South Coast daily The News, Portsmouth, has cleaned up at the NUJ Regional Press Awards, winning the Newspaper of the Year title and three other awards.

The awards, which were run by the NUJ for the first time, were handed out at a ceremony in London yesterday and the Johnston Press-owned title fought off competition from six other newspapers to win the coveted top prize.

Other newspapers on the shortlist for the newspaper of the year award were The Cumberland News, The Hampstead and Highgate Express, the Irish News, the Nottingham Post, The Press, York and the Yorkshire Evening Post.

The News was also celebrating three other individual awards given to its journalists – for multimedia journalist of the year, sports journalist of the year on a daily or Sunday paper and designer of the year.

Winners from The News, Portsmouth, celebrate their success.

Allison Morris from the Irish News won the reporter of the year title for a daily/Sunday paper, while Eleanor Harding from the Wandsworth Guardian was named the weekly reporter of the year.

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: “We decided to run the awards this year in order to provide a showcase for the outstanding work produced by journalists all over the country, but we were blown away by the outstanding quality of the entries, across all categories.

“The success of these awards shows not just the outstanding quality of journalism currently being produced by local and regional titles, both in print and online, but that local and regional titles are currently producing some of the best journalism available anywhere.

“It also demonstrates the folly of the aggressive cost-cutting measures currently being pursued by the large regional media groups.”

The full list of winners is:

Newspaper of the Year
The News, Portsmouth

Reporter of the Year Daily/Sunday
Allison Morris, Irish News

Reporter of the Year Weekly
Eleanor Harding, Wandsworth Guardian

Multimedia Journalist of the Year
Sion Donovan, The News, Portsmouth

Feature Writer of the Year Daily/Sunday
Jayne Dawson, Yorkshire Evening Post

Feature Writer of the Year Weekly
Roger Lytollis, Cumberland News

Sports Journalist of the Year Daily/Sunday
Neil Allen,The News, Portsmouth

Sports Journalist of the Year Weekly
Eric Mackinnon, West Lothian Courier

Specialist Writer of the Year
Carl Eve, Plymouth Herald

Columnist of the Year
Stacia Briggs, Norwich Evening News

Student Journalist of the Year
Rosie Taylor, Forge Press

Designer of the Year
Graeme Windell, The News, Portsmouth

Photographer of the Year Daily/Sunday
Stuart Boulton, Northern Echo

Photographer of the Year Weekly
Chris Whiteoak, Surrey Advertiser

Sports Photographer of the Year Daily/Sunday
Lucy Ray, Bradford and Telegraph Argus

Sports Photographer of the Year Weekly
Stephen Garnett, Craven Herald

Scoop of the Year
Cherry Wilson, Rotherham Advertiser & Croydon Advertiser

Campaign of the Year
Kathryn Torney, Belfast Telegraph

Multimedia Publisher of the Year
Stuart Kirkpatrick, Caledonian Mercury

The Felix Dearden Reporting on Race Award
Mary Griffin, Coventry Telegraph

Comments

hackette (30/06/2010 10:33:46)
Sincere good luck to them all in their careers.
But sorry, really can’t go for all this ego massaging in the trade. There is enough vanity in it already.
There are lots of excellent staff doing a great job for crap money without all this back-slapping.
I once won an award I never even entered for; needless to say I did not bother to collect it. I was too overcome with emotion.

retired (30/06/2010 10:41:12)
well done hackette.
A dose of much-needed reality
in an industry inhabited by so many huge egos and arrogance (especially at manager levl) that it’s a relief to be out of it after 40-odd years.
I don’t doubt, though, that there are some talented people in the industry so all the best to them.

Zootopian (30/06/2010 11:10:04)
Hackette, what a killjoy you are. Bearing in mind the circumstances most reporters and editorial staff work in, I hardly think one day of ‘backslapping’ for them is a crime.
Recognition doesn’t come from employers, so it’s nice to see it at least comes from somewhere.

hackette (30/06/2010 11:28:54)
Zootopian. My point was it is unfair to single out a few people when thousands of underpaid and overworked hacks are propping up the industry without fanfare.
If reporters need this kind of approval then great for them.
By the way, ever wondered what readers (who matter more than what you or I say) think when papers plaster their award winners over the pages while at the same time giving crap community coverage because of shortage of staff?
Look around the corners for the real story, as one of my old bosses used to say.

Mr Pitt (30/06/2010 11:31:44)
There are many fine actors working on many fine films every year but only 5 get shortlisted for the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar every year. Are suggesting they don’t turn up in support of all those not nominated, Hackette?

Lord Lucan (30/06/2010 11:43:54)
Jeez, I know it’s not all happiness and roses in the industry, but shouldn’t we celebrate success???
Hackette, why can’t you bring yourself to say ‘well done’ instead of peddling tired cliches about what a hard life being a journalist is?

BusinessBoy (30/06/2010 11:46:45)
Why was there no award for best business reporter? There’s a constant stream of good business news in the media, so why not recognise the efforts of those who write about it?

Flipjack (30/06/2010 13:44:07)
Because, BusinessBoy, no one reads the cut and pasted press releases masquerading as news items on the business pages of local papers. You might as well just fill the page with a massive drawing of a comedy cok and balls submitted by a different reader every day. That would be infinitely more thrilling for the readership

FlapJack (30/06/2010 15:39:14)
I am bit annoyed Flipjack as you’ve trampled on EXACTLY the point I was going to make…..and I should know cos I am a business journalist. I spend my day rehashing press releases and dealing with PR people because business people are too paranoid to contact us or be interviewed directly. It’s what makes my area of journalism one of the most disheartening there is!

BusinessBoy (30/06/2010 16:24:31)
What a load of nasty, spiteful rubbish. I am a business reporter too, and I have won awards for my work – by finding something called “off-diary stories”. These are not press releases and they are found by working a contacts book. Robert Peston, the BBC business editor broke the Northern Rock story by doing this. If you are just rehashing press releases rather than finding good exclusive stories, that is laziness rather than the fault of business people who only go through a PR agency.

FlapJack (30/06/2010 16:40:44)
I notice above BusinessBoy that there are awards for reporter, feature writer, columnist and (crucially) specialist writer of the year. Am I to take it then that you entered these awards and didn’t win…..???? And I stand by what I said so perhaps you don’t work in a big city corporate environment but somewhere a bit smaller which offers you greater, more personal access. If so, consider yourself lucky!

BusinessBoy (30/06/2010 17:26:10)
Not at all – I didn’t enter whatsoever. I work for a large metropolitan newspaper with a readership of 60,000 so I don’t get any special favours.

Carl (07/07/2010 15:05:50)
Why does the HTFP
call it a “union awards”… when it was Wilmington, did we call it a “capitalist money-grabbing profit-driven firm awards”.
It appears that more papers and journalists (who in the past could not afford to enter or attend the UK Press Gazette awards) entered than before, shown in the diversity of the shortlist.
Instead of the regular list of big name/big money papers, you saw truly regional and local papers being represented.
Someone want to tell me from their lofty position why this is a bad thing?

Paul Linford, Editor (07/07/2010 15:30:34)
Sorry Carl, but who is saying it’s a bad thing?