Big scoops
In December each year, the journalists' trade magazine, the Press Gazette, announces the British Journalism Awards (formerly the Press awards), which aim to celebrate great journalism that is 'both interesting to the public and in the public interest'. The judges for 2012 included two-time journalist of the year and former member of the Sunday Times Insight team Philip Knightley, head of journalism at City University George Brock and former Today programme editor Kevin Marsh. The Society of Editors, the National Union of Journalists and the Worshipful Company of Stationers also support the event.
Recent scoops of the year include:
- 2011 'Cricket corruption', Mazher Mahmood, News of the World
- 2010 'MPs' expenses', 45-strong team, Daily Telegraph
- 2009 'Ross & Brand', Miles Goslett, Mail on Sunday
- 2008 Tom Newton Dunn, Sun 'Friendly Fire'
- 2007 Stephen Moyes, Daily Mirror
- 2006 Stephen Moyes, Daily Mirror
- 2005 News of the World, 'Beckham's secret affair'
- 2004 Ryan Parry, Daily Mirror, 'Intruder at the Palace'
- 2003 3am, Daily Mirror, 'Sven and Ulrika'
The Press Gazette has a page on 'British journalism's greatest ever scoops'. For many, says the magazine, the MPs' expenses story was biggest British journalism scoop of all time. The 'sweat of old-fashioned reporting' led a team of 45 journalists to sift through one million pages of information about MPs’ expenses to secure three weeks of agenda-setting front pages.
Double best scooper Stephen Moyes
Prime scoops by Stephen Moyes include:
- Kate Moss and cocaine – led to her losing most of her modelling contracts.
- Craig Charles smoking crack in the back of a taxi.
- Deputy prime minister John Prescott's affair with his secretary.
Scoop of the year: John Prescott's affair
Moyes says the scoop that Prescott had been having an affair with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple, was a team effort:
- Temple's boyfriend, Barrie Williams, contacted the Mirror in a state of shock.
- 'We were all sat there agog. The immediate response would have been to go down there and hammer all the doors, but bizarrely we had to let him come out of his shock.
- 'It was a question of building up a bit of trust and persuading him.
- When he'd sobered up, as it were, the shock had lessened a bit and he was just more angry.
- 'We had to talk him round to going public with a story that he thought would make him the number one laughing stock in the country.'
The secrets of success for Moyes:
- having confidence and 'the balls to do things others wouldn't'.
- good manners.
Crap news
At the same time as the Press Gazette's awards laud the best reporting, its columnists pour scorn on the worst, as in: 'You can't fail to notice the growth of Crap Local News Stories this year.'
The next page explores the old spies network...
