Birmingham’s ‘Sunday Mercury’ scooped newspaper of the year at Birmingham Press Club’s annual Midlands Media, beating long-standing champions, the Stoke-on-Trent Sentinel.

The Sentinel group has picked up the accolade for the past four years in Awards, and chairman of judges and ‘Daily Telegraph’ assistant editor, Andrew Pierce, said it took a lot to beat them. ‘It was going to have to be a very good newspaper to stop Stoke – and that’s what the ‘Mercury’ is,’he said. Runners-up in the competition, held last week at Baskerville House in Birmingham city centre, were the ‘Mercury’s stablemates, the ‘Coventry Telegraph’ and the ‘Birmingham Mail’.

One of the smallest newspapers in the region, the ‘Hinckley Times’, scooped the other major award of the night. ‘Times’ reporter Amy Harris made her Media Awards debut by winning ‘Scoop of the Year’ and coming runner-up in ‘Newcomer of the Year’.