Former Express online editorial director Tom Hunt is now editor-in-chief of the brand.

In recent months Gary Jones has left the Express after six years as editor-in-chief and subsequently Sunday Express editor David Wooding also departed.

Jones was the second editor-in-chief of a Reach national newspaper to leave their post this year after six years: Alison Phillips stepped down from the Mirror at the end of January and was succeeded by Caroline Waterston.

Also this year London free business newspaper City AM, which is expanding its remit nationally, has appointed its former editor Christian May to return to the role.

Press Gazette has put together a round-up of the UK’s national newspaper editors as they stand (in no particular order). We will keep this list updated.

UK national newspaper editors

The Times

Tony Gallagher was appointed editor of The Times on 28 September 2022 following the resignation of John Witherow the day before.

Gallagher was promoted from deputy editor, and had already been acting as caretaker editor for several months while Witherow was on medical leave.

Gallagher joined The Times in February 2020 from fellow News UK title The Sun where he was editor for five years. He has also previously edited The Daily Telegraph between 2009 and 2014.

The Sunday Times

Ben Taylor was named editor of The Sunday Times on 19 January 2023, stepping up from deputy editor after news Emma Tucker would be leaving to lead The Wall Street Journal from 1 February.

Taylor was previously executive editor of the Daily Mail, where he worked for 22 years, before joining The Sunday Times as deputy editor in 2020.

Daily Mail

Ted Verity has edited the Daily Mail since November 2021, having previously been at the helm of the Mail on Sunday since 2018 and deputy at the daily paper before that.

He is editor-in-chief of Mail Newspapers, meaning he has overall responsibility for the Mail brands in a seven-day operation.

Mail on Sunday

Following Verity’s promotion, David Dillon was appointed to be Mail on Sunday editor in December 2021. He was previously Verity’s deputy.

Dillon first joined the Mail on Sunday from the Daily Express in 2001, working as news editor for a number of years before being promoted to executive editor.

The Sun and The Sun on Sunday

Victoria Newton has been editor-in-chief of The Sun since February 2020. She had been editor at The Sun on Sunday since 2013 but took over from Gallagher when he left The Sun for The Times.

Newton has maintained responsibility for the Sunday title in her editor-in-chief role.

Daily Mirror

Caroline Waterston, previously editor-in-chief of Reach magazines and supplements, has edited the Daily Mirror since the start of February 2024 – initially on an interim basis before she was made permanent on 30 April.

Waterston first joined Reach (then Trinity Mirror) in the mid-1990s and her roles have included deputy news editor and features editor of The People, features editor of the Sunday Mirror, head of features and deputy editor on the Sunday titles, deputy editor-in-chief across the Express and Star titles after their acquisition by Reach, and editor-in-chief of the national magazines including OK! magazine.

Waterston took over from Alison Phillips, who had edited the Daily Mirror since March 2018 and was editor-in-chief of that title plus the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People from February 2020 with the move to a seven-day operation.

The Daily Telegraph

Chris Evans has been editor of The Telegraph since January 2014 after the sacking of Tony Gallagher. He has been with The Telegraph since 2007, with previous roles including news editor and head of news, after joining from the Daily Mail where he spent 11 years.

The Sunday Telegraph

Although Evans has ultimate editorial responsibility at The Telegraph, Allister Heath has edited The Sunday Telegraph since 2017, having previously been Telegraph deputy editor.

Daily Express and Sunday Express

Tom Hunt, formerly Express online editorial director, was named editor-in-chief of the brand on 20 September.

At the Daily Express he succeeded Gary Jones who stepped down after six years in the role, which he used to detoxify the brand. Sunday Express editor David Wooding departed his own role about two months later as the Express becomes a seven-day operation without a dedicated Sunday Express team.

Before that Hunt had been with the Express for more than eight years, including as video news editor, leading its first team dedicated to video, and head of news.

Hunt said: “There is a huge opportunity here which I’m excited to take further, both digitally and in print, particularly as we cover Labour’s first months in office and see out a Conservative leadership contest.”

The Guardian

Katharine Viner has been editor-in-chief at The Guardian since 2015, when she was voted by staff to take over from Alan Rusbridger. She was previously editor-in-chief at The Guardian’s US edition.

The Observer

Under Viner’s leadership, Paul Webster edits The Observer. Viner appointed him to the role in 2018, after 20 years as deputy at the Sunday paper.

i

Oly Duff has been editor-in-chief of the i since June 2013, when he became the UK’s youngest national newspaper editor aged 29 – a title he maintains today.

Financial Times

Roula Khalaf has edited The Financial Times since January 2020, when she succeeded Lionel Barber who spent 14 years as editor.

Khalaf had been Barber’s deputy since 2016 and her previous roles at the FT included foreign editor and Middle East editor. She first joined the business newspaper in 1995.

Daily Star

Jon Clark has been seven-day editor-in-chief at the Daily Star since March 2018 after the paper was bought by Reach (then Trinity Mirror). He was previously associate editor at the Daily Mirror from 2013.

Daily Star on Sunday

Under Clark’s leadership, Denis Mann edits the Daily Star on Sunday and is a deputy on the daily. He has similarly held the role since March 2018.

The Independent

Geordie Greig was appointed as editor-in-chief of the digital-only The Independent in January 2023, just over a year after being ousted from editing the Daily Mail. He has previously edited the Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and Tatler.

He took over at The Independent from David Marley, who had been acting editor since October 2020 when Christian Broughton was promoted to managing director.

Free newspaper editors

Metro

Deborah Arthurs is editor-in-chief of Metro in print and online, having taken the lead on a new combined operation in March 2023.

She had been editor of Metro.co.uk from 2014 and a “gentle refresh” of the brand aligning print and online marked the beginning of her tenure as overall editor.

Arthurs has taken over from Ted Young, who had been editing the print newspaper for eight years.

Evening Standard

Former GQ editor of 22 years Dylan Jones was appointed editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard following a brief period as editorial consultant.

Jones began in the role on Monday 5 June 2023, becoming the news outlet’s first permanent editor in more than 18 months.

Before him, Jack Lefley was acting editor from July 2022 and Charlotte Ross had previously been acting editor from October 2021.

The last full-time editors were Emily Sheffield, who left in October 2021 after 15 months, and former chancellor George Osborne, who was in post between May 2017 and July 2020.

City AM

Former City AM editor Christian May is returning to the free business title after almost four years away at the end of August 2024.

He succeeds Andy Silvester, May’s former deputy who took on the role himself, whose last day was Thursday 18 July.

May described his previous five-year stint as editor as “the happiest and most rewarding years of my life”, adding: “I couldn’t be more excited to rejoin the team at City AM as it gears up for an ambitious era of growth and innovation.”

The post Who are the UK’s national newspaper editors? appeared first on Press Gazette.

Most news publishers who expressed a preference endorsed Kamala Harris as US president, yet Donald Trump has been returned to office.

The margin of victory for Trump, winning both the electoral college and the popular vote, also surprised many in the media and appeared to be fuelled by a campaign which focused more on courting popular podcasters than it did legacy media.

We asked senior leaders at major US news publishers what the lessons are from the presidential election on connecting with audiences.

The Guardian’s US editor Betsy Reed suggested “so-called outrage cycles” may not deserve as much coverage in future as they did not prove to be deal breakers to voters, but she believes the media did do a “pretty good job” conveying the stakes of the election.

Francesca Barber, executive director of global newsroom strategy at Politico, said trust is gained by “listening, not just opining”.

Geordie Greig, editor of The Independent which has been quickly expanding in the US, said the election should remind the media of the importance of short-form video.

Katie Davies, editor of Dailymail.com, said the election only underscored that Americans are “consuming their news in more ways than ever before”.

BBC News director of digital Naja Nielsen said the election showed it is easy to become over-reliant on polls and “nothing beats boots on the ground”.

And The Hill’s director of audience and social media Sarakshi Rai said “being fair and nonpartisan” will help build trust with audiences and show there is not “some kind of underlying agenda”.

Read on to see each of their answers in full.

‘We need to reconsider reporting of outrage cycles’

Betsy Reed, US editor – The Guardian

“Overall, I actually think the media did a pretty good job reporting on the stakes of this election. But we did make a few mistaken assumptions this time around: that people would turn away from Trump because of his dangerous rhetoric and outrageous statements; and that the enthusiasm we observed at Kamala’s rallies would be sufficient to draw voters out, outweighing very real, well-documented concerns voters had about the economy, inflation, and the party in power.

“To be fair, The Guardian and the media did extensively cover voter dissatisfaction with the economy – in particular in our “Confidence Question” series – but we need to seriously consider how much reporting resources we devote to so-called outrage cycles moving forward, when it’s clear those things aren’t ultimately decisive to undecided voters.”

Trust ‘means listening, not just opining’

Francesca Barber, executive director of global newsroom strategy at Politico

“The way people are consuming media and information is changing rapidly – this election cycle saw the power of podcasts and loyalty with relatable, trusted voices amongst specific audiences. Think Call Her Daddy and Joe Rogan as major interview moments for both Trump and Harris.

“Trust is important here: it means listening, not just opining. It means having a direct relationship to audiences in the formats they are consuming (e.g. video, audio, shareable direct messages). And it means being clear who your audience is and building expectations and habit throughout the year, so that during an election cycle, they come to you.

“At Politico, our audience relies on our voice and authority to inform their daily professional lives. They rely on our geographic breadth to contextualize major global moments and our depth of reporting in each local market, to highlight the shifting policy and power dynamics beyond the horse race of an election.

“Now, we must continue to be thoughtful and creative with how and when we’re reaching our readers as we continue to keep up with the changing consumption and technological habits of our readers.”

‘Short-form video is key’

Geordie Greig, editor of The Independent

“The US election showed that, despite Trump’s attacks against many media companies, serious, independent journalism cuts through and still connects, as demonstrated by our record month in the US in September, in which we became the number one British brand in America.

“While we often think of America as being polarised, the exit polling also demonstrated just how many voters see themselves as independent. So there’s clearly a significant appetite for unbiased, authoritative news, and an opportunity for trusted brands to deliver this.

“Readers across the political spectrum seem increasingly to distrust what candidates are saying, but they still want to feel that they know the facts about the issues.

“More broadly, this election showed news brands what we already know. Audiences don’t consume news in the same way they did even ten years ago. Short-form video is key, and you need to meet audiences where they are. That’s why we stepped Independent TV into a higher gear and renewed our focus on platforms like TikTok.

“It remains to be seen whether the industry will experience a second ‘Trump bump,’ but all we can do is continue reporting, and finding our audience wherever they consume news. What we do is on the tin: we will stay independent.”

Audience wants ‘hard facts and unbiased news coverage’

Sarakshi Rai, director of audience and social media – The Hill

“The Hill paid close attention to what our audience wanted from political media outlets this election cycle – hard facts and unbiased news coverage along with data and in-depth analysis. The media needs to embrace being fair and nonpartisan in order to build trust with readers of all political stripes and convince them that there’s not some kind of underlying agenda to their coverage.

“There’s no denying that trust in media outlets has been low this election cycle and at The Hill we followed an editorial policy of not telling our readers what to think but allowing them to understand the facts and make up their own minds. It’s essential that news organisations reach audiences where they are at, not force them to meet them where they want them to be with their coverage that might skew one way or another.

“At The Hill we met our audience exactly where they were, whether it was with our video coverage, data analysis or editorial coverage. It’s not a one size fits all approach, and we made sure we had elements that people wanted from media outlets. Our partnership with Decision Desk also drove audience interest with a data and facts-first approach with polling aggregate numbers throughout the election cycle as well as a forecasting model and live election results.

“And as we looked deeper at the numbers, the results speak for themselves between Election Day and the day after – we not only gave our audiences what they wanted but grew it. TheHill.com saw 9.44 million unique visitors, over 18.34 million page views and 3.43 million video starts on the site.”

‘Americans are consuming their news in more ways than ever before’

Katie Davies, editor-in-chief – Dailymail.com

Dailymail.com saw record levels of traffic on election day, one of its highest-performing days in the US to date, and direct homepage traffic was the highest it had been for two years.

Press Gazette understands Daily Mail Tiktok videos were viewed a record 6.5 billion times in October and 5.3 billion times in September, and its election coverage on the platform received 427 million video views and led to almost 400,000 new followers.

The brand worked with polling firm JL Partners which projected a 287-251 win for Trump, which turned out to be closer to his actual 312 – 226 win than many other pollsters.

Katie Davies said: “This election cycle underscores the fact that Americans, now more than ever, are consuming their news in more ways than ever before. The Daily Mail US broke dozens of exclusives, sat down with insiders and people in power, and published some of the most accurate polling out there and we saw record-breaking amounts of traffic to our website leading up to and throughout the election, particularly on our mobile homepage. But we’ve also seen a tremendous appetite from our users to consume their news in new ways, be that TikTok, our social channels, video and podcasts and more.

“Under the Trump administration we’re going to continue doing what the Daily Mail does best – focus on the engaging stories our readers want to talk about in their daily lives – at the office, the bar, the school run etc. Our election numbers are a clear vote from readers that they love what we are doing and we will continue to hold those in power to account while maintaining our fun, audacious and distinctive Daily Mail voice.”

‘It’s easy to get over-reliant on polls’

Naja Nielsen, director of digital, channel and weather – BBC News

“I oversaw the BBC’s coverage from our Washington Bureau and, I have to say, I think BBC News overall covered it well.

“What in my opinion made BBC News stand out from especially a lot of the US media, was our impartiality and our focus on the voters.

“We also reported and analysed various polls, but it’s easy to get over-reliant on polls and as we have seen, once again, when it comes to gauging the mood among the voters nothing beats boots on the ground and our correspondents and reporters talking to the voters everywhere.

“On top of that first-hand reporting, our Voter Voices initiative proved very valuable. It’s a panel of voters with all types of views and backgrounds that feed into our reporting and help us present a range of views. There are many nuances in the viewpoints of Republicans as well as Democrats and all those who support neither and we wanted to capture that breadth.

“We are also lucky to have a team of expert Washington bureaux who know the country and its politics inside out and we were able to give audiences the benefit of a team at the top of their game – explaining the nuances of the US system and culture to a global audience.

“Our commitment to impartial and transparency also makes us uniquely placed in the US, as well as in the UK. Our investment in BBC Verify US made it possible for us to counter misinformation, and our curious and critical approach to all opinions is something a lot of people are looking for in these often very divisive times.

“This saw us reach huge numbers of people who were coming to us for a source of news they could trust – to cut through the noise and get a clear view. We never take sides, and I genuinely see all of our journalists reporting with open, curious and critical minds. I was following a lot of UK and US coverage and when it became clear, Trump would win, you could hear the tone change across most of US Election shows in one way or another, whereas our team kept being on the ball, reporting the story with no agenda.

“On Tuesday and Wednesday alone our digital journalism attracted around 61 million users – showing what an appetite there is, not only for news on the US election, but for the clarity and impartial view that only the BBC can give.”

The post Polls, trust and video shorts: Lessons for news publishers from US election appeared first on Press Gazette.

All of the UK’s biggest political stories, both print and broadcast, have been approved by the outlets’ political editors. They are the minds behind every news story and coverage involving politics, and these names climbed the journalism ladder thanks to their innovative and critical thinking.

Political editors are some of the best-known names in the industry, bringing in scoops from their overflowing books as well as typically juggling a team of political correspondents and reporters.

These are the country’s main political editors across traditional newspaper outlets and broadcasters, from the BBC to The Sunday Times and GB News to the Daily Mail.

Who are the UK national newspaper political editors?

The Guardian – Pippa Crerar (2022 – present)

Pippa Crerar, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, attended Newcastle University, obtaining a degree in English. She later took a postgraduate course at City, University of London in newspaper journalism.

Crerar began her journalistic career in 1999 when she received the Scott Trust bursary, which paid for her training and provides work experience at The Guardian for people from under-represented groups in journalism.

During her residency at The Daily Mirror, where she was political editor, Crerar won scoop of the year at the British Journalism Awards along with Guardian journalist Matthew Weaver for their revelation that government advisor Dominic Cummings had broken lockdown rules.

In recent times, the journalist focused on other stories about lockdown-breaking events in Downing Street.

She recently took over from Heather Stewart as political editor at The Guardian. “I know that we’ll do great journalism together, holding politicians and power to account and shining a light on how their decisions impact all of us,” she said.

The Observer – Toby Helm (2022 – present)

Toby Helm worked for the Sunday Telegraph between 1991 and 1996, when he began serving as the Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, later moving to become Berlin correspondent.

He stayed there until 2002, when he was appointed chief political correspondent on his return to the UK – before moving over to The Observer in 2008 as Whitehall editor. He is now The Observer’s political editor.

The Sun – Harry Cole (2020 – present)

Harry Cole is The Sun’s political editor. His career has been enriched by working for publications such as The Spectator and The Mail on Sunday.

After reading politics at the University of Edinburgh, he obtained a Master’s degree at the same university in anthropology and economic history. After graduating in 2009, Cole started his journalistic career.

Starting as a blogger for Guido Fawkes’s Blog from 2009 until 2015, Cole covered the role of contributing editor for The Spectator at the same time, from 2012 until 2015. He joined The Sun on Sunday in 2013 as a diarist and moved to The Sun in 2015 as the Westminster correspondent.

After his first encounter with The Sun’s editorial team, Cole turned to the Mail on Sunday to work as deputy political editor from 2018 until 2020, when he left and went back to The Sun as political editor, which he still is today.

Cole won the publication the Scoop of the Year prize at the British Journalism Awards in 2021, thanks to his revelation of former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s affair with Gina Coladangelo during the pandemic.

However, as the political editor revealed, The Sun experienced threats from government officials and even heard of imminent action from Chinese and Russian spies. This is after the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the houses of two suspected whistleblowers who may have leaked CCTV footage of Hancock’s affair. As the journalist explained, these threats came also from the proposed reform to the Official Secrets Act which could see journalists treated like spies.

Cole said: “Everyone in this room, whether they read The Sun or not, should know that this has a chilling effect on the freedom of the press and we are really glad that public interest journalism is recognised in this way.”

The Sun on Sunday – Kate Ferguson (2022 – present)

Kate Ferguson joined The Sun on Sunday as political editor in 2022 after being deputy political editor at The Sun since 2019.

Ferguson started her journalism journey as a cub reporter on the Willesden & Brent Times and then the Ham & High. She developed her skills by working as a crime reporter for the Press Association.

“I am hugely excited to be the new Sun on Sunday political editor – it is a dream job for me. With the economy in crisis, the war in Europe and rebellions in Parliament, our political coverage has never been more important,” the journalist stated when she took the role.

The Times – Steven Swinford (2021 – present)

Steven Swinford is The Times’ political editor and has been since 2021. Prior to this, he was deputy political editor under Francis Elliott.

Swinford’s career also involved being deputy political editor at The Daily Telegraph and a reporter at The Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times – Caroline Wheeler (2021 – present)

The Sunday Times’ political editor is Caroline Wheeler, who took up the role in 2021.

The journalist graduated in political science and government from the University of York in 1999, and then undertook a Master’s degree in newspaper journalism at the University of Wales, Cardiff.

Right after the end of her studies, Wheeler became a trainee reporter for Trinity Mirror Group PLC, where she remained for four years. In 2004, she covered the role of parliamentary correspondent for Local World Media from 2004 until 2014, before embarking on another journey as political editor for Sunday Express, where Wheeler worked for three years.

Wheeler took up a role at The Sunday Times in 2017 as deputy political editor until 2021, at which point she stepped up to be the political editor.

Throughout her career, Wheeler has broken multiple agenda-setting stories about the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the 2017 general election.

The acclaimed journalist was included in Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ journalist blacklist. “The British journalists included in the list are involved in the deliberate dissemination of false and one-sided information about Russia and the events in Ukraine and Donbas. With their biased assessments, they also contribute to fueling Russophobia in British society,” the Ministry declared in June 2022.

The Independent – Andrew Woodcock (2019 – present)

Andrew Woodcock has covered the role of political editor at The Independent since 2019.

Before starting his career, Woodcock graduated from the University of Cambridge in French and German in 1989.

Six years later he joined Press Association, where he worked from 1995 until 2011 as chief political correspondent and from 2011 until 2019 as political editor. After almost 24 years at the same company, Woodcock switched over to The Independent, where he still works today.

Throughout his career, The Independent’s political editor has reported on four prime ministers and five general elections. Woodcock has also filed dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia, as well as flying on Air Force One with former US President Barack Obama.

The i – Hugo Gye (2021 – present)

Hugo Gye’s career started in 2011 when he joined MailOnline as a reporter. The journalist covered that position until 2016 when he was promoted to associate news editor.

After his experience at MailOnline, Gye moved to The Sun as a digital political editor until 2019.

The journalist joined The i Paper in 2019, first as deputy political editor and then as political editor in 2021.

The Daily Mail – Jason Groves (2021 – present)

Jason Groves was appointed as political editor of the Daily Mail in 2021.

He has also worked for publications such as the Daily Express, MSN and USA Today, according to his Muck Rack profile.

[See also: Editor Danny Groom on why ‘market leader’ Mail Online is expanding royal coverage]

The Mail on Sunday – Glen Owen (2018 – present)

Glen Owen, a Cambridge graduate, is The Mail On Sunday’s political editor.

Owen was promoted to the role of deputy political editor in 2018, replacing Simon Walters.

Owen became embroiled in a scandal in April 2022 when he reported that some anonymous members of the Conservative Party had accused Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner of “crossing and uncrossing her legs” to distract Boris Johnson while comparing her to Sharon Stone in the movie Basic Instinct (1992).

Daily Mirror – John Stevens (2022 – 2024)

Update on 16 August 2024: John Stevens is leaving the Mirror to become a special adviser to senior Labour MP Pat McFadden. His successor has not yet been announced.

After graduating in economics and politics from the University of Exeter, John Stevens completed a Master’s in newspaper journalism at City, University of London. His Master’s was funded by a Scott Trust scholarship, which also allowed him to work at the Guardian and the Observer for two months.

With his involvement in the university’s student newspaper, Stevens continued his career by working as a parliamentary researcher for the UK House of Lords for less than a year, and then starting at the Daily Mail, where he stayed for around 12 years ending up as deputy political editor.

In 2022, Stevens switched over to the Daily Mirror, where he was appointed political editor, taking over from Pippa Crerar.

He was shortlisted in the Politics Journalism category at the British Journalism Awards in 2023 for revealing a Partygate tape showing inside a lockdown-breaking Westminster party.

While at the Mail he was shortlisted for the Politics Journalism prize for revealing that then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was on holiday and apparently “too busy” to help British troops’ Afghan translators during the fall of Kabul.

Daily Express – Martyn Brown (2024 – present)

Martyn Brown was promoted from deputy to political editor in November 2024, succeeding Sam Lister.

Brown first joined the Express as a news reporter in 2007, later becoming political correspondent. He took a three-year break to live and work in Myanmar from 2015 but returned to the Express as deputy political editor.

On his appointment, Express editor-in-chief Tom Hunt said Brown is “fully deserving of his promotion and will take the team on to the next level as we continue to hold the new Government to account”, referring to Labour after their July victory.

Prior to Brown, Sam Lister was Express political editor for just over two years but has now become an associate editor at the title.

Sunday Express – David Williamson (2022 – present)

David Williamson graduated from the University of Aberdeen and then started his journalism career.

He worked as a political editor at the Western Mail and Wales Online after serving as a trainee reporter and business correspondent.

Williamson is now covering the role of political editor at the Sunday Express, after being promoted from deputy.

Financial Times – George Parker (2007 – present)

George Parker has been the Financial Times’ political editor since 2007. The journalist was previously the FT’s bureau chief in Brussels, reporting on the EU and Westminster.

Parker has reported throughout his career on some of the most dramatic events in modern British history, such as the financial crash of 2008, the coalition government and Brexit.

FT’s political editor is also a regular speaker on Radio 4’s Week in Westminster and has also appeared on shows like BBC One’s (now-defunct) Andrew Marr show and Radio 4’s Today programme.

The Telegraph – Ben Riley-Smith (2021 – present)

Ben Riley-Smith graduated from Cambridge University with a BA in history and went on to obtain a Master’s degree in journalism at City, University of London in 2012.

Riley-Smith’s career has revolved around only one publication: The Telegraph. He started in 2012 as a trainee reporter, and the journalist quickly climbed the ladder. In 2014, Riley-Smith was promoted to Scottish political correspondent and then to political correspondent. Smith stayed in that role until 2016, when he became assistant political editor.

After one year of covering this role, Smith took on the job of US editor until 2021, when he was appointed as political editor.

The Sunday Telegraph – Camilla Turner (2024 – present)

Camilla Turner took over from Edward Malnick as political editor of The Sunday Telegraph in April 2024 when Malnick became head of live features for The Telegraph.

She had been The Telegraph’s chief political correspondent for two years and was education editor for five years before that.

She first joined The Telegraph in 2013 as an editorial trainee and has worked her way up from news reporter and investigations reporter.

According to Linkedin Turner studied history at the University of Oxford and then did City University’s MA Investigative Journalism course.

[See also: National press ABCs: i reports smallest annual decline in March]

Evening Standard – Nicholas Cecil (2021 – present)

Nicholas Cecil is the political editor at the Evening Standard.

He mostly covers Westminster stories, as well as foreign affairs and other major events affecting the UK and EU. Cecil reported on the Covid-19 pandemic, air pollution, and climate change as well as some sports stories.

Who are the UK broadcast political editors?

BBC News – Chris Mason (2022 – present)

Yorkshire native Chris Mason was born into a family of teachers and, since a young age, he thoroughly enjoyed listening to the radio and had the ambition of being a presenter one day.

Mason studied geography at Cambridge University but also achieved a postgraduate diploma from City, University of London in broadcast journalism, in 2002. Straight after finishing his master’s degree, Mason got a job at BBC Newcastle and then moved to the Westminster desk.

The new BBC political editor was a Europe correspondent at BBC News until 2006, before moving to BBC Radio 5 Live. He then became a political correspondent at BBC News in 2012. Five years later, Mason began presenting the Brexitcast podcast alongside Adam Fleming.

In 2022, Mason was offered the job as BBC News political editor, taking over from Laura Kuenssberg, who took over the BBC Sunday morning TV politics slot, replacing Andrew Marr.

ITV News – Robert Peston (2015 – present)

London-born Robert Peston is the son of Labour Peer Baron Maurice Peston.

After graduating in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, Peston moved to Bruxelles to obtain a master’s degree at the Universite libre de Bruxelles. A year later, in 1983, Peston started his journalistic career at Investors’ Chronicle, working his way up to the Independent, Financial Times and Sunday Telegraph.

From print, the acclaimed journalist switched over to TV, when he started working for the BBC in 2005 as a business editor. Peston became one of the most renowned and respected journalists of modern Britain thanks to one particular scoop. Northern Rock and the financial crisis, which won him the Royal Television Society’s Television Journalism Award for Scoop of the Year in 2008.

After becoming the economics editor for the BBC, he moved to ITV in 2016 to become the broadcaster’s political editor. However, his role has caused him stress, telling Press Gazette: “I’m never relaxed. Like many journalists, I’m terrified that if I don’t get the next story, I’ll be out of a job.”

Today, The Pest – as is his nickname – also hosts his own Wednesday programme, Peston.

Channel 4 News – Gary Gibbon (2005 – present)

English journalist Gary Gibbon has been Channel 4 News’ political editor since 2005.

Born in Harrow, where he also attended school, Gibbon then headed to Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in History. After leaving education, Gibbon started to climb the journalism ladder.

While at Channel 4, he covered four general elections and wrote impactful stories throughout the years. For instance, in 2001, the political journalist’s interview with Peter Mandelson motivated the Northern Ireland Secretary’s second resignation from the Cabinet.

Gibbon is an acclaimed journalist, having won the Royal Television Society Home News Award with Jon Snow thanks to their scoop on the attorney general’s legal advice on Iraq in 2006.

Sky News – Beth Rigby (2019 – present)

Born in Colchester, Beth Rigby graduated from Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge in social and political science and then achieved a Master’s Degree in economics at the University of London.

Rigby joined Sky News in 2016 as a senior political correspondent and became deputy political editor before getting the political editor job in 2019.

Previously she was chief political correspondent at the Financial Times and media editor at The Times.

5 News – Andy Bell (1999 – present)

From 1999 to the present day, Andy Bell has been covering the position of political editor at ITN’s Channel 5 News.

The Cambridge graduate, after obtaining his degree in history in 1984, moved to the US to attend a Master’s course in international relations and affairs at the University of Pennsylvania.

His career took him all over the world, starting in Paris, where Bell worked as a stand-in correspondent for The Guardian from 1990 until 1993. The journalist’s experience led him to obtain a long-lasting job at the BBC, where he worked for almost nine years, first as a foreign affairs correspondent at Today Programme and then as a BBC Paris correspondent, until 1996.

GB News – Christopher Hope (2023 – present)

Christopher Hope joined GB News as head of politics and political editor in 2023 after spending almost 20 years at The Telegraph.

He had been a member of The Telegraph’s parliamentary lobby team since 2006 and at the time of his departure hosted a weekly politics podcast, Chopper’s Politics.

Before moving into political journalism Hope was business correspondent for The Scotsman, the launch chief business writer for Business AM in 2000, City editor for The Herald and business correspondent for The Daily Telegraph when he first joined the newspaper in 2003.

Hope studied politics at Bristol University and then magazine journalism at Cardiff’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture. His first journalism jobs were on trade titles Print Week and Construction News.

[See also: Who are GB News’ presenters? Everything you need to know]

The post Who are the UK’s political editors? From broadcast to print appeared first on Press Gazette.

The Independent had a record traffic month in the US in September overtaking rivals The Guardian and Daily Mail according to audience data provider Comscore.

The title, which launched a new URL for its US edition this summer at the-independent.com, had 41.4 million unique visitors in September according to Comscore.

This was up 41% from 29.4 million in August and an increase of 78% year-on-year from 23.3 million in September 2023.

By way of comparison The Guardian had 34.8 million visitors on desktop and mobile in September according to Comscore while the Daily Mail had 32.1 million. The Guardian first launched its US digital edition in 2007 while Mail Online opened its first US newsroom in Los Angeles in 2010 then its American headquarters in New York in 2012.

Of the British outlets to expand into the US more recently, The Sun had 19.1 million uniques, the Express had 10.3 million and the Mirror had 8.7 million.

The US Sun launched in 2020 but was forced to make editorial redundancies in the US in September, saying it needed to "reset the strategy and resize the team to secure the long term, sustainable future for The Sun’s business in the US" amid changes from Google and Facebook that have hit many sites hard. The two Reach titles launched their US titles early last year.

The Independent also shared Comscore data for leading US newspaper websites for September as follows: The New York Times (81.8 million), USA Today (76.9 million), New York Post (72.2 million) and The Washington Post (51.3 million).

Audience data can markedly fluctuate from month to month but The Independent sees its September Comscore data as a major milestone on its journey since going digital-only in 2016.

It now hopes to harness its recent growth to make a mark during the post-election period and Donald Trump's second presidency.

The Independent editor Geordie Greig on 'milestone moment'

The Independent editor Geordie Greig told Press Gazette it was a "milestone moment" from what he called the "industry gold standard" data provider Comscore.

He added that it was a "great validation of what we see as our journalistic ethics and of the reach and the richness of our content and our unbeatable data knowledge, combined with our great American team led by Louise Thomas".

Thomas joined The Independent in December from dailymail.com in the US, which she edited from 2019. Greig is also a former senior Mail figure, having edited the Mail on Sunday for six years and then the Daily Mail for three years before being fired by proprietor Lord Rothermere in November 2021.

The US is a significant part of The Independent’s 24-hour global team. Greig begins his day in the UK talking to the audience team in Delhi, before later passing the baton to New York, then Los Angeles, then back to India. Politics and crime are particularly successful content areas, he said.

"But it's essentially just us having great digital knowledge to work out how we combine journalistic nouse with digital knowledge, and we have a seemingly unbeatable team which is which is proving a success."

Speaking on Wednesday, as Donald Trump was confirmed as the next president of the US, Greig said: "We will be upping our energy and ambition to cover America even more fully. With the Trump presidency coming in that will be a source of enormous interest for our readers, but we will take a deep dive into that and find great reach and richness for content."

Asked whether he is expecting another "Trump bump", the audience boost to news media seen during his first presidency, Greig added: "Do you know what, he has a propensity to make people want to know what's going on inside America, from inside America and from outside America. And so that is good for journalism. We'll have to see whether it's good for America."

Regardless he said The Independent's growth is sustainable: "Look at our track record, we’ve grown every year since 2016."

Mail says it has 'huge, direct US audience'

Despite the September milestone some of the other British sites have bigger overall global readership. For example, according to Similarweb which estimates visits rather than visitors, The Independent had 106.3 million visits in September whereas The Guardian had 303.8 million and the Mail had 279 million. Both companies estimate traffic based on their own audience tracking methodology.

In addition the Mail highlighted to Press Gazette the fact it is still winning on engagement as opposed to pure audience reach, as well as its recent success growing on other platforms.

A DMG Media spokesperson said: "Dailymail.com remains the number one British-born publisher for engagement in the US, with substantially more page views and time spent on our website and app than any of our competitors.

"Unlike our rivals, our world-beating journalism has allowed us to grow a huge, direct US audience – built on loyalty among our long-term users.

"Our addictive content has also captivated a new generation of viewers across our multiple platforms, with 21 million Tiktok followers, 24 billion video views in 2024 so far, plus 1.2 billion video views on Youtube and 35 million podcast downloads, proving our trusted brand is able to cut through on any platform."

Press Gazette's monthly rankings of the biggest news websites use data from Similarweb, which put The Independent as the 29th site in the US in September with 39.7 million visits behind The Guardian (21st place, 67.8 million) and Daily Mail (tenth place, 113 million). In addition the BBC was in 13th spot with 100.1 million.

In the UK in September, industry-recognised data from Ipsos iris put The Independent in fifth place but almost level with Mail Online in third and The Sun in fourth (all rounded to a monthly audience reach of 18.3 million). The Guardian was ahead on 19.6 million.

The Independent's chief executive Christian Broughton told Press Gazette last month the brand had seen "really strong" revenue growth last year among its five key strategic pillars, of which its US expansion is one alongside e-commerce, video arm Independent TV, reader revenues and AI.

The US is bringing in 23% of The Independent's total revenues and has just under 20% of total staff with a team of around 46 journalists.

The seriousness of its ambitions in the US were revealed last year when it moved its then-chief executive Zach Leonard to become global chief operating officer and president, North America.

The post Comscore data: Independent overtook Mail and Guardian in US in September appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette is honoured to announce the finalists for the British Journalism Awards 2024.

This year’s British Journalism Awards attracted 750 entries encompassing every major news organisation in the UK.

The finalists are announced today following a three-week process involving 80 independent judges and two days of jury-style meetings.

In order to make the shortlists work has to be revelatory, show journalistic skill and rigour and serve the public interest.

The winners will be announced on 12 December at a dinner in London hosted by Radio 2 presenter and journalist Jeremy Vine.

Details here about how to book tickets.

The shortlist for News Provider of the Year will be announced following a second round of judging. The winners of Journalist of the Year, the Marie Colvin Award and the Public Service prize will be announced on the night.

Chairman of judges and Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford said: “Without journalism, Boris Johnson would still be prime minister, wronged postmasters would not have a voice and victims of the infected blood scandal would not have a chance of compensation.

“The 2024 British Journalism Awards shortlists celebrate the stories which would not be told without journalists willing to shine a light on uncomfortable truths and publications brave enough to back them up.

“Congratulations to all our finalists and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the British Journalism Awards.

“In a media world which is increasingly controlled by a few parasitic technology platforms it is more important than ever to celebrate the publishers willing to invest in and support quality journalism that makes a difference for the better in our world.”

British Journalism Awards 2024 shortlist in full:

Social Affairs, Diversity & Inclusion Journalism

Natasha Cox, Ahmed El Shamy, Rosie Garthwaite — BBC Eye Investigations

• Perfume’s Dark Secret

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• Missing from mainstream: Excluded children with nowhere to go
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision
• Hospital schools: On the mental health crisis frontline

Sasha Baker, Valeria Rocca — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• The parents group at the centre of a rollback of trans rights
• ‘One day they may thank us for that “abuse”’: Inside the Bayswater Support Group

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans, Cate Brown, Ed McGown, Tom Stone, Ed Campbell, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Mariah Cooper, Reshma Rumsey — ITV News

• Nowhere to go: Britain’s homeless emergency

Louise Tickle — Tortoise Media

• Taking the stand: Grace’s story
• Taking the stand: Emma’s story

Abi Kay — Farmers Weekly

• Level the Field
• Is there a problem with young farmer culture?
• Editor’s view: Facing hard truths about young farmer culture

Joshua Nelken-Zitser, Ida Reihani, Kit Gillet — Business Insider

• Iran will pay for gender-transition surgery, but it comes at a cost — your dignity

Features Journalism

Sophie Elmhirst — 1843 magazine, The Economist and The Guardian

• The last stand of the call-centre worker
• Chortle chortle, scribble scribble: inside the Old Bailey with Britain’s last court reporters
• Last love: a romance in a care home

Jenny Kleeman — The Guardian

• America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’
• She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
• ‘I know someone who played noughts and crosses on one’: meet the top surgeon who burned his initials on a patient’s liver

Sirin Kale — The Guardian

• ‘My child was drowning’: life and death on an English maternity ward
• The life and tragic death of John Balson: how a true crime producer documented his own rising horror
• The Russell murders: is Michael Stone in prison for a brutal crime he didn’t commit?

Zoe Beaty — The Independent

• How Nigel Farage took over my hometown – and why Keir Starmer should be worried
• My battle to bring a predatory Met Police officer from the same unit as Wayne Couzens to justice
• ‘A court packed with those who know their way around already, and jails are too full to take them’

Inderdeep Bains — Daily Mail

• My doctors insist it’s time I died – but I will fight them: Extraordinary case of 19-year-old woman suffering from Charlie Gard condition battling medics’ attempts to ‘condemn her to death’
• Sudiksha: ‘Condemned to Die in Secret’ – The Shocking Story of the 19-year-old’s fight to live

David James Smith — The Independent

• How did so many miss the sinister warning signs about James Bulger’s killer for so long?
• Is Lucy Letby innocent? I’m a miscarriage of justice investigator – and here’s what I think…
• The wife of this Murdoch executive has been missing since the Sixties – will her body now be found?

Fiona Hamilton — The Times

• Nottingham attacks: ‘We have no faith in the police. We want justice’
• ‘A horrible way to die … and no doctors can help you’
• Realising Sarah Everard got into a sex offender’s car was horrific

Barbara McMahon — Daily Mail

• Ghislaine Maxwell ‘was tortured in prison – now she’s ready for a comeback’: Jeffrey Epstein’s socialite pimp runs half marathons at low-security Florida lock-up and is now ‘focused and motivated’ for her appeal next week, her brother reveals
• ‘I shook Epstein’s hand and asked him what my daughter would be doing’: Virginia Roberts’s father describes dropping her off at paedophile’s mansion, meeting ‘despicable’ Ghislaine… and blasts Prince Andrew for showing ‘no remorse’
• Black Widow who ‘relished killing and had no regard for human life, even for children’: Griselda Blanco shot a child in the head when she was 11 and rose to be Miami’s drug kingpin. As she’s immortalised on Netflix, her son recalls his ‘fearsome’ mother

Local Journalism

Abi Whistance, Joshi Herrmann, Kate Knowles, Mollie Simpson, Jothi Gupta — Mill Media

• Special investigation: The collapsing world of Liverpool’s charity kingpin
• Investigation: The spectacular rise and sudden fall of Gurpaal Judge
• Exclusive: How did a semi in Harpurhey sell for £1.8m?

Richard Newman, Jennifer O’Leary, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight

• Katie: Coerced and Killed

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Lough Neagh has become a scene of Biblical disaster, and Stormont was central to its destruction
• Killing Edgar podcast

Chris Burn — The Yorkshire Post

• Building societies scandal: Yorkshire victims reveal shocking stories – and plead for action to be taken
• Philips Trust: FCA got ‘Ponzi scheme’ warning on firm at heart of £138m building society scandal – 18 months before collapse
• Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham Building Societies to pay tens of millions to Philips Trust victims

Jane Haynes — Birmingham Mail and Birmingham Mail/Post

• Teacher’s ‘life blown apart’ in onslaught of hate as false racism claim goes viral
• The truth exposed about ‘secretive’ council meeting on equal pay crisis in Birmingham
• ‘Like a prison’ – the tower block for homeless families that has 8pm curfew and no visitors allowed

Wendy Robertson — The Bridge

• The Bridge newsletter

Health & Life Sciences Journalism

Rebecca Thomas — The Independent

• Mental health patients ‘raped and sexually assaulted’ as NHS abuse scandal revealed
• Nicholas’s story: ‘I’ve been locked up for 10 years because I’m autistic. Is a chance at life too much to ask?’
• Revealed: NHS regulator’s ‘culture of fear’ that leaves rogue nurses free to abuse patients

Fin Johnston — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Science for sale: Philip Morris’s web of payments to fund tobacco research
• Inside the strategy doc Philip Morris never meant you to see
• Tobacco state: why Japan was the perfect testing ground for Philip Morris

Hannah Barnes — The New Statesman

• The trauma ward
• The Cass Review into children’s gender care should shame us all
• Hundreds of doctors are challenging the BMA’s stance on puberty blockers

Robbie Boyd, Eamonn Matthews, Steve Grandison, Ian Bendelow, Sophie Borland, Katie O’Toole, Islay Stacey, Ali Watt, Frances Peters — Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 Dispatches

• Undercover A&E: NHS in Crisis

Ellie Pitt, Cree Haughton, Justina Simpson, Ellie Swinton, Patrick Russell, Liam Ayers — ITV News

• The Dark Side of Cosmetic Surgery

Martin Bagot — Daily Mirror

• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth
• Urgent warning amid fears cosmetic fillers could cause immune system problems

Hanna Geissler — Daily Express

• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying ‘allowed me to mostly forget’ fears, says Aussie man hit by brain tumour
• Dame Esther’s assisted dying petition delivered to Prime Minister’s doorstep

Crime & Legal Affairs Journalism

Sue Mitchell, Rob Lawrie, Joel Moors, Winifred Robinson, Dan Clarke, Philip Sellars, Tom Brignell, Mom Tudie — BBC

• To Catch a Scorpion
• How we found Europe’s most wanted migrant-smuggler
• Why the BBC could track down a people-smuggling kingpin before the police

Gabriel Pogrund, Katie Tarrant — The Sunday Times

• Millionaire’s ‘sex worker immigration scandal’
• Hamish Ogston: millionaire accused of exploiting women ‘set up charity to help win knighthood’
• Hamish Ogston: tycoon asked Met to arrest woman who accused him of sex trafficking

Mike Sullivan, Jerome Starkey, Mike Ridley — The Sun

• ‘Distraught’ Holly Willoughby under police guard after man is arrested over terrifying ‘kidnap plot’
• Police chief faces ‘Walter Mitty’ probe after being pictured wearing Falklands medal despite being 15 at time of war

Hannah Summers — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Family Court Files: mother ‘devastated’ after rapist father granted contact with child
• Family Court Files: Psychologist’s evidence used to ‘ramp up’ allegations of parental alienation
• Kristoffer White: TBIJ wins court battle to publish name of sex offender

Rianna Croxford, Ruth Evans — BBC Panorama and BBC News

• Abercrombie & Fitch ex-CEO accused of exploiting men for sex
• Lawsuit accuses Abercrombie & Fitch of funding sex-trafficking operation
• FBI investigate after ex-Abercrombie boss sex claims

Isobel Yeung, Alex Nott, Esme Ash, Nick Parnes, Alistair Jackson, Matt Bardo, Sarah Wilson — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Britain’s Unsolved Crimewave: Dispatches

Comment Journalism

Daniel Finkelstein — The Times

• Israelis and Palestinians must start to listen
• Wes Streeting’s lessons from Richard Nixon and China
• Here’s the Keir Starmer I’ve known for decades

Matthew Syed — The Sunday Times

• When I was at school a teacher could call me the P-word. We’ve come so far
• The storm is gathering, and Europe is still dithering on defending itself
• Locked in by language, we are freed by music, poetry, painting … and love

Will Hayward — WalesOnline/The Will Hayward Newsletter

• The most pointless job in Wales
• The worst political leader in the UK
• Bluster, fluster and ‘word salad’ nonsense: Vaughan Gething ducks and weaves like a boxer at the Welsh Covid Inquiry

Kitty Donaldson — i

• Part political update, part group therapy: inside Starmer’s Cabinet meeting
• Grenfell is a tragic reminder to the Tories that regulation is not a dirty word
• The winter fuel row is a painful wake up call for new Labour MPs

Frances Ryan — The Guardian

• A summer defined by men killing women and girls. This can’t go on
• Think of this: a plan to ‘warehouse’ disabled people. What kind of nation is Britain becoming?
• Cropped out, banned, airbrushed: the school photos that show the ugly face of Britain today

Duncan Robinson — The Economist

• Why the next Westminster scandal is already here
• The narcissism of minor differences, Labour Party edition
• British boomers are losing out for the first time

Specialist Journalism

Peter Blackburn — The Doctor (by the British Medical Association)

• Nowhere left to turn
• Fears for patient care due to shortages of chronic alcohol misuse treatment Pabrinex
• Not the only failing

Lucinda Rouse, Emily Burt, Ollie Peart, Louise Hill, David Robinson, Rebecca Cooney, Andy Ricketts, Nav Pal, Til Owen — Third Sector

• The End of Charity podcast

Lucie Heath — i

• Revealed: Water firms dumped sewage 5,500 times in a year ‘illegally’
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• Toxic water, debt and sewage dumping: How Britain’s rivers got so bad

Deborah Cohen, Margaret McCartney — BMJ/Pharmaceutical Journal

• Inclisiran: the ‘extremely unusual’ political influence behind the novel drug’s approval
• Galleri promises to detect multiple cancers—but new evidence casts doubt on this much hyped blood test
• Inclisiran: Government’s strategy to promote cholesterol lowering drug after Brexit was “spectacular failure,” says insider

Lee Mottershead — Racing Post

• Revealed: the racehorse owner fronting an illegal bookmaker with more than 1,000 customers
• ‘People don’t want to provide bank statements. We’ve got so many people betting with us’

Jessica Hill — Schools Week

• The rise of the parent activist
• AI’s allure is proving hard to resist for the UK’s learners
• ‘Out of sight, out of mind’: The rise of unregistered alternative provision

Emily Townsend — Health Service Journal

• Over 30 sepsis deaths linked to ‘systemic’ failings, investigation reveals
• Revealed: Doubling of average waits for critical stroke treatments
• Midwives call women in labour ‘Asian princesses’ amid ‘hostile’ environment fears

Roya Nikkhah — The Sunday Times

• Prince Harry at 40: ‘All he does is spend time looking back’
• The hospital heart-to-hearts that brought Kate and King even closer
• Prince William to build houses for homeless on his land in Cornwall

Foreign Affairs Journalism

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• Gun in hand, the Israeli settler tells the Palestinian: I will kill you
• First Hamas fighters raped her. Then they shot her in the head
• ‘Who will protect us?’: Christina Lamb on the Yazidis’ dangerous journey home

Alex Crawford — Sky News

• Libya floods: Child’s voice heard under rubble as rescue teams search desperately in Derna for survivors
• Warning of Islamic State’s growing resurgence – as Sky News gets rare access to terrorists’ families
• Report from Lebanon

Kim Sengupta — The Independent

• Bombs, betrayal and burying loved ones: Plight of one Ukraine village illustrates toll of Russia’s invasion
• ‘I have buried more than 50 friends’: My life as a British soldier fighting on Ukraine’s bloody front line
• The families of hostages taken by Hamas are desperate – but can Israel get them back?

Vanessa Bowles, Jaber Badwan — Channel 4 Dispatches

• Kill Zone: Inside Gaza

Louise Callaghan — The Sunday Times

• The secret city of tunnels where hundreds live below Vegas glitz
• Claudia Sheinbaum: Meet the woman ready to be Mexico’s first presidenta
• Stand-off at Eagle Pass: welcome to the epicentre of the US border crisis

Secunder Kermani — Channel 4 News

• Palestinian detainees allege torture and sexual abuse by Israeli captors
• Myanmar military forces victims to fight in brutal civil war

Gesbeen Mohammad, Brad Manning, Nechirvan Mando, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, Esella Hawkey, Tom Giles, Hafez — ITV

• Inside Iran: The Fight for Freedom

Stuart Ramsay, Dominique van Heerden, Toby Nash — Sky News

• Haiti gang boss will take part in talks if invited – but warns foreign forces will be treated as ‘invaders’
• Aboard ‘The Beast’: What do migrants face travelling through Mexico on way to US?
• Shocking scenes in Gaza hospital as IDF moves into Khan Younis | Israel-Hamas war

Arkady Ostrovsky — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Life and death in Putin’s gulag
• Death and destruction in a Russian city
• Life and fate (podcast)

Technology Journalism, sponsored by Amazon

Alexander Martin — The Record from Recorded Future News

• Ransomware attacks hit record level in UK, according to neglected official data
• UK government urged to get on ‘forward foot’ with ransomware instead of ‘absorbing the punches’
• Exclusive: UK to propose mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks and licensing regime for all payments

Marianna Spring — BBC News

• The real story of the news website accused of fuelling riots
• Trump supporters target black voters with faked AI images
• X takes action on deepfake network smearing UK politicians after BBC investigation

Joe Tidy — BBC World Service

• ‘Pig butchering’ scammers target BBC reporter
• Sextortion warning: In six hours, my son was dead
• Stolen test data and NHS numbers published by hospital hackers

Amanda Chicago Lewis — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• Secrets of a ransomware negotiator

Cathy Newman, Job Rabkin, Emily Roe, Sophie Braybrook, Guy Basnett, Ed Howker — Channel 4 News

• Deepfake Porn

Helen Lewis — BBC Radio 4/BBC Sounds

• Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat

Energy & Environment Journalism, sponsored by Renewable UK

Sam McBride — Belfast Telegraph

• Apocalypse Neagh: The source of 40% of NI’s water is ‘dying’
• Watch: Sam McBride’s in-depth look at Lough Neagh’s blue-green algae crisis

Josephine Moulds — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Backroom deals, mystery companies and a ‘killer lake’: inside DRC’s gas and oil auction
• HSBC helped oil and gas industry raise $47bn despite net-zero pledge
• Barclays’ billions of ‘sustainable’ finance for fossil fuel industry is greenwash, says investor

Esme Stallard, Becky Dale, Sophie Woodcock, Jonah Fisher, Libby Rogers — BBC News

• Water firms illegally spilled sewage on dry days – data suggests
• BBC uncovers 6,000 possible illegal sewage spills in one year

Rachel Salvidge, Leana Hosea — The Guardian/Watershed

• The Watershed Pollution Map
• Landfills across England could be leaking harmful toxic ooze, warn experts
• ‘It’s a poison and it’s killing us’: the hidden dangers of old UK landfills

Guy Grandjean, Patrick Fee, Gwyneth Jones, Chris Thornton — BBC Spotlight Northern Ireland

• Spotlight – The Lough Neagh Monster
• Hundreds of environmental breaches by Moy Park

Sofia Quaglia — The Guardian

• ‘If we can’t fish any more, we’re going to die’: the volunteer sea patrols protecting precious Philippine waters
• From sea to plate … to sea! Hong Kong puts oyster shells to new use
• ‘It smells so bad’: glut of wild salmon creates stink in Norway and Finland

Jess Staufenberg — SourceMaterial

• Trojan Horsepower – Formula 1 and the Saudi oil lobby
• F1 lobbies for Saudi against EU green rules

Arts & Entertainment Journalism

Mark Daly, Mona McAlinden, Shelley Jofre, Jax Sinclair, Karen Wightman, Hayley Hassall — BBC Panorama

• The Dark Side of Ballet Schools

Jonathan Dean — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Oasis reunion and Wembley gigs next year … is that definitely, maybe?
• Ridley Scott: I didn’t need historians to make my Napoleon epic
• Olly Alexander on Eurovision: ‘I was trying not to have a breakdown’

Rachael Healy — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘At the start you get molested and by 45 you’re too old to work’ – the secret misery of women working in TV
• Fresh crisis at ‘toxic’ Strictly as ex-staff claim they faced sexualised comments and cruelty
• ‘The outrageousness of what Louis CK did is totally lost’: the film about the backlash faced by his accusers

Tom Bryant — Daily Mirror

• BBC’s Huw Edwards scandal teen breaks silence in first interview – ‘I felt groomed’
• Huw Edwards scandal teen: Why I first tried to protect BBC star but now feel shame
• Paul O’Grady’s beloved dog nuzzled star’s shoulder as devoted husband battled to save him

Lucy Osborne, Stephanie Kirchgaessner — The Guardian and Observer

• ‘I honest to God believe I was drugged’: magician David Copperfield’s alleged victims speak out
• The FBI investigated David Copperfield for two years. The claim that he was ‘exonerated’ was widely embraced. Was he?
• ‘Magic David called’: David Copperfield repeatedly contacted Jeffrey Epstein

Clemmie Moodie, Hannah Hope, Scarlet Howes — The Sun

• Strictly pro Giovanni Pernice probed over serious complaints by 3 ‘traumatised’ contestants as BBC ‘gathers evidence’
• Strictly Come Dancing bosses make huge changes to show after Giovanni Pernice quits
• Strictly bombshell as Amanda Abbington demands backstage footage of her and Giovanni as she is diagnosed with PTSD

Carolyn Atkinson, Olivia Skinner — BBC Radio 4 Front Row

• The British Museum’s missing gems
• Painting stolen in art heist more than 30 years ago returned to Glasgow museum

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• ‘I felt used and abused’ on Arthur: alleged Russell Brand victim speaks

New Journalist of the Year

Rafe Uddin — Financial Times

• Labour loses Muslim support over stance on Israel-Hamas ceasefire
• Reform UK’s unusual structure with Nigel Farage in the middle
• How Post Office lawyers pushed boundaries in UK sub-postmasters scandal

Sammy Gecsoyler — The Guardian

• ‘We’re going to see people dying on the streets’: homeless refugee crisis grips Liverpool
• ‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis
• Met police agree six-figure payout to student hit by baton at protest

Kaf Okpattah — ITV News, ITV News London

• Whistleblower reveals corruption and collusion inside Wandsworth Prison
• The fraud scammers putting people out of pocket by cloning phone numbers

Simar Bajaj — The Guardian, New Scientist

• Everyone is on their phones. But is it really phone addiction we’re experiencing?
• The surprising mental health and brain benefits of weight-loss drugs
• He was shot in the throat. Now he saves gun victims as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore

Nimra Shahid — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Santander arranged billion-dollar oil bond after making green pledge
• Santander weakened fossil fuel policy after raising billions for gas projects

Venetia Menzies — The Sunday Times

• Anxiety drug pregabalin killed my son — and hundreds more are dying from it
• The company taking refugees out of Gaza — and ‘making millions’
• After the earthquake: how Morocco is rebuilding

Oliver Marsden — The Sunday Times/Al Jazeera

• Hero taxi driver who saved scores from Hamas faces hatred from both sides
• Dodging Israeli rockets with Ghana’s UN peacekeepers
• Israeli strikes on Lebanon: Attacks are causing wildfires across south

Yasmin Rufo — BBC News

• London mayor election: Bots, misleading URLs cause voter confusion
• Ulez expansion: Contested claims examined
• Ulez: More than 300 cameras damaged or stolen in four months

Sports Journalism

Jacob Whitehead — The Athletic

• Special report: Newcastle United sponsor Noon and shocking allegations of worker mistreatment
• Saudi Arabia investigates worker mistreatment allegations after The Athletic report on Newcastle sponsor Noon
• Special report: ‘Disturbing’ safety issues at Hillsborough 35 years after disaster

Oliver Brown — The Telegraph

• Angela Carini was sent unforgivably into harm’s way by gutless IOC cowards
• After my grandfather hugged Jesse Owens, the Nazis told him: ‘Never embrace a black man again’
• Michael Vaughan: If I had gone through this racism ordeal at 80, I would have wanted to be shot

Simon Lock, Rob Davies, Jacob Steinberg — The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / The Guardian

• Abramovich’s hidden football deals during Chelsea’s time at the top (TBIJ) and Chelsea FC face new questions over how Roman Abramovich funded success (Guardian)
• ‘I worked for Abramovich?’: footballers were owned by oligarch via offshore deals (TBIJ) and Revealed: Abramovich, the super-agent and the footballers owned as ‘commodities’ (Guardian)
• Leaked documents reveal Abramovich is still connected to Vitesse (TBIJ) and Abramovich loans fund owner of Dutch football club, leaked documents suggest (Guardian)

Jacob Judah — 1843 magazine, The Economist

• The strange case of the disappearing football team

Riath Al-Samarrai — Daily Mail

• Drifting through life without gold medals, tortured by his past, and now claims of bankruptcy… How did petulant Wiggins fall so spectacularly from his golden bike?
• Seb Coe explains why he’s HAPPY to break 128 years of Olympic tradition by handing out cash for gold… and reveals Roman Abramovich’s unlikely role in athletics
• The curious case of Jade Jones’ drugs test and why the Chinese might be quick to ask questions, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Ian Herbert — Daily Mail

• Looting and rioting, setting fire to police officers and hunting down English fans… fearful European clubs are turning a blind eye to shadowy leaders of their untouchable ultras
• Thirty-five years after horror of the Hillsborough tragedy, Mail Sport can reveal that incredibly the stadium is still not fit for purpose with poor stewarding, inadequate turnstiles and a problem tunnel
• Grubby, classless, the five-year legal battle over plane crash victim Emiliano Sala takes us into football’s sewers… where players are pawns and chronically inept clubs desperately try to save cash

Matt Lawton — The Times

• Man City launch unprecedented legal action against Premier League
• ‘The horror is everywhere’ – inside Lord Coe’s secret trip to Ukraine
• Russian athletes should be allowed at Olympics, says government

Um-E-Aymen Babar — Sky Sports

• How does endometriosis affect women in sport?
• USA cricket teen on tackling social media trolls, South Asian heritage and 2028 Olympic goals
• Um-E-Aymen Babar ok Tiktok

Campaign of the Year

Caroline Wheeler —The Sunday Times: Bloody Disgrace

• Thousands dead, 40 years of cover-up: time for justice for infected blood victims
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims
• Jeremy Hunt: I promised a dying friend I’d end infected blood scandal

Patrick Butler, Josh Halliday, John Domokos — The Guardian: Unpaid Carers

• Carers threatened with prosecution over minor breaches of UK benefit rules
• ‘Injustice’: 92-year-old with dementia told by DWP to repay £7k in disability allowance
• I’m under attack and fighting back: the scandal trapping carers

Computer Weekly editorial team — Computer Weekly: Post Office Scandal

• Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
• Fujitsu staff instructed how to bid for government contracts during self-imposed ban
• Post Office Horizon replacement project labelled ‘unachievable’ as taxpayer bill reaches £1bn

David Cohen — Evening Standard: Show Respect

• Boys, porn and the alarming way they talk about girls – a special investigation
• School pupils tell how they are victims of sexual harassment every day
• Show some respect: Standard launches campaign with £500k to tackle sexist abuse in schools

Lucie Heath — i: Save Britain’s Rivers

• Save Britain’s Rivers: i challenges all parties to commit to election manifesto
• Revealed: The hidden sewage spills damaging our national parks and beauty spots
• National Trust signs up to i’s Save Britain’s Rivers manifesto

Hanna Geissler, Giles Sheldrick — Daily Express: Give Us Our Last Rights

• My assisted dying petition proves Brits are compassionate – now Rishi Sunak must act
• ‘I’m terminally ill – assisted dying must be legalised so my daughter won’t see me suffer’
• Assisted dying debate must move on to how law will change, MND campaigner says

Amy Clare Martin — The Independent: IPP Jail Sentences

• Revealed: 16 years in prison for stealing a bike and no hope of release – as 7 trapped in jail kill themselves
• ‘He looked like a starving dog on the floor’: Prisoner trapped on indefinite jail term driven to hunger strike
• Father imprisoned for 12 years for stealing mobile phone under ‘cruel’ indefinite jail term reunited with son

Martin Bagot, Jason Beattie — Daily Mirror: Save NHS Dentistry

• Dentists warn ‘rescue plan’ will fail to end crisis as 60,000 people sign our petition
• Day in the life of a dentist – and why it’s nothing like you imagine as NHS nears collapse
• Britain’s dental health crisis exposed as hundreds of children in hospital with bad teeth

Photojournalism

Thomas Dworzak — 1843 magazine, The Economist

André Luís Alves — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Giles Clarke — CNN Digital

Nichole Sobecki — 1843 magazine, The Economist

Dimitris Legakis — Athena Picture Agency

Stefan Rousseau — PA Media

Hannah McKay — Reuters

Interviewer of the Year

Alice Thomson — The Times

• Ed Davey: ‘Being a carer is harder than being a politician’
• Peter Kyle: It was 5am. A woman said, ‘Your partner is dead ’
• Emma Barnett: ‘The pain was so bad, I was losing the will to live’

Christina Lamb — The Sunday Times

• ICC prosecutor: UK didn’t blitz the IRA — Israel needs that restraint
• The president’s daughter (and Instagram star) wanted by Interpol
• David Cameron: ‘Why did I take the job? Rishi Sunak asked!’

Laura Kuenssberg — Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News

• Baroness Mone and the PPE Scandal
• How Can We Protect Our Children Online?
• Inside No 11 with Chancellor Rachel Reeves

Charlotte Edwardes — The Guardian

• ‘You asked me questions I’ve never asked myself’: Keir Starmer’s most personal interview yet
• ‘Dismissing global warming? That was a joke’: Jeremy Clarkson on fury, farming and why he’s a changed man
• ‘The levels of attack are extraordinary’: Gary Lineker on punditry, podcasts – and why he won’t stop speaking his mind

Nick Ferrari — LBC

• Labour leader Keir Starmer joins Nick Ferrari to take your calls
• Champagne and caviar: Esther Rantzen reveals plans for final moments as she pushes for assisted dying law change
• Nigel Farage joins Nick Ferrari

Samantha Poling — BBC

• How I confronted Emma Caldwell’s killer
• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell
• Who Killed Emma?

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey
• Kevin Spacey Breaks Down As He Faces Debt Of MILLIONS
• Piers Morgan vs Rishi Sunak Round 2 | Prime Minister Discusses Israel-Hamas War, NHS, Rwanda & More

Paul Brand — ITV News

• Interview with Rishi Sunak
• Interview with Ed Davey
• Interview with Keir Starmer

(View all three interviews here)

Politics Journalism

Jim Pickard, Anna Gross — Financial Times

• Keir Starmer accepted £76,000 of freebies including tickets to over 20 football games
• Keir Starmer faces backlash over early failure to disclose £16,200 in donor-funded clothing
• Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves declared clothing donations as office support

Pippa Crerar — The Guardian

• Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff
• Rishi Sunak aide placed bet on election date days before announcement
• Tories putting party reputation before sexual assault claim, says alleged victim

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• ‘No room for the Indians?’: Tory donor Frank Hester suggested staff climb on train roof
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Beth Rigby — Sky News

• Election exit poll
• The Battle for Number 10: A Sky News Leaders’ Special
• How Reform fares on Thursday will also determine the Conservatives fate

Caroline Wheeler — The Sunday Times

• Commons worker arrested after allegedly spying for China
• My MP husband Andrew Bridgen was captured by antivax ‘cult’
• At last: promise of £10bn payout for infected blood victims

Jane Merrick — i

• Thousands of disabled people died after ‘Covid treatment withheld’, inquiry to probe
• ‘My daughter was allowed to die of Covid because she had Down’s syndrome’
• Labour manifesto missing pensioners’ winter fuel and bus pass pledges

Steven Swinford — The Times

• Britain and US launch airstrikes on Houthi targets
• Jeremy Hunt looks for £9bn to balance his budget
• Teachers and nurses should get above-inflation pay rise, ministers told

Business, Finance and Economics Journalism, sponsored by Starling Bank

Simon Murphy — Daily Mirror & Sunday Mirror

• Fujitsu boss lives on ‘blood money’ with £2m mansion as we suffer, says Post Office victim
• Provider boasting of ‘compassion’ threatens daughter with court action over £50k care bill for her 93-year-old amputee mother with dementia
• Mirror tracks down former Post Office IT chief that Horizon inquiry insisted couldn’t be found

Ed Conway — Sky News

• Surge in sale of UK-made cars to Russia’s neighbours shows how it’s beating sanctions
• British firms’ exports are almost certainly bolstering Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, Sky data analysis finds
• How British financial services aid sale of Russian gas on European market | Ukraine War

Tom Bergin — Reuters

• Online-gambling giants conquer U.S. with tactics deemed too tough for Britain

Gill Plimmer, Robert Smith — Financial Times

• Chinese state banks are lenders to Thames Water’s parent company
• Thames Water owners pile group with debt
• Thames Water shareholders backed away over regulator’s debt demands

Siddharth Philip, Benedikt Kammel, Anthony Palazzo, Katharine Gemmell, Sabah Meddings — Bloomberg News

• Bogus Supplier of Jet-Engine Parts May Have Faked Employees Too
• Ghost in the Machine: How Fake Parts Infiltrated Airline Fleets
• UK Fraud Cops Make Arrest in Fake Airplane Parts Scandal

Anna Isaac, Alex Lawson — The Guardian

• Sellafield apologises after guilty plea over string of cybersecurity failings
• Nuclear Narnia: why is Sellafield Europe’s most dangerous industrial site?
• Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China

Danny Fortson — The Sunday Times

• Mike Lynch: Flown to the US in chains, now he is free … and talking
• Inside Mike Lynch’s last stand as $11bn fraud trial looms
• The app that promised an NHS ‘revolution’ then went down in flames

Online Video Journalism

Alex Rothwell, Alastair Good, Yasmin Butt, Pauline Den Hartog Jager, Jack Feeney, Federica De Caria, Kasia Sobocinska, Stephanie Bosset — The Times and The Sunday Times

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse | Investigation
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation
• ‘Illegal’ conspiracy theory school exposed | Times Investigation

Andrew Harding — BBC News

• BBC tracks down smuggler behind Channel crossing which killed Sara, 7

Mohamed Ibrahim, Owen Pinnel, Mouna Ba, Wael El-Saadi, Feras Al Ajrami — BBC Eye Investigations

• Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue

Tom Pettifor, Matthew Young, Daniel Dove — Daily Mirror

• Has the man who killed Jill Dando finally been found?
• Jill Dando murder: Man wanted for questioning matches features of Serbian assassin
• Jill Dando murder: Key witness identifies Serbian assassin

Lucinda Herbert, Iain Lynn — National World Video

• Lured To Her Death: The Murder of Sasha Marsden

Reem Makhoul, Robert Leslie, Clancy Morgan, Amelia Kosciulek, Matilda Hay, Liz Kraker, Dorian Barranco, Barbara Corbellini Duarte, Erica Berenstein, Yasser Abu Wazna — Business Insider

• 4 Gazans show how war devastated their coastline

Piers Morgan — Piers Morgan Uncensored

• “Richard Gadd is PSYCHOTIC” Baby Reindeer’s ‘Real’ Martha Fiona Harvey

Ben Marino, Joe Sinclair, Veronica Kan-Dapaah, Petros Gioumpasis, Greg Bobillot — Financial Times

• Chinese brokers launder hundreds of millions for global crime groups | FT Film

Investigation of the Year

Scarlet Howes, Mike Hamilton, Alex West — The Sun

• Ex-BBC presenter Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’
• Huw Edwards used position of power to groom young people for 6 years even sending pictures from BBC desk to impress them
• We’re still suffering, say parents at centre of Huw Edwards scandal as they slam BBC for lack of answers after he quits

Rosamund Urwin, Charlotte Wace, Paul Morgan-Bentley, Esella Hawkey, Imogen Wynell Mayow, Alice McShane, Florence Kennard, Ian Bendelow, Victoria Noble, Alistair Jackson, Sarah Wilson, Geraldine McKelvie — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions, Channel Four Dispatches Investigations Unit

• Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse
• How The Times and The Sunday Times investigated Russell Brand
• Russell Brand: In Plain Sight

Alex Thomson, Nanette van der Laan — Channel 4 News

• Post Office Scandal

Paul Morgan-Bentley — The Times

• I worked undercover in one of UK’s most dangerous jails — without checks
• My son died in HMP Bedford. I never felt he was safe there
• Undercover in a British prison: security flaws exposed | Times Investigation

Ruth Evans, Oliver Newlan, Leo Telling, Sasha Hinde, Hayley Clarke, Karen Wightman — BBC Panorama

• Undercover School: Cruelty in the Classroom

Job Rabkin, Darshna Soni, Ed Gove, Saif Aledros, Georgina Lee, Lee Sorrell — Channel 4 News

• Undercover Inside Reform’s Campaign

Holly Bancroft, May Bulman, Monica C. Camacho, Fahim Abed — The Independent and Lighthouse Reports

• At last! Afghan special forces heroes set for sanctuary in UK after government U-turn
• MoD accused of burying admission that UK special forces had power over Afghan sanctuary claims
• Murdered, tortured or in hiding from the Taliban: The special forces abandoned by Britain

Daniel Hewitt, Imogen Barrer, Isabel Alderson-Blench, John Ray — ITV News: The Post Office Tapes

• New secret tape reveals top Post Office lawyer was warned of ‘wrongful’ convictions decade ago
• Secret tape shows Paula Vennells was told about problems with Horizon and warned not to cover it up
• Paula Vennells’ ‘smoking gun’ email reveals Post Office ‘cover-up’

Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer, Matthew Weaver — The Guardian

• Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
• No yawning or fingerprints on doors: the strict rules at Tory donor’s firm
• Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation

Samantha Poling, Eamon T. O Connor, Anton Ferrie, Shelley Jofre — BBC Disclosure

• Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell

Scoop of the Year

Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assaults and abuse — The Sunday Times, The Times, Hardcash Productions and Channel 4 Dispatches

Huw Edwards Huw Edwards charged with making 37 indecent images of children, ‘shared on WhatsApp’ — The Sun

Naked photos sent in WhatsApp ‘phishing’ attacks on UK MPs and staff— Politico

No 10 pass for Labour donor who gave £500,000 — The Sunday Times

Labour will add 20% VAT to private school fees within first year of winning power — i

The Nottingham Attacks: A Search for Answers — BBC Panorama

Innovation

Harry Lewis-Irlam, Stephen Matthews, Darren Boyle, Rhodri Morgan — Mail Online: Deep Dive

• Anatomy of a loveless landslide: How Labour won on apathy and division
• Hour by hour, how D-Day unfolded…
• How China could seize Taiwan and spark WW3

Laura Dunn, Katie Lilley-Harris, Ellie Senior, Sherree Younger, Scott Nicholson, Jamie Mckerrow Maxwell — KL Magazine

• Rocky Bottoms
• Johnny Cave’s Asparagus
• Archangel Distilleries

Niels de Hoog, Antonio Voce, Elena Morresi, Manisha Ganguly, Ashley Kirk — The Guardian

• How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation

Alison Killing, Chris Miller, Peter Andringa, Chris Campbell, Sam Learner, Sam Joiner — Financial Times

• FT investigation finds Ukrainian children on Russian adoption sites

David Dubas-Fisher, Cullen Willis, Paul Gallagher, Richard Ault — Reach Data Unit

• DWP Cold Weather Payment postcode checker – map shows where households are due £25, £50 or £75 boost
• Enter postcodes in this map to see average house prices in your area
• Cheapest places in Greater Manchester to buy petrol as RAC issues fuel price warning

Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo, Venetia Menzies, Darren Burchett, Narottam Medhora, Cecilia Tombesi — The Sunday Times

• The dead teenager, the lying suspect and the black box that proves it

The post British Journalism Awards 2024: Full list of this year’s finalists appeared first on Press Gazette.

The Independent reported strong growth in operating profit for 2023 on revenue which was flat year on year.

In 2023, according to figures that have been shared by the business but not yet published on Companies House, Independent Digital News and Media increased its annual operating profit by 82% to £3.5m for a new 15-month reporting period (compared with £1.9m in the 2022 accounts which covered 12 months).

The company last year changed its financial period to match the calendar year and align with the period used by most advertising agencies and clients, resulting in a 15-month reporting period with £56m revenue overall. Previously the Independent Digital News and Media period ran from October to September.

Revenue was down by 0.3% year-on-year on an annual basis to £46.1m in 2023.

Projections for 2024 shared with Press Gazette show The Independent is on course this year to have doubled revenues since 2019, to £53.2m from £27m five years ago.

It is also set to have almost doubled trading profitability from £2.3m in 2019 to £4.5m for this year.

Independent Digital News and Media chief executive Christian Broughton told Press Gazette: “The doubling of the revenue and the doubling of the profit in that time period is important for the journalism and for the business. We’ve always said we need a business that empowers our journalism and journalism that empowers our business, and it’s working globally, and it’s working in the US very well.”

Broughton said that last year there was "really strong" revenue growth across all five of the brand's key strategic pillars: US expansion, e-commerce, video arm Independent TV, reader revenues and AI.

Broughton said: "There's great growth in the pillars, there's great profitability in the pillars, and it sets us up for this year. We are closing this year on 31st December, and we're heading very confidently towards double-digit growth in revenue driven by these pillars. So the strategy is really working. It's a strategy that's really about diversifying beyond advertising."

Press Gazette understands the proportion of low-yield open-auction advertising as part of the revenue mix continues to reduce. Advertising dipped below 50% of The Independent's total revenues for the first time in 2022.

US bringing in 20% of revenues to The Independent

Of the five key areas, Broughton highlighted Independent TV and the US in particular.

Independent TV, a dedicated online video channel launched in December 2020, saw revenue growth of 30% year-on-year in 2023 and hit a milestone of 100 million views per month on The Independent's website (excluding other platforms).

In August last year The Independent's then-CEO Zach Leonard moved into the new role of global chief operating officer and president, North America to lead its growth over the Atlantic. At the end of the year The Independent poached Mail Online's US editor Louise Thomas for the same role.

The brand said it increased its editorial headcount by 40% to 46 journalists over the course of 2023.

The Independent's overall global editorial workforce is now double where it was in 2018. The Independent closed its print newspaper in March 2016 to go digital-only.

According to chairman John Paton, the US is bringing in 23% of The Independent's total revenues and has just under 20% of total staff.

The Independent's monthly audience in the US is now within 8% of the size of Mail Online's audience across the Atlantic according to Comscore which put them on 29.4 million and 32.2 million respectively in August.

Broughton described this as "a really exciting moment, because it shows us that as America goes to the polls and as America seeks trusted journalism it's coming to The Independent".

By visits according to Similarweb, The Independent (37.6 million) is the 31st biggest news website in the US versus the Mail in ninth place (122.2 million visits) although it is the smaller brand that saw monthly and annual growth in August.

In the UK, for comparison, The Independent was the sixth biggest news website by audience size in August on 20.5 million people, almost level with Sky News and ahead of the Mirror, according to industry-recognised Ipsos Iris data.

Both Mail Online and The Sun, which launched into the US in late 2019, made editorial redundancies last month.

Broughton said: "I think it is about an investment into quality. It's an investment into trust. Newsguard always has us right up there with the very elite of global publishing on trust metrics... with The Independent, you get quality journalism in an incredibly agile, digital future-focused way. But quality journalism is what America needs, and it's getting it from The Independent right now."

Paton also pointed out that The Independent is running a different business model to those two news organisations in the US with its diversification away from advertising.

Broughton added: "It's a lot more than just a newsroom over in the US for us. It really is a rounded business, which gives it that durability and also gives it that growth rate... the US is a great source of growth for us, and it's going to be a great source of growth in the years to come too."

The Independent: From A2K to AI

Meanwhile, The Independent's first-party user data strategy, known as A2K or Anonymous to Known, reached 5.7 million registered users by December 2023.

E-commerce revenues were up 26% with highlights including Black Friday and travel content.

And on AI, The Independent has partnered with Google on product development using the AI model Gemini.

One pilot project on AI translation allowed The Independent staff to translate four times as many stories into Spanish for its Independent en Espanol website.

The Independent publishes in six languages and Broughton said use of AI is being rolled out further.

"What I particularly love about that is it's empowering the humans," he said. "It's not about disempowering journalists, it's about empowering them."

He added: "Early next year, or towards the end of this year, we'll have a lot more to say about AI projects, but we're great believers in newsrooms and media businesses have to get involved actively in order to have a voice in the future and to shape the future, because by working with the AI companies now, we're going to get a better outcome..."

In March Independent Digital News and Media announced a multi-year licensing deal with Buzzfeed UK, which includes Huffpost UK and sub-brands like food vertical Tasty and black British identity brand Seasoned.

Broughton told Press Gazette on Monday that the Buzzfeed brands are set to beat their projection for this year by 40%.

"So we are off to a flying start," he said. "We have safeguarded everyone's editorial independence so each team is free to create the content it wants to create. That is the genome of The Independent.

"But we have found great synergistic opportunities in the whole rest of the business," he added, citing the use of data, AI projects, licensing deals, ad stack and audience planning.

The post The Independent set to double profit and revenue over last five years appeared first on Press Gazette.

Many leading UK news publishers saw a bump in website traffic during the Paris Olympics, data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb shows.

US sites meanwhile saw a drop in visits compared to the previous fortnight, likely because the weeks before the event saw the Donald Trump assassination attempt and news Joe Biden was standing down as president.

But in both the US and UK the year-on-year traffic trends were strongly up and publishers reported far more interest in the Paris games than the covid-impacted 2021 Tokyo event.

Among top UK news sites, the publishers that saw the largest bump over the 18-day Olympic period this year were the BBC (visits up 5% on the 18 days immediately before), The Independent (10%) and the Birmingham Mail (12%).

Publishers say they saw as much as double their 2021 traffic for 2024 Olympics

Mail Sport said it received double the average daily page views at the 2024 Olympics versus Tokyo, which had been scheduled for summer 2020 but was postponed because of the Covid pandemic and took place without spectators.

The Sun, similarly, told Press Gazette it saw 70% higher site traffic on Olympic articles this summer, and The Guardian’s total page views were 44% higher than during the Tokyo Olympics and 52% higher than Rio de Janeiro’s. Daily page views were “up every single day except one compared to previous Games”, a spokesperson for The Guardian said.

Independent editor Geordie Greig said in a statement that site traffic was “33% higher than forecast” over the Paris Olympics and that the title’s reporting on Imane Khelif, a female boxer subjected to online backlash over her gender, “generated 20% of our overall Games traffic”.

“Gymnast Simone Biles, sprinter Noah Lyles and British tennis hero Andy Murray also captured our readers’ imagination,” he said, “with millions of people reading our industry-leading commentary from our correspondents in Paris.”

Mail Sport said it saw more than 100 million page views on Olympic-specific stories. The publisher added that it saw its third-most daily page views in the last four years on Tuesday 6 August, a day that featured the finals of the men’s 1,500 metre and the women’s 200m runs.

The Guardian said the fourth day of the games, 30 July, saw its greatest traffic, “with Simone Biles and the USA winning gold in the gymnastics team final, while other top stories included the Guardian’s medals table, the opening ceremony live blog and news stories on Imane Khelif, ‘floating surfer’ Gabriel Medina and Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification”.

A spokesperson for The New York Times Company said its sports title The Athletic saw “two of our ten biggest weeks” ever during the Paris Olympics.

The Washington Post, similarly, said the three weeks of the games “were among The Washington Post’s top five weeks of the year in terms of reach, across site, app and off-platform”.

The title’s most-read reporting included live event coverage and “pieces reporting on issues in the spotlight”, including the backlash against Khelif.

A spokesperson for the publication said an animated Instagram post about gymnastics moves originated by and named for Simone Biles “had a reach of 8.5 million and was a great example of our unique coverage that went beyond the medal counts”

Sun head of digital sport says Olympic traffic no longer driven by social media

Alex Peake, The Sun’s head of digital sport, told Press Gazette there was “much more of an even split” in where that traffic was coming this year when compared with in previous Olympics.

“Direct traffic was up, search traffic was up, and it’s just a bit more of a balanced picture as opposed to what it was three years ago when Facebook was nearly 50% of the page views we drove during Tokyo,” he said.

“The Olympics, I suppose, is different to pretty much everything else we cover. When you look at the sports we do day in, day out, like football or boxing, everything follows a pattern.

“The great thing about the Olympics, which makes it quite special to cover, is the fact that a lot of the people we’re writing about, we don’t know anything about, that we’ve probably never heard of them before.”

Press Gazette looked at daily traffic over the period for the top 20 publishers on Press Gazette’s June rankings of the most-visited news sites in the US and the UK. (Daily traffic data was not available for certain sites: in the UK, ITV, Money Saving Expert, The Times, Healthline, Global, GB News and the Daily Record, and in the US USA Today, Forbes, CNBC, Newsweek and The Guardian.)

[Read more: Advertising blocklists unfairly targeted coverage from Olympics and Euros]

In the US, meanwhile, only two top-20 sites — news.yahoo.com and people.com — saw more traffic over the Olympics than the weeks leading into the games.

However, most news sites analysed by Press Gazette did see US traffic growth when compared against the same set of dates last year. Fox News, The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and BBC.com all saw growth of between ten and 20%, while People.com saw a 46% rise in traffic and the Associated Press 63%.

The same was true in the UK, where four sites — Sky News, The Telegraph, Metro and the Birmingham Mail — all saw average daily page view growth of at least 30%. The Birmingham Mail saw an increase of 72% on last year.

Top stories in search during the Olympics

Similarweb also carried out an analysis for Press Gazette looking at which news publishers performed well on Google searches for the words "Olympic", "Olympics" and the names of various gold medal winners.

Among the winners on search in the US were Yahoo.com (1.35 million search clicks), USA Today (1.3 million) and NBC News (1.2 million).

In the UK Mail Online secured the most Olympic search traffic, with 644,010 domain clicks. It was followed by The Guardian (462,450) and the BBC (395,110).

The data also reveal the top-ranked URL for each site in the analysis, showing which stories did best on search.

In the UK, the top article at half of the 16 domains assessed covered Imane Khelif or Lin Yu-ting, another boxer whose gender became a focus of abuse online. Other well-performing stories covered the men's tennis finals and a red card for Brazil's all-time leading women's goalscorer. In the US only four of the top stories at the the 18 domains analysed concerned Khelif or Lin: other successful coverage recapped the opening ceremony, covered gymnast Simone Biles or simply tracked the US medal count.

The post How Paris Olympics led to traffic boost for leading news publishers appeared first on Press Gazette.

Press Gazette has ranked the biggest UK and US news publishers on Instagram with four achieving follower-counts above ten million.

We looked at the news publishers from our top 50 UK and US website rankings to compile our new research.

Two publishers – BBC News (27.8 million) and CNN (20 million) – are above the 20 million mark. When Press Gazette last ranked publisher Instagram accounts (in June 2023) BBC News had 7.4m followers on the platform and CNN 4.2m.

The top two on Instagram are followed by the New York Times (18.2 million) and People (13.6 million).

In comparison, only one news publisher (Daily Mail) from the two top 50 lists has topped ten million on Tiktok, the newer platform.

Ladbible does not feature in the latest ranking because it has it has fallen out of the list of the top 50 news websites in the UK. It currently has 14.1 million followers to its biggest Instagram account. Cosmopolitan, The Daily Wire, The Verge, NME, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit similarly have fallen out of our top 50s so do not eapp

Excluding the impact of Ladbible’s removal, the top seven remain the same – but The Guardian (5.8 million followers) in eighth place has overtaken Buzzfeed and Unilad (both 5.7 million).

The fastest-growing Instagram account over a two-year period was the New York Post, increasing by 74.7% since 2022 to 1.2 million.

It was followed by Healthline Media (up 60% since 2022 to 1.3 million) and UK tabloid the Mirror (up 57% to 441,000).

Four news publishers on our list saw their Instagram followings decline since June 2023: Buzzfeed (down 7%), sister publication Huffpost (3% to 3.2 million), Unilad (down 2%) and The Daily Beast (down 2% to 452,000).

Since June 2023 only, the Mirror was the fastest-growing (up 45%) followed by ITV News (up 34% to 512,000) and the New York Post (up 32%).

But the follower count for BBC News increased the most in absolute terms (2.1 million) since last year - almost double the next largest growth seen by Fox News (up 1.2 million to 9.4 million).

Four added at least one million followers to their counts - also including the New York Times and People.

The percentage of people saying they use Instagram for news has risen from 2% in 2014 to 15% this year in 12 key markets surveyed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (UK, US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Ireland.

It remains behind Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp in importance but has overtaken Twitter/X and is still ahead of Tiktok and Snapchat.

The post Two news publishers have 20m+ Instagram followers: Leading UK and US titles ranked appeared first on Press Gazette.

Five of the biggest news publishers in the UK and US have increased their core Tiktok followings by more than two million people in just over 18 months.

Press Gazette has updated our ranking of the biggest and fastest-growing news publisher Tiktok accounts, having last done so in January 2023.

The analysis features the 70 news publishers from Press Gazette’s most recent lists of the 50 biggest UK and US news websites that were found on Tiktok. 

Nineteen of the publishers are not included in the growth comparisons as they were not included in our previous analysis – with some of those likely to have been more recent sign-ups to Tiktok. 

The rankings look at each publisher’s main account only but it should be acknowledged that some news outlets create separate accounts for different verticals.

Reuters and The New York Times saw by far and away the biggest percentage increase in their Tiktok following during the period, but this is due to their small followings at the start of 2023.

Among those with over 100,000 followers at the time of our last update, the 371% growth seen by BBC News was the largest.

CNN (238%), GB News (221%), Yahoo News (218%), CNBC (205%) and The Independent (204%) were the other larger accounts to more than triple their follower count.

There was also some impressive growth for local news sites such as the Liverpool Echo (204%) and the Manchester Evening News (193%), though Newcastle’s Chronicle Live (464%) remains small (6,200 followers) despite that growth.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Washington Post (13%) and The Telegraph (14%) took the least advantage of TikTok’s growth.

In terms of absolute growth, there was no matching the Daily Mail, which added 5.6 million new followers over the period. This was more than two million more than any other news publisher in our analysis.

Insider, a section of Business Insider, was a distant second place, adding a still impressive 3.5 million new followers in the period.

CNN (3.1 million), Sky News (2.9 million) and BBC News (2.9 million) also added more than two million followers each since the start of 2023.

The New York Times added almost 750,000 followers from a starting point of under 5,000, while Reuters added over 175,000 from a base of less than 1,000.

Who are the biggest news publishers on Tiktok in the UK and US?

The Daily Mail, which was in third place behind ABC News in January 2023, is now leading the way at the top with nearly ten million followers for its main account on the platform at the time of writing. (Between our data collection and time of publication, it has now surpassed ten million.)

One of its smaller accounts, Daily Mail UK, which has 980,800 followers, would still place comfortably in the top half of the outlets considered. It celebrated surpassing ten million across all its accounts, which also include a global news account and others dedicated to crime, sport, royals, showbiz, the US and Australia, in January this year.

It does have a smaller Tiktok following than Ladbible (13.8 million followers on its main account), but although the younger brand was top of the ranking in 2023 it was not included in our latest update as it is not currently ranked in the top 50 news websites in the UK.

Of the 70 newsbrands covered in this analysis, 21 were followed by more than a million people. This was more than the number (19) who had followings below 100,000.

This increased reach comes off the back of further growth for TikTok, which is now used for news by 8% of people in 12 key markets including the UK and US according to the 2024 Reuters Institute Digital News Report - up from 1% in 2020.

Across all countries surveyed where Tiktok operates, it is now used for news by 13% of people - overtaking X/Twitter (10%) for the first time - and 23% of 18 to 24-year-olds, the report found.

However 27% of Tiktok users said they struggle to detect trustworthy news on the site, the highest of all social media platforms covered. And only 34% of Tiktok users said they pay attention to journalists or news media, preferring online influencers and personalities. By contrast, on X 53% of users say they pay attention to journalists or news media.

Note: This article was updated after publication to add Channel 4 News, which we discovered had been wrongly missed off our list of the UK's top 50 publishers and therefore met the criteria for inclusion on this ranking.

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Update 6 August: The Sun has also introduced a “pay to reject” cookies option on its website.

The Sun’s option to reject personalised advertising costs £4.99 per month – making it the most expensive Press Gazette has seen so far in the UK.

In its FAQs about its Pay to Reject option, The Sun tells readers: “In response to recent enforcement action by the UK Information Commissioner against publishers, we have been forced to introduce new technology to ask our subscribers to consent to the advertising cookies that support our journalism, or pay a monthly fee that means we don’t need to use them.”

It adds: “If you consent, then your experience will be as you would normally expect. You can continue to control cookies as before. However, if you choose to opt out of advertising cookies, then we will ask you to pay a small monthly fee to address the shortfall in revenues we need to continue to produce the quality journalism you expect from us.”

Original story 25 July: Mail Online, The Independent and the websites of the Daily Mirror and Daily Express have begun requiring readers to pay for access if they do not consent to third-party cookies.

The development makes them the first major UK publishers to roll out the “consent or pay” approach to website monetisation that has already been adopted by many news businesses in Germany.

Pop-ups on mirror.co.uk and express.co.uk that began appearing this week ask readers if they want to “accept” their tracking and privacy policies or “reject all and pay”, which comes with a cost of £1.99 per month under a scheme dubbed “Privacy Plus”.

The Mail meanwhile is charging £2.70 a month for its “Mail Essential” cookie-less option and The Independent has priced its “Independent Ad-Free” offering at £4.

Readers who pay for the cookie-free experience on all four websites will still see ads, but are told there will be no sharing of their data with advertisers and they will avoid personalised advertising and only see basic, non-targeted ads.

The pop-ups on The Independent, Express and Mirror all freeze the page for the reader, while the Mail Online pop-up takes up half the screen but still allows the user to scroll the page and read stories.

The Mail’s pop-up tells readers Mail Essential is “the subscription that allows you to view Mail Online content without personalised advertising and with reduced tracking”.

The Independent, under a “Why are you asking me to pay?” FAQ, says: “The Independent relies on advertising to fund reporting, commentary and analysis of the highest quality from our teams across the globe. We are asking readers who do not want their cookies used for ad tracking and personalised advertising to support our journalism another way – paying for an advert-free experience instead.

“By subscribing to Independent Premium or Independent Ad-Free, you can help sustain the future of independent journalism and read our agenda-setting coverage uninterrupted by ads. In a changing and uncertain world, the need for trusted, free-thinking journalism has never felt more important and your support is gratefully received.”

Scroll down to see screenshots of all the publisher ‘consent or pay’ pop-ups

The pop-ups do not yet appear to have rolled out on other major Reach titles such as the Daily Star, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo.

Why are publishers rolling out ‘consent or pay’ pop-ups?

Third-party cookies help marketers target more relevant adverts to consumers, which makes users who consent to them much more valuable than those who are effectively anonymous (although some publishers including Reach itself through its Mantis tool are getting around this issue by increasing their use of contextual advertising).

Rising consumer concerns around internet privacy, and the requirement that publishers easily allow readers to opt-out of cookies, have seen the number of people accepting them drop substantially. The Guardian estimated last year that one-third of readers were declining cookies, making it harder to sell the advertising that helps sustain many news publishers.

Consent or pay strategies seek to address this challenge by asking users to put a price on their privacy.

In March UK information watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office called for views on the consent or pay model, saying that while “in principle data protection law does not prohibit” the approach, “any organisation considering such a model must be careful to ensure that consent to processing of personal information for personalised advertising has been freely given” – effectively meaning the price should not be so high that people feel they have no choice but to agree to give their data away.

In response to the publishers introducing the model, Stephen Bonner, the deputy commissioner of regulatory supervision at the Information Commissioner’s Office, said: “We expect all websites using advertising cookies or similar technologies to give people a fair choice over whether they consent to the use of such technologies, and our cookie compliance work includes ongoing engagement with some sections of the news media.

“We are aware several news outlets have now moved to a ‘consent or pay’ business model. We ran a call for views on these models in early 2024 and towards the end of the year will be publishing updates on the ICO’s position. In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor the implementation of new approaches.”

The future of third-party cookies had been in significant doubt until this week because of Google’s long-mooted plan to phase the tool out on its dominant Chrome web browser. On Monday the company announced it had changed tack and would instead offer Google Chrome users more control over their data through “an informed choice that applies across their web browsing”. However this has raised concerns among some in the industry that most users may simply opt out of cookies anyway, in the process throttling publisher ad revenue.

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