THE Daily Record and The Herald writer, David Leask, were among the big winners at last night’s Scottish Press Awards, the former picking up the Newspaper of the Year title, the latter the Journalist of the Year one.
The Record’s triumph followed taking the Journalist Team of the Year title – for its reporting of a race-hate murder of a Glasgow teenager – and also the Scoop of the Year award, for Natalie Walker’s reporting of a schoolgirl who had just celebrated the news she had beaten cancer only to be told doctors had accidentally given her potentially fatal radiation overdoses.
Leask had picked up the Reporter of the Year award before then being chosen Journalist of the Year.
Now with The Herald, Leask won this prize for work he had done last year for sister title, the Evening Times, about Glasgow’s teenage gangs.
Leask’s victory helped lift some of the gloom that will have descended at the start of the day at The Herald, the Evening Times and the Sunday Herald – owners, Newsquest, having issued a request to staff to apply for voluntary redundancy, as part of a proposed budget slash of between two and three million pounds, by the summer.
Other notable victories included Scotland on Sunday’s Catherine Deveney, who took the Arts and Entertainment Writer of the Year prize, for the fourth consecutive year.
