Winners
RESULTS 2025
Best Commercial Partner
Winner: Chartbeat
For the past 15 years, content analytics platform Chartbeat has offered publishers invaluable insight into what their readers really want. With tools such as real-time and historical dashboards, experimentation and in-page optimisation, and robust reporting, clients have been able to understand, measure and build business value from th...
Best Live Coverage
Liverpool Echo
The Liverpool Echo uses live coverage as an integral part of its storytelling – and three specific examples show how different tools and platforms come together to really engage with and serve readers. Firstly, the Echo’s live court coverage of the trial following the murder of Ashley Dale drove 4.5 million page views across Reach’s Li...

Manchester Evening News
Campaign of the Year
Save our rail industry, Derbyshire Live / Derby Telegraph
Derbyshire Live / Derby Telegraph
When it was announced that the 200-year old, Derby-based train manufacturer Alstom was to cease production in the city, the Derbyshire Live website and Derby Telegraph began working with other concerned organisations to save the company and the thousands of people it employs.The resulting ‘Save our rail industry’ campaign was, accordin...
Digital Initiative of the Year
BirminghamLive/Reach PLC Data Unit
BirminghamLive’s Child Poverty Emergency campaign centred around a wide-ranging report, created alongside Reach’s Data Unit, and ran to more than 12,000 words. The team quickly recognised that they needed to use a host of different technologies to communicate the important findings to audiences.They used animated graphs, illustrations ...
Front Page of the Year
Last Breath
Western Mail
The front page of the Western Mail’s October 1 edition was described by judges as “memorable, combining creative use of the picture with a simple headline to stunning effect… It tells a compelling and important story in a striking way.”Recognising the significance of the day the final blast furnace at Port Talbot steelworks would be sh...

A city under water
Oxford Mail
News Website of the Year
Belfast Telegraph
This is the third year running that the Belfast Telegraph has scooped the best website award, with judges this year recognising its “genuinely impressive coverage, range and invention”. Reporting included coverage of the Katie Simpson murder case and the death of her killer Jonathan Creswell, live coverage of the General Election and t...

The Irish News
Reporting Communities Award
BirminghamLive/Birmingham Mail
“It's not often that publications concentrate their coverage on ethnic minority populations in a way that isn't patronising or clichéd,” but that is precisely what BirminghamLive has done with its Brummie Muslims brand, according to judges.Against a difficult background for Asian communities, BirminghamLive implemented a series of edit...
Scoop of the Year
Company which donated £200,000 to Vaughan Gething's First Minister bid wants to build huge solar farm
WalesOnline
WalesOnline reporter Will Hayward’s investigation into a £200,000 donation to First Minister Vaughan Gething’s election campaign “was more than a story that was handed to the journalist – it involved perseverance and doggedness”, judges said. That included navigating the obscure and opaque planning system in Wales, and sifting through ...
Supplement of the Year
North Lakes Living, Cumberland & Westmorland Herald and Keswick Reminder
Barrnon Media
Launched in May 2024, the North Lakes Living supplement is distributed free of charge in the last edition of the month of two paid-for, weekly newspapers – the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald and Keswick Reminder – which have a combined circulation of around 8,000 weekly readers.The 32-page supplement is described as being “packed with...

Weekend, Western Mail
Western Mail
Young Journalist of the Year
James Holt
Manchester Evening News
In just three years as a reporter at the Manchester Evening News, James Holt has established himself as a vital part of the newsroom, “demonstrating many competencies from sourcing and breaking exclusives to digital journalism”, according to judges. They were blown away by his body of work: from breaking the national exclusive video of...

Ben Roberts-Haslam
Liverpool Echo
Sports Journalist of the Year
Nathan Judah
Express and Star
Nathan Judah has been a trailblazer in digital coverage for the Express and Star, leading the push for video content and directly driving subscriptions from sports fans since the introduction of a paywall in 2024. Judah is well-known for his coverage of Wolverhampton Wanderers and co-hosts the weekly 'Wolves poddy' podcast, which regul...

Andy Watters
The Irish News

Matthew Lindsay
The Herald
Specialist Journalist of the Year
Liam Thorp
Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo’s political editor Liam Thorp is a prominent voice in the region, and caught the eye of judges as “a journalist who understands his newspaper's readers and is at the top of his game”.For much of 2024, Thorp dedicated his time to exploring and documenting Liverpool's homelessness emergency. Months of reporting, speaking t...
Photographer of the Year
Kevin Scott
Belfast Telegraph
The Belfast Telegraph’s Kevin Scott has an instinct for being in the right place at the right time – and he combines this with an ability to capture both the intensity and humanity of any situation. His “dedication to go beyond the expected to get the right shot” was evident when Scott attended Newry courthouse, where former DUP leader...

James Hardisty
National World
Reporter of the Year (Daily)
Allison Morris
Belfast Telegraph
Judges were seriously impressed with Allison Morris’s “powerful” portfolio of work, “that could only have been assembled by a journalist with great contacts, tact and tenacity”. And with more than 20 years’ experience of boots-on-the-street reporting, that’s perhaps unsurprising. Morris’s special investigation into the individuals behi...

Liam Thorp
Liverpool Echo
Reporter of the Year (Weekly)
Frankie Lister-Fell
Camden New Journal
Frankie Lister-Fell’s portfolio of work “demonstrates the rewards to be had when a journalist integrates with the local community”, judges said. “She looks at issues which might otherwise get overlooked – giving a voice to those without one.”Nowhere is that more evident than in her work on homelessness in north London. Lister-Fell reve...

Charles Thomson
Newsquest South East
Cathryn Nicholl Award
Millie Bowles
KentOnline
Despite being just over two years into her journalism career – and with no former experience or qualifications in the industry – Millie Bowles undoubtedly has both a good nose for a story and a true reporter’s instinct. This was especially evident when securing an interview with former Russian oligarch Ilya Yurov and his wife Nataliya,...
Crime & Investigative Reporter of the Year
Charles Thomson
Newsquest South East
Charles Thomson’s “dogged reporting in the pursuit of justice is local journalism at its finest”, according to judges. Responding to reports from residents, Thomson gathered evidence of drug dealing across Newham estates, following one particular death through the coroner’s court. His chronicling of the true extent of east London's ris...
Designer of the Year
Raymond Esteban
Mediahuis
A good design should not just be visually pleasing, but should clearly aid readers in engaging with content – something Raymond Esteban achieves to spectacular effect through the use of infographics and photo manipulation for the Belfast Telegraph’s weekly magazine and supplements.It is his “impactful and attention-grabbing cover artwo...
Feature Writer of the Year
Neil Mackay
The Herald
Neil Mackay’s entry was “head and shoulders above”, according to Regional Press Awards judges; “excellent, eye-catching topics and first rate writing”.An investigative journalist for more than 30 years, Mackay’s long-form features for The Herald are regularly among the most widely read and shared articles on the website, and bring in l...

Martin Williams
The Herald
Opinion Writer of the Year
Catriona Stewart
Freelance
As a twice-weekly columnist for The Herald for the past 14 years, Catriona Stewart’s “unique and often quirky” look at current affairs frequently leans on her personal experience. Judges loved reading her “strong package of writing on tough subjects that is nuanced, respectful of the differing views of her readers, and touching because...

Neil Mackay
The Herald
News Brand of the Year (Small)
Camden New Journal
North London-based Camden New Journal is a “great example of a weekly title doing what it does best: campaigning journalism; finding the unusual off-diary stories in their beats and bringing communities together”, according to Regional Press Awards judges. From being the first to get the 2024 General Election results for its area – inc...

Cambrian News
News Brand of the Year (Large)
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 stab...
