AWARD WINNERS:SIMON CARSWELL, finance correspondent at The Irish Times, has been named national journalist of the year for his work on the banking crisis.
Carswell’s focus on how the banking guarantee came into being swayed the judging panel for the inaugural National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) journalism awards.
Judging panel chairman Michael Brophy said the Irish nation changed on the morning of September 30th, 2008, when the banking guarantee came into force.
The events surrounding that night and its aftermath have been covered by many distinguished journalists, but none had done so as comprehensively as Carswell, he said.
“He has brought us inside the very rooms where the banking deal was finally hammered out and has, since then, produced an extraordinary body of work, which has helped to inform a disbelieving public,” he said.
“He has helped us understand why things have happened in the way they have happened.”
It has already been a memorable year for the journalist whose book Anglo Republic, about the crisis that sank Anglo Irish Bank, has become a bestseller.
Meanwhile, Miriam Lord of The Irish Timeswas named political journalist of the year.
The citation, read by independent.ie editor Nóirín Hegarty, said Lord had such “unique skill that politicians and their peers both respect and fear her” and she had been at the top of her game for 20 years.
The citation praised her “wicked sense of humour, mixed with superb analysis and biting satire”.
Irish Timesfeature writer Kathy Sheridan was chosen as the NNI feature writer of the year. Reading the citation, judge PJ Cunningham said no subject was "too big or too small" for Sheridan.
She had the capability of being able to zone in on the “true heartbeat of the story with a compellingly honest narrative”.
The Irish Times, with three, was the biggest winner at the awards and also had the largest number of nominations.
The other Irish Timesnominees included Mary Raftery, who was nominated in the national journalist of the year category for her work in exposing child clerical abuse.
Literary correspondent Eileen Battersby and theatre critic Peter Crawley were both nominated in the best newspaper critic category, while Paul Howard was nominated in the columnist/ commentator of the year category for his popular Ross O'Carroll-Kelly column which runs in the Irish Timesmagazine every Saturday.
Cystic fibrosis campaigner Orla Tinsley, whose recent autobiography Salty Babyhas become a bestseller, was nominated for young journalist of the year for her work in The Irish Timesand Rosita Boland was nominated in the features category.
