‘Humbling and inspiring’: Full list of finalists for the British Journalism Awards 2015 revealed

The finalists for the 2015 British Journalism Awards in association with Audi have been announced today.

Launched in the wake of the hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry, the Press Gazette-organised awards are now in their fourth year and recognise journalism that is both interesting to the public and in the public interest.

This year there was a record number of entries, with more than 300 submissions for the 15 categories.

The awards are open to all journalists producing work for a UK audience. This year there were entries from every UK national newspaper group as well as the major broadcasters.

The shortlists were compiled by a panel of 24 judges chosen for their experience and independence.

The judges were asked to create shortlists of six for each category. In the Foreign Affairs, Business and Investigation categories they opted to have shortlists of eight because of the high number of entries and the quality of work submitted.

Chairman of judges and Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford said: “The quality of work submitted in these awards has increased every year. In a media world where anyone with a blog can call themselves a journalist, the big news organisations are clearly investing heavily in serious journalism to help distinguish themselves from the online chatter and noise.

“It was particularly good to see so many entries this year from the tabloid end of the newspaper market, which does not always get the credit it deserves for campaigning and investigative journalism.

“The standard of journalism submitted to these awards was humbling and inspiring. With more than 300 entries for 15 awards categories, making it on to the list of finalists is an impressive achievement.”

The winners will be announced at the British Journalism Awards reception at Stationers' Hall on 1 December.

Attendance at the event is by invitation only with all shortlisted journalists on the guest list.

Event queries should be made to britishjournalismawards@pressgazette.co.uk.

Sponsorship enquiries should be directed to rahul.nair@pressgazette.co.uk.

Note: There is no shortlist for the prizes of Journalist of the Year and the Marie Colvin Award for raising the reputation of journalism. Both of these will be awarded on the night after consultation between all the judges.

Breaking News Award (for the best story of the year)

Ben Ellery – The Mail on Sunday
62p an hour – That’s what the women sleeping 16 to a room get paid…to make Ed and Harriet’s £45 ‘This is What A Feminist Looks Like’ T-shirts
Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthnott and Bojan Pancevski (Insight) – The Sunday Times
Fifa coverage and Sepp Blatter: 'Swiss prosecutors target Blatter as Prince William demands clean-up'
Lucy Manning, Ed Campbell and Steve Swann – BBC News
Unmasking ‘Jihadi John’
Russell Myers – Daily Mirror
'The diamond geezers – Caught! Incredible moment £60m gem raiders are seen on CCTV'
Simon Johnson, Peter Dominiczak – The Daily Telegraph
‘Sturgeon’s secret backing for Cameron’
Stephen Moyes – The Sun
‘Lord coke – Top peer’s drug binges with £200 prostitutes'

Business, Finance and Economics Journalism sponsored by TSB

Ben Chu – The Independent and i
‘Osborne’s debt time bomb’, ‘Chancellor ignored advice from Treasure to launch Help to Buy’ and ‘Osborne will miss target of doubling exports’
Daniel Jones – The Sun
Compare The FatCats, The Great Stitch Up and You phonies
Charles Levinson – Reuters
US banks move billions of dollars in trades beyond Washington’s reach
Harry Wilson – The Times
‘Labour chief given £1.5m shares from tax haven’, ‘Flash crash rigging is rife, warn traders’ and ‘Regulators struck secret deal to dilute damages paid by big banks’
Nick Mathiason – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
A Great British Housing Crisis
Rupert Steiner – Daily Mail
'The backroom deals that have cost Tesco dear', 'Suppliers to Tesco launch inquiries' and 'Tesco’s bullying tactics'
Ruth Sutherland and Laura Chesters – Daily Mail
'Michael Howard is a Tory giant. So how has he got entangled in a slew of doubtful companies and a fraud probe in a war-torn hell hole?', 'Fifa fiasco yet another own goal for KPMG' and 'Why Britain is best for women wealth creators'
Simon Neville – Evening Standard and Independent
'Now Bill’s restaurants ‘take service charge’, 'Tips ‘rip-off’ is exposed at Côte chain' and ‘To say that dual pricing is impossible at airports is simply untrue’

Campaign of the Year

David Jones, Sam Greenhill, Ian Drury and Jack Doyle – Daily Mail
US Gulag That Shames the West – Campaign for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and the release of Shaker Aamer
James Randerson, Amanda Michel, Emma Howard, Damian Carrington, Simon Bowers, Francesca Panetta, Adam Vaughan, Terry Macalister, John Mullin, Suzanne Goldenberg, Lindsay Poulton and Nabeelah Shabbir – The Guardian
Keep it in the Ground
Jonathan Leake – The Sunday Times
Clean Air campaign
Richard Pendlebury and Sam Greenhill – Daily Mail
Justice for Sergeant Blackman
Sam Blackledge – The Plymouth Herald
Safer Spaces campaign
Sharon Hendy and Sam Carlisle – The Sun
Give Me Shelter

Digital Innovation sponsored by Citi

Foreign Affairs Journalism

Anthony Loyd – The Times
‘Don’t ask what I dream about. I’ve stopped counting the dead’, ‘Five months after he was kidnapped and shot in Syria, Times correspondent Anthony Loyd is back in action – on a very different battleground’ and ‘Orphaned, rejected and afraid: plight of the ebola children’
Christina Lamb – The Sunday Times
‘We think it’s all over [report from Helmand], ‘I’m afraid of the sea, but I’ll do anything to get out’ and ‘My son, the killer, couldn’t hurt a mouse’
Gabriel Gatehouse, Warwick Harrington, Chris Alcock, Nick Menzies and Alistair Candelin – BBC Newsnight
Two part-series of reports from Liberia on the Ebola epidemic viewable here and here and Escape to Europe: Migrant boat story
Ian Birrell – The Mail on Sunday
‘Bonfire of the Ebola victims’, ‘Dying to Leave the Euro’ and ‘Voyage of the damned’.
Kim Sengupta – The Independent
‘How Syria lost its humanity’, ‘The trafficker who’s making $50,000 a week from his tide of misery’ and ‘After four boys were killed on a beach by Israeli missiles during the bombardment of Gaza, their surviving relatives decided to escape for a new life in Europe – and put their safety in the hands of people traffickers. Then tragedy struck again…’
Ned Parker and Iraq bureau team – Reuters
‘How Mosul fell – a general’s story’, ‘Iran’s men in Baghdad’ and ‘How Islamic State uses wheat to tighten its grip in Iraq’
Aris Roussinos – Vice News
Peshmerga versus the Islamic State: The Road to Mosul
Patrick Kingsley – The Guardian
'Libya's people smugglers: inside the trade that sells refugees hopes of a better life'. 'The Journey: Syrian refugee Hashem Alsouki risks his life crossing the Mediterranean, his sights set on Sweden – and freedom for his family' and 'It's not at war, but up to 3% of its people have fled. What is going on in Eritrea?'

Investigation of the Year sponsored by Public Concern at Work

Katherine Faulkner, Paul Bentley and Lucy Osborne (Mail Investigations Unit) – Daily Mail
‘Your Privacy for Sale’
Chris Cook and Alan White – BBC Newsnight/Buzzfeed News
Kids Company investigation
Liam McDougall, Sandeep Gill, Samantha Poling – BBC Scotland
The Dog Factory
Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthnott and David Collins – The Sunday Times
The Doping Scandal
Juliette Garside, James Ball, David Leigh and David Pegg – The Guardian
HSBC Files
Wael Dabbous and Cathy Newman – Channel 4 Unreported World/Quicksilver Media
Manhunt: Closing in on a British Paedophile
Peter Apps – Inside Housing
Right to Buy to Let
Simon Murphy – The Mail on Sunday
‘Oxfam targets donors aged 98’