© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Guardian journalists walked away with more prizes than any other news provider at the British Journalism Awards on Wednesday, winning recognition for producing indispensable commentary, riveting features, and "the must-read story of the pandemic".
Among the five awards, reporter Matthew Weaver took the prestigious scoop of the year prize after he exposed Dominic Cummings' lockdown breaches in a collaboration with the Daily Mirror.
Marina Hyde, Sophie Elmhirst, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and the team behind the Luanda Leaks investigation were all recognised for producing exceptional work in an extraordinary year for journalism - with Hyde winning columnist of the year for the second time in a row.
Weaver's victory, shared with the Daily Mirror journalists Pippa Crerar and Jeremy Armstrong, came against a competitive field that included the Sun's revelation that Prince Harry and Meghan were moving to Canada and powerful coverage from Sky News and the BBC on coronavirus.
But judges for the online ceremony concluded the Cummings story, which came about after an exceptional collaboration between two rival newspapers and in the face of ferocious attempts to undermine it from Downing Street, was "the one which made readers choke on their cornflakes". It has been widely cited as a critical moment in the public's faith in the government's handling of the pandemic.
Weaver, Crerar and Armstrong were also commended for the journalist of the year prize.
The annual awards are run by industry magazine Press Gazette. Having taken place since 2012, they are open to all types of media and exist to promote public interest reporting.
Hyde's work - including a piece that described Cummings as "some spad in inside-out pants" - was described as "sheer joy" and "the one must-read of the weekend".
And judges in the feature writer category described Elmhirst as having "huge literary talent" and producing "moving, sometimes harrowing accounts of people usually overlooked" that gave "a completely new perspective on their subjects". Her pieces for the Guardian's Long Read covered domestic violence, the war to overthrow Tampax's control of the tampon industry, and one hospital cleaner's experience of the pandemic.
Kirchgaessner won the technology journalism prize for her exclusive story that revealed the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's mobile phone had been hacked by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Judges called it "important well-researched journalism" and noted the personal risks Kirchgaessner took to produce it.
The team of Juliette Garside, David Pegg, Hilary Osborne, Jason Burke, Caelainn Barr and Paul Lewis won the anti-corruption investigation of the year award, with their Luanda Leaks investigation into corruption in Angola described as "exposing levels of corruption which led to the downfall of the previous president's daughter and billionaire husband".
The FT's investigation into the German payments company Wirecard won the business journalism prize, while ITV's Paul Brand and Dominique Heckels were named political journalists of the year for their investigation into the care homes crisis. The BBC's Rianna Croxford was named new journalist of the year, and investigation of the year went to a BBC Panorama/Sunday Times collaboration on an alleged cover-up of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The GuardianMatthew Weaver (pictured) won scoop of the year, alongside the Daily Mirror's Pippa Crerar and Jeremy Armstrong.
The Financial Times was named news provider of the year for its "exemplary" journalism and the newspaper's reporter Dan McCrum won journalist of the year for his Wirecard investigation.
Other big awards went to the BBC's Emily Maitlis for her interview with Prince Andrew, and Kuba Shand-Baptiste, who won the inaugural Barbara Blake-Hannah ward for the best up-and-coming BAME journalist.