New Journalist of the Year
Winner: Patrick Kingsley from The Guardian
What the judges said: “Patrick is a journalist who has been reporting from Egypt since January 2013 at no little risk to himself. He’s been beaten up and arrested as he exposed the toll unrest in that country has taken on unarmed civilians.
“He wrote the dissection of a massacre in a model way – it’s a great piece of reconstruction that leads to revelation.”
Patrick pictured with Javier Millan from Air France-KLM
Finalists:
Alex Ralph from The Times,
Fiona O’Cleirigh from Exaro News
Maeve McClenaghan – from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Sarah Morrison from The Independent
Simon Murphy from the Mail on Sunday
Business, finance and economics journalist of the year – sponsored by Astellas
Winner: Tom Bergin from Reuters
The judges said: “Most of the other journalists writing about the tax affairs of companies like Google and Starbucks are following in his footsteps. He practically wrote the questions for the Commons select committee.”
Tom Bergin pictured below with communications director of Astellas Pharma Europe, Mindy Dooa:
Highly commended:
Sarah O’Connor from the Financial Times
The judges praised her for “some good old-fashioned shoe leather reporting” which saw her investigate conditions at an Amazon warehouse in Rugely.
Finalists:
Laura Kuenssberg from ITV News
Stephen Grey from Reuters
John Gapper from the Financial Times
David Enrich from the Wall Street Journal Europe
Campaign of the Year
Winner: The Sunday Times for Safe Weekend Care – the campaign for a seven-day NHS
The judges said: “This campaign was well presented, planned and coordinated from beginning to end. It was backed up by great reporting and research and has succeeded in getting a national scandal addressed at the highest level.”
Finalists:
Andrew Norfolk from The Times for his ongoing work exposing the scandal of child sexual exploitation and grooming
The Sun’s Fight For April campaign calling for action to curb internet pornography
London Evening Standard for Ladder for London…encouraging London employers to take on more apprentices
Selina Maycock of the Scunthorpe Telegraph for a successful campaign to pay for the wedding of a terminally ill reader
The Sunday Times for Westminster for Sale – its series exposing how lobbyists pay for access to Parliament and the Government
Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year
Winner: Hala Jaber of The Sunday times
The judges said: “Hala Jaber has been there year after year, living in Damascus and covering the conflict from both sides and getting really strong stories.
“Her story about the Assad regime general was one of the few pieces of journalism that tried to get us into the mind of the government side of the conflict – and did so critically.”
Sunday Times editorial director Eleanor Mills accepting the Foreign Journalist of the Year prize on behalf of Hala Jaber from BJA judge Kevin Marsh:
Finalists:
Anthony Loyd of The Times
Katrina Manson from The Financial Times
Kim Sengupta of The Independent
Patrick Cockburn of The Independent
Richard Lloyd Parry – The Times
Photojournalist of the Year
Winner: Richard Pohle – The Times
The judges said that his photo of soldiers taking cover at Camp Bastion was the one stand-out shot of the competition this year – beautiful and atmospheric. They remarked that it was really tough photo to get with the equipment he would have had in that spot.
Finalists:
Jeremy Selwyn of the London Evening Standard
Mark Scott of The Sentinel
Oli Scarff from Getty Images
Suzanne Plunkett from Reuters
Politics Journalists of the Year
Winner: Joe Murphy of the London Evening Standard
The judges praised Murphy for fine writing and three genuine exclusives. The revelation that David Cameron was supporting gay marriage had huge repercussions and his exclusive account of the private Thatcher family funeral service was a fine piece of colour writing.
Joe Murphy with BJA judge professor Peter Cole:
Finalists:
Amelia Gentleman of The Guardian
Janan Ganesh of the Financial Times
Neil Elkes of the Birmingham Post and Mail
Steve Richards of The Independent
Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake of The Sunday Times Insight Team
Innovation of the Year
Winner: The Guardian for GuardianWitness
“One of judges said they had downloaded the app and they were using it every day. They felt it brought citizen journalism and user-generated content to a new level by – improving engagement, sourcing great content and doing so in a way that made money for the paper through sponsorship.”
The GuardianWitness team pictured with BJA judge Ian Reeves (right):
Highly commended:
The Sun for Sun+
The Independent for Voices In Danger
Finalists:
Lewis Whyld for his 360-degree interactive camera
The ooh aar Augmented reality platform as used in The Sentinel
The Brixton Bugle and Brixton Blog
Sports journalist of the year sponsored by the Hippodrome Casino
Winner: David Conn – of The Guardian
“All his stories were about some form of corruption in sport. He delves beyond the glitzy veneer of modern football to hold the game’s gilded elite to account.”
David Conn pictured (right) with awards sponsor Simon Thomas of the Hippodrome Casino:
Finalists:
Christian Sylt – freelance for City AM and The Independent
Ian Herbert – of The Independent
Luke Edwards of the Telegraph
Mark Ogden of The Telegraph
Sam Wallace of The Independent
Science and Technology Journalist of the Year sponsored by the Wellcome Trust
Winner: Robin McKie of The Observer
The judges said: “He goes for the biggest subjects and makes technical issues compelling with his approachable style of writing. His piece on a GM rice strain which could save millions from blindess was a particularly fine piece of science writing on a hugely important global issue.”
Robin McKie pictured (right) with director of the Wellcome Trust Prof Jeremy Farrar:
Finalists:
Pallab Ghosh – of the BBC
Leslie Hook of the Financial Times
Helen Thomson of the New Scientist
Gareth Iacubucci of the British Medical Journal
Andrew Gregory of the Daily Mirror
Breaking News Award
Winner: Channel 4 News and Dispatches for Plebgate
This was reporting which forced the Met Police to re-open its investigation into an alleged conspiracy to undermine chief Whip Andrew Mitchell. One police officer is to face trial and five are facing charges for gross misconduct.
The judges said they thought it was a great year for Dispatches and were also hugely impressed with its joint Guardian investigation into police spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence and its investigation into failings at the NHS 111 non-emergency call service.
They praised Dispatches for rigorous public interest journalism of the highest order.
Journalists from the Channel 4 Plebgate team with BJA judge Liz Gerard:
Finalists:
Exaro News – for the Murdoch tape
Tom Harper of The Independent – for Blue chip hacking
Catherine Deveney of The Observer for – top cardinal accused of inappropriate acts by priests
The Sunday Times insight team for – generals for hire
Anthony Lloyd of The Times for his exclusive report on the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack in Syria
Investigation of the year
Winner: Michael Gillard of The Sunday Times for his exposure of gangster David Hunt (the Untouchable)
The judges all agreed that Michael Gillard should win for an 11-year investigation which exposed career criminal and violent gangster David Hunt. The last journalist to investigate Mr Hunt received a head-butt for his troubles. Gillard stayed the course, memorably running rings around Hunt’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC in the High Court.
The judges felt that Gillard edged this prize because of the skill, determination and bravery it took to see this story through.
The Sunday Times succeeded where the collected forces of law enforcement in this country had failed – defeating Hunt in a court of law and obtaining a measure of justice for his victims by public exposing him for the first time.
Highly commended:
The Guardian – For the Snowden Files
Andrew Norfolk of The Times for his work on the child sex grooming scandal
The judges were hugely impressed by the global ramifications of The Guardian’s Snowden files revelations and by Andrew Norfolk’s ongoing dogged investigation into sex grooming. Both are highly commended.
Finalists:
Mark Daily and Murdoch Rodgers of BBC Scotland for Sins of our Fathers
Channel 4 News and Dispatches for Plebgate
Jeanette Oldham of the Birmingham Mail for her investigation into a cancer surgeon with unacceptably high death rates
The Marie Colvin award – sponsored by Syria Relief for the journalist who the judges felt had done the most to raise the reputation of our craft and inspire other journalists.
Former Times foreign editor Richard Beeston (who died of cancer in May of this year aged 50).
Dr Ayman Jundi presenting the Marie Colvin Award to Ben MacIntyre of the The Times and Natasha Beeston:
One of the great foreign editors of The Times – Richard Beeston was a hugely liked and respected figure throughout Fleet Street.
An indefatigable foreign correspondent he covered conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq and Chechnya for The Times.
He exposed Saddam Hussein’s gassing of Kurdish civilians at Hallabja in 1988, reported on atrocities by Serb forces in the Bosnian War of the early 1990s and after 2011 he shone a light on the barberous campaign of general Assad in Syria against his own population.
When one of the judges suggested Richard’s name for the Marie Colvin prize there was immediate and enthusiastic agreement from all the others.
The BJA judges cover a broad cross-section of our diverse industry but they had all been deeply touched by Richard’s contribution to journalism.
As Oliver Kamm wrote in The Times: “Richard Beeston saw his responsibility as finding things out and giving as objective an account as he could manage of the horrors of the conflicts he covered. Objectivity doesn’t mean balance: it means telling the truth about what you discover.”
Journalist of the year, sponsored by Santander
Michael Gillard – Freelance/The Sunday Times
Michael Gillard could not attent the awards and cannot attend public events in London for security reasons. The awarded was accepted on his behalf by his friend the journalist Laurie Flynn and presented by Santander director of communications Jennifer Scardino:
The judges for the 2013 British Journalism Awards were:
The British Journalism Awards 2013 were sponsored by:
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