Four Sunday Independent writers win journalism awards
JOURNALISTS from Ireland’s leading newspaper, the Sunday Independent, won two major prizes at the Newsbrands Ireland journalism awards.
A ground-breaking and meticulous investigation by Maeve Sheehan, Wayne O’Connor and Mark O’Regan into extra fees charged by nursing homes won the award for investigative journalism.
The investigation uncovered new details about almost €17m in additional charges imposed on residents around the country and involved contacting more than 300 private and voluntary nursing homes.
Barry Egan won the award for showbiz journalist of the year, confirming his position as the premier writer on entertainment in the country. Barry was honoured for his interviews with Colin Farrell and Noel Gallagher and his poignant remembrance of his late friend Dolores O’Riordan.
Sunday Independent Editor Cormac Bourke said: “I am delighted for the Sunday Independent award winners that their hard work and dedication has been formally recognised. Congratulations to Barry, Maeve, Wayne and Mark. I am very proud of all our nominees and congratulate them all on making the shortlist.”
The Sunday Independent had been nominated in eight other categories at the awards, which are sponsored by the National Lottery.
The team of Karl Deeter, Philip Ryan and Wayne O’Connor, which complied the Political Rich List, were nominated for best political story.
Niamh Horan was shortlisted for best showbiz story for her exclusive report on an €80,000 pay gap between RTE Six One news presenters Sharon Ni Bheolain and Bryan Dobson.
The production team behind ‘The Power of Women’ front page, capturing the dramatic result of the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, were nominated for best front page.
Joe Brolly’s moving story of Peadar Heffron, the GAA player blown up and left permanently disabled after joining the PSNI, was nominated for sports story of the year.
Declan Lynch was shortlisted for feature of the year for his wonderful diary on the World Cup in Russia, while the outstanding Gene Kerrigan was nominated for columnist of the year.
Deputy Business Editor Fearghal O’Connor was shortlisted for best business journalist, while Business Editor Samantha McCaughren was nominated for the business story of the year.
The Irish Independent’s Vincent Hogan won both sports journalist of the year and sports story of the year categories, while Personal Finance Editor Charlie Weston won the campaigning journalism award for his coverage on the tracker-mortgage scandal.
Independent.ie reporter Amy Molloy won young journalist of the year for her investigation into slum landlords.
Amy is a former recipient of the Veronica Guerin Memorial Scholarship and participated in Arizona State University’s 2017 Carnegie-Knight News21 programme at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.