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2021 Awards

Once again, it’s time for our annual awards.

It’s been another hectic, turbulent year. From our point of view, chaotic reporting of events, and beleaguered responses from those in the spotlight, has given us countless award candidates. So, it’s been especially difficult trying to decide who should come out on top (or bottom).

That said, Dominic Raab was clearly determined to continue his long run as a Foot in Mouth nominee, despite facing some extremely strong contenders this year. Neil Oliver outdid many other nonsense-peddlers on GB News. Anne Marie-Trevelyan committed surely the richest Freudian slip of the year. And Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley chose the day the Government cut Universal Credit to moan about his “desperately difficult” and “really grim” life on £81,932 a year. In the end, we had to honour Raab, who either didn’t bother to find out what misogyny means, or chose to misogynistically mangle the term. Whichever, a worthy winner.

Each year, we see plenty of awful marketing spin. Back in the summer, BrewDog served up some solid-gold gubbins that the Advertising Standards Agency rightly deemed “misleading”. Nick Clegg – no stranger to slippery political manoeuvring – went on the offensive for Facebook, notorious for hosting misinformation, while promoting its replacement, Meta. GB News was a disaster – using sensationalised headlines to entice readers to click on a link to an article, image or video – from which its iconic chief presenter Andrew Neill departed in angry embarrassment.

On a more positive note, Ros Atkins, with his invaluable and entertaining news ‘explainers’, is a worthy Chrissie Maher Award winner. Pippa Crerar’s journalism has long been an indispensable feature of both print and online news coverage. Peter Stefanovic continued to show admirable grit in relentlessly pushing uncomfortable facts while national news broadcasters looked the other way. And Victoria Macdonald was a key guide to all things Covid on Channel 4.

 

 

Here are this year’s winners in full.

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