The annual awards for news journalism see Newsroom win three titles and the NZ Herald win website of the year for the fourth time in a row
Newsroom has won another three national media awards at the annual Voyager dinner in Auckland – including best crime and justice reporting for Melanie Reid’s video masterpiece bringing the Peter Ellis case to a new generation.
Our daily news podcast The Detail, produced by Newsroom’s team for RNZ and our site, won best regular podcast and Rachael King won the award for best reviewer, for work published on our books section ReadingRoom.
Newsroom also had five runners-up, including Reid’s Newsroom Investigates for the award for best current affairs programme, Aaron Smale for Māori issues reporting, Steve Braunias for both arts reporting and best reviewer and Fergus Porteous for best first person essay.
Reid’s Peter Ellis work, a video series made with researcher Bonnie Sumner and editor Paul Enticott, won high praise from the Voyager Media Awards judges:
“The judges have recognised the extraordinary story-telling skills of Mel Reid who has taken us on a journey to the heart of Peter Ellis who was tried, convicted and, eventually, innocent.
“Mel’s tenacity was on full display in the raw, cringeworthy questions she asked him back in the 90s and the compelling narrative she wove with the 30 years of interview tapes she’d kept. Mel proved how she ‘owned’ this story from start to finish.”
The Detail, joint winner with the Between Two Beers podcast, was praised for being “slick, informative, hard-hitting and fast-paced” with one episode on the Parliament protests described as “a brilliant, emotive, in-the-field podcast which took audiences there.” The Detail team is led by Sarah Robson and includes hosts Sharon Brettkelly and Tom Kitchin, and in 2022 Emile Donovan, with assistant producer Bonnie Harrison and contributing producer Alexia Russell.
Rachael King’s winning reviews for ReadingRoom received this fulsome citation: “This is a writer completely engaged with the works she is reviewing and with the literary and wider cultural world they are being released into. The depth of knowledge she is able to draw on is impressive and wide-ranging; whether reviewing creative non-fiction, literary fiction or children’s middle-grade novels, in each of her reviews Rachel manages to pack in personal, specific and meaningful detail as well as plenty of the big picture stuff — the full cultural context of each of the books is made clear to the reader in a very thoughtful and entertaining manner.”
Newsroom staff and contributors were finalists in 17 awards.
The major news website award went to nzherald.co.nz which had also won it for the previous three years.
The reporter of the year was Pete McKenzie for NZ Geographic, photographer of the year Stuff's Chris Skelton, broadcast reporter of the year, news, Tova O'Brien, Today FM and current affairs Kristin Hall of TVNZ and the columnist of the year was Andrea Vance of Stuff. Best investigation went to Nicholas Jones of the NZ Herald.
The full list of winners is on the Voyager Media Awards site.
