The Financial Times won the award for digital innovation at last night’s Press Awards and FT correspondent Richard Milne was named business and finance journalist of the year. FT weekend magazine was highly commended in the Supplement of the Year category.
The FT won the digital innovation award for Sarah O’Connor’s (@sarahoconnor) unique Wearables at Work project, which combined traditional reporting, a Facebook group, feedback from readers, and interactive features, its When Rates Rise interactive project and its Big Game, Big Money film, an investigation of the billion-dollar illegal poaching trade.
The judges said that the FT gave a “holistic approach” to “an engaging project on wearable technology”. FT news editor Alec Russell saluted the team-work that underpinned the FT’s awards. “Most of us at heart are lone wolves, but this award as much as any other is a reminder of how if we hunt as a pack we can be much more powerful,” he told the ceremony.
Milne, (@rmilneNordic), who was named business and finance journalist of the year for his coverage of the VW scandal, said he was ‘very happy’ to receive the award and thanked FT editors Lionel Barber, Roula Khalaf, Alec Russell and Brooke Masters for allowing him to pursue the story.
The judges commented that Milne “truly got under the skin of VW and showed how it went wrong”, producing a “thoroughly exhaustive and clear investigation into one of the biggest business stories of the year”.
FT editor Lionel Barber said: “These awards recognise a dynamic younger generation of journalists at the FT. It is a great testament to our enterprising and innovative culture, and to the exceptional talent and expertise of our editorial team. Richard is richly deserving of this prize for his scrupulous reporting of Volkswagen, exhibiting the very best of deep, investigative journalism.”
FT’s political columnist Janan Ganesh, Middle East correspondent Erika Solomon, defence & security editor Sam Jones and hedge fund correspondent Miles Johnson were all shortlisted for awards.
The Press Awards celebrate the best of British journalism and are organised on behalf of the industry by the Society of Editors. You can find a full list of winners here.
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For more information please contact:
Kristina Erikson
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About the Financial Times
The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing essential news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community, the FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of 780,000. Mobile is an increasingly important channel for the FT, driving almost half of total traffic.