents", according to Orwell Prize winner Johann Hari.

The 29-year-old Independent columnist, whose first media job on the New Statesman in 2001 earned him £9,000 a year, spoke out as he received the Orwell Prize for political writing last night.

"Basically, if you don't have rich parents, it is increasingly impossible to become a journalist in Britain – and that is really bad, not just for social justice but for the newspapers themselves," Hari told the audience at the Orwell Prize as he accepted the £3,000 award.

"When I graduated, I suddenly realised that if you want to become a journalist, you have to work unpaid in central London for as long as two years – and I just couldn't afford it. There was no way I could."

In 2001 New Statesman editor Peter Wilby gave Hari a £9,000 a year part-time job, which he was able to accept because he had grown up in London and still lived with his parents.

"If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here now, and I'm conscious that there are very few people like Peter out there in the media," the Independent columnist said last night.

"There are a lot of deserving recipients of the Orwell Prize who are currently being shut out of the industry, and I think we should give a thought for them too," Hari said.

He also hit out at the "sudden layer of exclusion" that hits prospective journalists once they leave university.

"There are a lot of better writers than me out there – people who deserve to win this prize – who fall at that hurdle. They're out – they go and work in some other less rewarding industry," Hari said.

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