The Belfast Telegraph has been named Regional Newspaper of the Year at the Press Gazette’s annual Regional Press Awards. The Free Newspaper of the year was Kent On Sunday, while the Weekly (Paid-for) of the Year was the Croydon Advertiser.
Jon Kirk, of the South West News Service was named Reporter of the Year, and the Young Journalist of the Year was Guy Basnett, from The Journal, Newcastle. Sarah Nicholson, from The Northern Echo, won Photographer of the Year at the event on Friday.

Dorset Echo chief photographer Geoff Moore, (pictured), has left the company after 25 years of covering the Weymouth and Dorchester areas.
He was presented with gifts by managing director Paul Kinvig on behalf of colleagues in the Weymouth newsroom, and now intends to become a freelance photographer.

A party on the pier saw more than £20,000 raised for a new children’s ward thanks to the Weston & Somerset Mercury, part of Archant South West.
The Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare was closed for the night, giving grown-ups the chance to take a spin on the dodgems and have a ride on the ghost train to help raise money.

Dorset Echo trainee reporter Lynn Morris finished fifth out of a field of more than 2,000 at the Race for Life event held at Kingston Maurward College, near Dorchester.
Lynn was part of an Echo team taking part in the run, one of many staged around the country to raise cash for Cancer Research UK.

An appeal in the Herts & Cambs’ The Comet has raised £8,128 in just four weeks for a boy with a terminal genetic condition.
The Comet, Archant’s Free Newspaper of the Year and was just been shortlisted for the Press Gazette Free Newspaper of the Year, ran a dramatic front page to start the appeal to raise cash for a boy who suffers from Adrenoleukodystrophy, to buy the boy, who is now deaf and blind, a motorised therapy centre and a tail-lift for the family car.

A sales rep on the North Devon Gazette will be going over to Ghana in Africa to repair and improve a maternity clinic and give local youngsters important heath lessons.
Kate Haines, (21), will embark on the trip with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths charity in October, with her employers, Archant South West backing her to the tune of £250.