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The Independent has been nominated six times at the prestigious British Journalism Awards 2024.
From a total of 750 entries from every major news organisation in the UK, six journalists were chosen as finalists for their work in this publication, which was found to “be revelatory, show journalistic skill and rigour and serve the public interest”.
The work lauded by the panel of 80 independent judges spans a wide range of categories, including foreign affairs, health and sciences, and features journalism, in addition to both Campaign of the Year and Investigation of the Year.
In the foreign affairs category, The Independent’s esteemed world affairs editor Kim Sengupta – who died in July at the age of 68, having covered every major conflict of the last 30 years as one of Britain’s best on-the-ground correspondents – was chosen as a finalist.
The judges highlighted three of his articles from the past year – a dispatch from eastern Ukraine; an interview with a British citizen who had fought against Russia in Bakhmut; and a report in which he spoke to families days after their loved ones were taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October.
The veteran war correspondent, who joined this outlet 27 years ago, was posthumously honoured earlier this month with the prestigious Edgar Wallace Award for excellence in writing and journalism.
The Independent was also nominated twice in the features category.
Special correspondent Zoe Beaty was chosen as a finalist for articles on the crisis in the criminal justice system, the roots of Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party’s electoral success in Boston and Skegness, and the fight to bring a predatory Met Police officer from the same unit as Wayne Couzens to justice.
In the same category, freelancer and ex-Criminal Case Review Commission chair David James Smith was nominated for articles investigating concerns over the conviction of serial killer nurse Lucy Letby, why warning signs about James Bulger’s killer were missed, and a new development in the case of a Murdoch executive’s wife abducted in the 1960s.
Health correspondent Rebecca Thomas was again named as a finalist in the health and life sciences category, which she won in 2022 for her “revelatory” coverage of the worsening crisis in A&E departments.
Rebecca was nominated this year over articles including a major investigation with Sky News into the scandal of patients being sexually abused and assaulted within the UK’s psychiatric system, for which she recently won the Medical Journalists’ Association’s award for mental health story of the year.
In another article, she revealed a “culture of fear” at a regulator leaving nurses accused of serious sexual, physical and racial abuse, while also highlighting the case of an autistic man trapped in dementia care units and A&E wards, abused by nurses and held in padded rooms for more than a decade.
Crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin was nominated for Campaign of the Year over her extensive work highlighting the scandal of prisoners trapped behind bars indefinitely, the result of long-discredited imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences.
Former head of the judiciary Lord John Thomas is among those to have backed The Independent’s campaign for prisoners serving indefinite jail terms to have their sentences reviewed, as Amy-Clare continues to highlight a series of shocking injustices, including the case of a father still in prison 18 years after he was handed an eight-month jail term for threatening someone with a fake gun.
Social affairs correspondent Holly Bancroft was chosen as a finalist in the Investigation of the Year category over her work in collaboration with Lighthouse Investigates to uncover the plight of two Afghan special forces units abandoned by Britain and left at the mercy of the Taliban.
That work prompted a government U-turn in January and saw the Ministry of Defence accused of trying to bury an admission that the special forces had power over the UK sanctuary applications of their Afghan allies amid an ongoing inquiry into potential war crimes in Afghanistan.
Holly was praised by the Press Awards earlier this week as a winner in the Press 30 Under 30 Awards over her investigation, which also saw her win a prestigious Amnesty International media award. She was also nominated for the Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2024.
The winners of the British Journalism Awards will be announced on 12 December at a dinner in London hosted by presenter and journalist Jeremy Vine.
Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford, who chaired the judging panel, said: “Without journalism, Boris Johnson would still be prime minister, wronged postmasters would not have a voice and victims of the infected blood scandal would not have a chance of compensation.
“The 2024 British Journalism Awards shortlists celebrate the stories which would not be told without journalists willing to shine a light on uncomfortable truths and publications brave enough to back them up.”
