Our political editor
Paul Francis has grabbed industry headlines after notching
up a unique treble in the Shepherd Neame Kent Journalist of the
Year Awards on Friday.
Paul was named Journalist of the Year for the
third time, an accolade never before achieved in the contest’s
22-year history.
At a
presentation ceremony at Shepherd Neame’s visitor centre in
Faversham, Paul was also named Kent’s Best Newspaper Journalist of
the Year.
Judges said Paul’s work was of national
standard and praised his integrity, bravery and passion for the
area he serves.
It was a successful year for the KM Group,
with Katie Alston, of the Kentish Gazette, named WF Deedes Kent
Young Journalist of the Year, and Simon Tulett of the Gravesend
Messenger highly commended in the same category.
The Gravesend & Dartford Messenger won the
Canterbury Jack Campaign of the Year Award for its Everyone Counts
campaign, which raised £200,000 in two months to save the Ellenor
Lions Hospice.
KM Group managing editor Ron Green, who left
the company after 30 years at the end of last year, received a
Shepherd Neame Lifetime Achievement Award. Ron, 62, twice edited
the Kent Messenger - voted weekly newspaper of the year in 2002 and
2003 during his editorship - and was editor of the former daily
Kent Today. He was described as “a first-rate journalist who writes
like a dream.”
The judging panel, chaired by broadcaster
Barbara Sturgeon, included Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism
at the University of Kent and a former editor of The Scotsman; Kim
Fletcher, former editorial director of the Telegraph Group, Justin
Allen, from the sports desk of The Sun and the News of the
World.
(February 1, 2010)