The Evening Chronicle in Newcastle is celebrating after being crowned Newspaper of the Year at the 24th Tom Cordner National Grid Transco North East Press Awards.

The newspaper, edited by Paul Robertson, picked up the prize during a ceremony at the Newcastle Civic Centre - the fourth time it has won the title since the award was introduced in 1990 and a record matched only by The Northern Echo.

The Evening Chronicle also picked up three individual awards, with reporter Louise Redvers winning the Young Journalist title, and a double for Gayle Tomlinson who won the Business Prize and the Kate Adie Prize for Initiative.

In their citation, the Cordner judges said that the range and quality of the Evening Chronicle's work showed "professional teamwork of the first order" and "all-round consistency and vitality".

They added: "The content and presentation are vibrant and aggressive in a positive sense. It is a paper that spots talent and cultivates it across the different disciplines of journalism. Its young journalist material was particularly strong."

Other prize winners included the 150-year-old Teesdale Mercury, which was named Weekly Newspaper of the Year, and the Northern Echo, which picked up the highest number of individual awards on the night.

They included the Lifetime Contribution Award, named after the former Chronicle editor Graeme Stanton, which went to the Echo's indefatigable writer Mike Amos to mark his 40th year in journalism.

Mike also won the Features and Sports Writer awards, while his Echo colleague Sam Strangeways won the Hard News category as well as the Top Journalist title, Lindsay Jennings won Best Exclusive, Barry Nelson picked up the Health prize and Christen Pears was named best Women's Writer.

A full list of winners can be found here.

The awards, which began as a tribute to the Hartlepool Mail's Tom Cordner, who died at the early age of 38, in 1976, this year attracted nearly 240 entries from papers from Northumberland to North Yorkshire.

Winners received their prizes from ITN journalist Nicholas Owen, who began his television career in the region.

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