Irish Times leads nominations for journalism awards

Paper’s journalists on 34 shortlists for annual Newsbrands Journalism Awards

Fintan O’Toole: one of those shortlisted for columnist of the year, along with Miriam Lord. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Fintan O’Toole: one of those shortlisted for columnist of the year, along with Miriam Lord. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

The Irish Times received the highest number of nominations for the annual Newsbrands Journalism Awards, nearly twice the number of any other paper.

The paper's journalists featured on 34 shortlists across a range of categories, The Irish Sun received 20 shortlists, the next highest.

The "Platform" series, a weekly column in the Health and Family Supplement written by seven people, each with a disability, is nominated for an award in the Campaigning Journalism category.

Rosita Boland, Irish Times senior features writer, was shortlisted for scoop of the year, in the investigative journalism category, for her groundbreaking article from May titled 'I was Ann Lovett's boyfriend'.

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Deputy political editor Fiach Kelly was shortlisted for political journalist of the year, and both Miriam Lord and Fintan O’Toole were shortlisted for columnist of the year.

Irish Times journalists received four of the six nominations in the foreign coverage category, with Suzanne Lynch, Sally Hayden, Lara Marlowe and Guy Hedgecoe shortlisted.

Niamh Towey and Sorcha Pollak were shortlisted in the digital excellence award category, for an irishtimes.com liveblog run during Hurricane Ophelia.

Simon Carswell and Mark Paul were shortlisted for scoop of the year, for a story revealing former minister for communications Denis Naughten had relayed plans to refer the proposed takeover of Celtic Media by Independent News & Media to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, to businessman Denis O’Brien.

Journalists from the Irish Independent/Independent.ie were shortlisted 14 times, with the Sunday Independent receiving 10 nominations.

Representative body

Both the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Daily Star received 12 shortlists, followed by the Sunday Times (11); The Times Ireland edition (11), the Irish Daily Mail (8), the Irish Mail on Sunday (8), the Irish Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror (6), the Irish Examiner (6), the Sunday World (2), The Herald (2), and the Irish Farmers Journal (1).

Newsbrands is the representative body for the Irish newspaper industry. The awards cover categories from business, to politics, sports, crime, showbiz, and headline of the year.

Other Irish Times journalists shortlisted for awards included Mark Paul and Colm Keena (business story of the year), Mark Paul (business journalist of the year), Patrick Freyne (critic of the year), Enda O'Dowd; Ciara Kenny (digital excellence), Conor Lally; Sally Hayden, Conor Gallagher (features broadsheet), Patsy McGarry; Eoin Burke Kennedy (news analysis), Conor Lally; Simon Carswell, Sarah Bardon and Martin Wall (news reporter of the year), Ronan McGreevy; Simon Carswell and Mark Paul, (political story of the year), Simon Carswell and Mark Paul (scoop of the year), Jack Power (investigative journalism), Johnny Watterson (sports story of the year), Johnny Watterson; Malachy Clerkin (sports writer broadsheet), and Jack Power; Sally Hayden (young journalist of the year).

Jack Power

Jack Power

Jack Power is acting Europe Correspondent of The Irish Times