“Brave investigations and solid editorial”
were the key to success for Glasgow’s Evening Times, which picked up the top award at the Newspaper Society’s Circulation, Editorial and Promotion Awards.
Speaking at the awards, editor Donald Martin said that while putting the paper together had been hard work in what he said was one of the most competitive markets in the country, he and his team had had “a lot of fun”.
The judges named the Evening Times as best regional paper, describing it as “a strong paper from front cover to back”.
The Times ran several high-profile campaigns in the past year and one, “Crime on Your Street”, used the Freedom of Information Act to reveal where 137,000 crimes took place in Glasgow in 2005-06.
“Glasgow Gangs”, a campaign led by former chief reporter Chris Leask, now at the Evening Times’s sister paper the Glasgow Herald, revealed that there were 110 gangs in the city with more than 2,000 members and the authorities were urged to take action.
Martin said: “This is a fine tribute to our team’s professionalism and hard work.
It’s particularly rewarding since we are operating in the most competitive newspaper market outside London.”
The Press in York won campaign of the year for “Change It”. The campaign saw a change in the law to allow child kidnappers to be placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Other winners on the night included Brighton’s Argus, which was nominated in six categories and picked up the new scoop of the year award as well as the award for cest reader acquisition and retention campaign, and the Hull Daily Mail and Southern Daily Echo, which were jointly named as innovative newspaper of the year.
Two reporters from the Derby Evening Telegraph, David Walsh and Catherine Oakes, took home journalist of the year and young journalist of the year respectively.
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