Liverpool Echo

The Liverpool Echo has had a stellar year, not least because of the “brilliantly handled, first rate coverage” of the Southport murders and subsequent violence across Britain, “but because the team has demonstrated time and again commitment to serving their communities and audiences”, judges said.

The real-time coverage of the mass stabbings in Southport sought to combat the misinformation shared on social media and provide a public service for a community in shock. Judges agreed this was achieved across both digital platforms and the print title, with “painstaking attention to accuracy and lack of sensationalism”.

Demonstrating its passion for agenda journalism, the Echo produced an immersive report into the impact of austerity on Liverpool, and published it ahead of the general election as a pitch to the next government to halt harmful cost-cutting policies. Judges said the piece “combines the best of data journalism and investigative reporting”.

When departing Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp chose the Echo to share his love letter to Liverpool, judges said it “spoke volumes of the regard the publication is held in, at all levels”. 

The Echo’s approach is working: it reaches 4.6m readers every month, and in September its stories were read 35.7m times. It sells more than 10,000 newspapers a day, has 361,000 newsletter subscribers and a thriving WhatsApp news community.