Sunday Times Insight Team editor Jonathan Calvert (pictured) was named Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards last night.
He was recognised for leading a year of agenda-setting investigations exposing widespread blood-doping in international athletics and corruption at the top of football world governing body Fifa.
The Marie Colvin award for raising the reputation of journalism over the course of their career went to Alan Rusbridger who stepped down this summer after 20 years as Guardian editor.
And the hard-fought investigation of the year prize went to The Guardian for the HSBC files.
The awards for public interest journalism are organised by Press Gazette and were held this year in association with Audi.
They are open to all journalists wherever they work and attracted entries from every major newspaper publisher, broadcaster and online news publisher in the UK.
They attracted more than 300 entries for the 15 categories. Last more than 200 journalists gathered at Stationers' Hall in London for the awards reception.
Press Gazette editor and chairman of judges Dominic Ponsford said the number of high-quality entries to the awards suggest campaigning and investigative journalism is growing in the UK.
He said: “I think these awards provide clear evidence that publishers across the media increasingly see the value of campaigning and investigative journalism as a way of rising above the digital noise and chatter.”
Full list of winners for the British Journalism Awards 2015
Digital Innovation sponsored by Citi
Winner: Vice News
The judges said:
“Since launching online in 2014, Vice News has done what it set out to do, bringing serous news from around the world to a new audience. With a mixture of video dispatches, documentaries and long-form writing it has brilliantly covered the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, refugee migration into Europe and the crisis in Ukraine. And it has also experimented effectively with a wide range of technologies, including drones, live streaming and virtual reality.”
Aris Rousinoss of Vice News with Jeffrey French from Citi
New Journalist of the Year sponsored by the Stationers' Crown Woods Academy
Winner: Simon Murphy of The Mail on Sunday for ‘Oxfam targets donors aged 98’, ‘Revealed: New boss of investigation into VIP child abuse claims is linked to Leon Brittan’ and ‘Jihadi hunters…or fantasists?’
The judges said: “Simon Murphy is an industrious reporter whose work has had a huge impact leading to a change in the law on how charities raise money. He covered a great range of stories and used tactics including undercover filming, and all were firmly in the public interest.”
Simon Murphy, pictured with Michael Murphy – principle of Stationers' Crown Woods Academy
Campaign of the Year
Highly commended: David Jones, Sam Greenhill, Ian Drury and Jack Doyle of the Daily Mail for US Gulag That Shames the West – the campaign for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and the release of Shaker Aamer
The judges said: "The Daily Mail has had a superb year for campaigning journalism. Particularly impressive was its brave and principled campaign on Guantanamo Bay, which was credited with helping secure the release of Shaker Aamer.”
Winner: The Guardian for Keep it in the Ground
The judges said: “This was an epic piece of journalism conducted on an international scale and on a difficult subject. The Keep it in the Ground climate change campaign was hugely ambitious, reverberated around the world and had tangible results.”
The Guardian team pictured with judge John Mair.
Foreign Affairs Journalism
Winner: Patrick Kingsley of The Guardian for:
'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' and 'It's not at war, but up to 3% of its people have fled. What is going on in Eritrea?'
The judges said: “It was difficult to pick one winner in this category because of the exceptionally high standard of entries. But Patrick Kingsley’s piece, The Journey, which followed a Syrian refugee across the Mediterranean, stood out as an epic read about an epic journey which made for epic journalism. Hats off to The Guardian for giving him the time and space to tell this story.”
Patrick Kingsley pictured with judge Peter Cole
Politics Journalism sponsored by Media Focus
Winner: Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun for ‘Plebgate – what really happened’
The judges said: “This was a story that deserved to win prizes in 2012 and 2015 after it first broke but didn’t because it became mired in controversy. They felt it was right to recognise Tom Newton Dunn and The Sun this year as the paper’s reporting was finally vindicated in the libel courts and for the way it has stuck with this story for three years. The Sun ultimately proved that the public have a right to know about how politicians speak to those who are paid to protect them and it struck an important blow for freedom of speech.”
Tom Newton Dunn pictured with Paul Blanchard, presenter of the Media Focus podcast
Photojournalism
Highly Commended: Jack Hill of The Times – for his pictures from Syria
And
Philip Coburn of the Daily Mirror – for his work in Gaza
The judges noted that both returned to conflict areas this year after previously being injured in the field. Philip Coburn lost both his legs below the knee after being injured by an IED in Afghanistan in 2000 and Hill was kidnapped and beaten last year by Syrian militants.
Winner: Manu Brabo of The Sunday Times
The judges said: “Manu has an exceptional eye and has produced a photographic essay from Ukraine which any magazine editor in the world would be proud to publish.”
Sunday Times associated editor Sean Ryan with awards judge Jon Slattery
Business, Finance and Economics Journalism sponsored by TSB
Highly commended: Charles Levinson of Reuters for
US banks move billions of dollars in trades beyond Washington’s reach
The judges said this piece could be predicting the next banking crisis, it took a dry subject and made it captivating.
Winner: Daniel Jones of The Sun for Compare The FatCats, The Great Stitch Up and You phonies
The judges said: “This was a great piece of campaigning journalism on something which effects everybody in the country. He held the utility companies to account on behalf of Sun readers with some hard-hitting and entertaining journalism.”
Sun associate editor Sam Carlisle pictured with Roy Beale from TSB
.JPG)
Science, Technology and Health Journalism sponsored by Astellas
Highly commended: Natasha Loder of The Economist for ‘Genome editing – The age of the red pen’
Winner: Deborah Cohen from the BMJ for ‘Why have UK doctors been deterred from prescribing Avastin?’
The judges said: “Deborah’s investigation into why NHS doctors are being prevented from using a safe and effective eye drug covered a highly technical subject but nonetheless held the attention of the non-specialist reader right to the end. It exposed a conflict of interest in the drug licensing system at the heart of the NHS.”
Deborah Cohen pictured with AJ Kenneally from Astellas
Breaking News Award
Winner: Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthnott and Bojan Pancevski (Insight) – The Sunday Times for coverage of Fifa and Sepp Blatter: 'Swiss prosecutors target Blatter as Prince William demands clean-up'
The judges said: “The Insight Team are probably as responsible for the demise of Fifa and its dirty practitioners as anyone and this story is a result of all that painstaking work over the years. It is not just a top line but a whole catalogue of woe.”
George Arbuthnott, Jonathan Calvert and awards judge Kurt Barling
Sports Journalism sponsored by Sportcal
Highly commended: Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthnott and David Collins of The Sunday Times for The Doping Scandal
The judges said this was: “A vast investigation which exposed a major scandal.”
Winner: Mark Daly, Murdoch Rodgers and David Epstein – BBC Scotland/Panorama/ProPublica for 'Catch Me If You Can’ investigation into athletics doping
The judges said: "This was a superb long-crafted investigation which had a huge impact on athletics. Daly led a team of journalists which spent 18 months investigating doping in athletics. The revelations about star coach Alberto Salazar led the sports news agenda for weeks."
Mark Daly with Sportcal chief executive Mike Laflin
Popular journalism sponsored by Bournemouth University
Winner: The news team at The Mail on Sunday for '62p an hour –', ‘MoS reporter is first to contact UK schoolgirl who fled to Syria d’ and ‘Exposed: Tory’s plot with race thugs to fix election’
The judges said: “Week in week out The Mail on Sunday shows that producing hard-hitting popular journalism with mass appeal and serving the public interest can go hand in hand. In particular the news team showed industry and ingenuity to reveal the hypocrisy of leading politicians wearing ‘feminist’ T-shirts produced by women working for 62p an hour in Mauritius.”
The Mail on Sunday team with Karen Fowler Watt from Bournemouth University
Local Heroes
Highly commended: Andrew Gilligan of The Daily and Sunday Telegraph for his dogged Investigation into corruption, electoral fraud and links to extremism of Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman
Winner: Jeanette Oldham of the Birmingham Mail for ‘Birmingham City Council hid links between Asian cabbies and child sex victims for 23 years’, ‘West Midlands Police report reveals 75 per cent of known on-street child sex groomers are Asian’ and ‘Child Sexual Exploitation: We force West Midlands Police to release secret report which confirms 'significant similarities' with Rotherham scandal’
The judges said: “Jeanette used whistleblowers and shoe leather reporting to expose disturbing parallels to the Rotherham child abuse scandal in Birmingham and evidence of local authority inaction and a cover up. It was first class investigative reporting firmly in the public interest which has made difference.”
Jeanette Oldham with John Mair
Investigation of the year sponsored by Public Concern at Work
Winner: Juliette Garside, James Ball, David Leigh and David Pegg of The Guardian for the HSBC Files
The judges said: “This was a complex financial story which had a real impact on the use of tax havens. It was a stunning demonstration of international investigative work spanning many international borders and making big waves.”
The Guardian team with Ciara Bottomley from Public Concern at Work
The Marie Colvin Award for raising the reputation of British journalism
Winner: Alan Rusbridger
The judges said:
The word visionary is bandied around a lot, but it is particularly impressive that Alan Rusbridger wrote The Online Future – a blueprint for The Guardian’s digital development back in 1994. The Guardian now attracts some 140m browsers a month around the world.
In the early years of his editorship he won some of the most significant libel cases of the modern era including: Neil Hamilton, Jonathan Aitken and Stoke Newington police station (ending the Police Federation’s 80-case undefeated run).
In recent years he has overseen some of the biggest journalism investigations of our time: phone-hacking, Wikileaks, Snowden and finally HSBC..
In 2014 The Guardian became the first non-American news organisation to win the Pulitzer Prize in recognition of its Snowden coverage.
In an industry where editors often like to the keep their heads down, he has always stuck his above the parapet and been a vocal supporter of press freedom and of journalism in general.
He has been a great ambassador for our craft and is a hugely deserving winner of the 2015 Marie Colvin award.
Alan Rusbridger pictured with Warner Rootliep of sponsor Air France/KLM
Journalist of the Year sponsored by Audi
Winner: Jonathan Calvert of The Sunday Times
The judges said:
Jonathan Calvert is the longest serving editor of The Sunday Times Insight team in its 50-year history and over his 21 years in national newspaper journalism he has probably been behind as many famous scoops and investigative scandals as any other journalist still working today.
Over the last year he has been again involved in several of the biggest stories to have hit the headlines. After leading the way in exposing Fifa for five years, this year his Insight team revealed Fifa president Sepp Blatter had made a secret deal to ensure Qatar would not lose its hosting rights to the 2022 world cup. It was his investigation which largely provoked the current crisis in Fifa which is now finally showing signs of cleaning up its act.
The Sunday Times blood doping investigation this year revealed that 55 gold medals have been won in Olympics and world championship endurance events by athletes who have recorded suspicious blood tests.
He is a journalist who has produced a quite astonishing track record of investigations and scoops across a huge range of subject areas.
More British Journalism Awards pictures are available from this link
The British Journalism Awards are sponsored by:
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
