Winners of the Workworld media awards announced

23 January 2008

The winners of the 2007 WorkWorld Media Awards were announced at a ceremony held at Bafta in central London this evening.

The awards celebrated their 21^st anniversary this year and were hosted by Baroness Denise Kingsmill, the Labour peer and advisor to RBS. The guest speaker was Sir Bernard Ingham, Baroness Thatcher’s former press secretary, and the awards were sponsored by AMEC plc, the engineering and project management company. The AMEC lifetime achievement award went to Martin Wolf, associate editor and columnist for The Financial Times.

The winners, with judges’ comments, are:

‘Based on a survey of dream jobs, this was a careers programme with a big twist. Splendidly presented by Adrian Chiles, it aimed to take people inside the reality of different occupations ranging from zookeepers to doctors.’

‘For the second year running, the judges decided to give the award to Hazards for its use of the medium, its depth and seriousness, and its spiky determination to campaign for those at the rough end of working life.’

‘An in-depth analysis of Tesco’s attempt to make it big in America, Jonathan Rosenthal brilliantly took readers right inside the high stakes world of corporate strategy — globalisation made immediate and alive.’

Commendation: Hsiao-Hung Pai, The Guardian, ‘No place like home’

‘This was the kind of piece we see all too rarely - a harrowing inside account of the life of immigrant domestic helpers in the UK, that relied on persuading vulnerable people to speak.’

‘This was the hardest category to judge. But the winner is File on 4 for its terrific special on the Northern Rock crisis. This programme was very well presented by Robert Peston and contained a sensational interview with Mervyn King which sent markets aquiver and politicians panicking.’

Commendation: In Business, Radio 4, ‘Leaner and fitter’

‘This programme brings great depth and journalistic flair to reporting the subject and it is always a pleasure to listen to Peter Day’s interviews.’

‘Our winner is an immensely experienced and knowledgeable journalist who manages to consistently turn out crisp, critical pieces across both financial and comment pages. He stands in that group of financial journalists who really understand their subject and can make things happen as a result.’

‘This journalist does both ground-breaking exclusives and backgrounders extremely well with both a fine touch and great judgement. It’s a true pleasure to read his stories.’

‘For his sensational breaking and superb analysis of the Northern Rock saga that has rocked both business and government, the judges felt the award had to go to Robert Peston. He has had a great year.’

‘Our winner has only been a journalist for a short period of time, but she unquestionably has the knack, talent and the confidence to go far. Someone much more experienced would be delighted to turn out the kind of pieces she does.’

‘Our winner is a journalist who seems determined to keep the ‘life at work’ genre alive. His series of features in The Guardian manage to be both unusual and yet true to their subjects. In each case, the voice of the worker is allowed to speak through the profile, the character illuminating the work. It’s fine stuff.’

‘Martin Wolf is a towering figure amongst economics journalists and commentators. He brings both analytical rigour and philosophical principle to his copy, expounding updated classical liberal views in his columns which are read very closely at the top of both business and political worlds. A committed scourge of vested interests, where the free market and the public interest are at odds, he is often to be found arguing the case of the public interest, calling for regulation where he sees it necessary. He has already won many of the main awards in business journalism — now he adds the lifetime achievement award.’

Will Hutton, chief executive of The Work Foundation, said: ‘It is amazing to think the Workworlds have now been running for 21 years. One of the trends the judges noticed over this period was how the entries have changed. With some honourable exceptions, the reporting and analysis of work and working life seem to have fizzled. In their place, the financial end of business — driven by stories such as the rise of private equity — is given much greater prominence. Whether this trend continues in the gloomier climate of 2008 remains to be seen. Yet for the moment, business journalism as a whole is in evident health with some very talented people drawn to it and generous resources invested in doing it well.’