Newspaper of the Year: MoS wins the ultimate prize – and sweeps the board – at Press Oscars

Glory night as we land top award... and almost all the major categories And if that’s not enough, ‘best scoop’ is record 3rd in row

THE Mail on Sunday triumphed at the Press Awards with an unprecedented SEVEN major awards, including the ultimate accolade: Newspaper of the Year.

Never before in the paper’s 34-year history have we won the top trophy. And never before have we scooped so many of the most coveted prizes.

Our brilliant reporters won the title of News Team of the Year for the astonishing exclusives we publish each and every Sunday including ‘Blood Money’, the revelation that Thomas Cook got £3million compensation after the deaths of two children at a holiday hotel.

That story won Scoop of the Year for reporters Nick Craven and Nigel Bunyan. The judges said the story ‘is what newspapers are for. A brilliant exposure of corporate greed and heartlessness’. This was the third successive Scoop of the Year award for The Mail on Sunday – a feat no other newspaper has achieved.

Investigative writer David Rose was News Reporter of the Year for his 14-year crusade about Guantanamo Bay and the first interview with released Briton Shaker Aamer. The judges said: ‘The winner showed years of dedication to one story and a dogged pursuit of justice for his subject.’ Nick Craven was highly commended in this category.

Ian Birrell is Foreign Reporter of the Year for his moving articles on the refugee crisis. The judges said: ‘He has the ability to make you feel that you are standing next to him as he reports.’ Birrell was also named Columnist of the Year for his work in other publications, including the Daily Mail.

Event writer Cole Moreton won the title Interviewer of the Year (popular papers). The judges described him as ‘an interviewer at the top of his game. He is insightful and a master craftsman producing entertaining and memorable pieces’.

Mail Sport, led on the MoS by Alison Kervin – and with Oliver Holt, who wrote last November’s astonishing interview with boxer Tyson Fury – is Sports Team of the Year.

The Society of Editors Press Awards – the Oscars for national papers – were presented at a gala dinner at Lon- don’s Hilton on Park Lane. The judges said: ‘With exclusive after exclusive in 2015, The Mail on Sunday consistently set the news agenda and saw its coverage picked up by other papers.

‘It is brilliant across the board… The exposés are an area that it should be incred- ibly proud of but its news and sport are also on top of the game.’ Our sister paper, the Daily Mail, won the Cudlipp Award recognising excellence in popular journalism for its exposure of cold calling by major charities, and the Mail’s Guy Adams is Feature Writer of the Year (popular papers).