Guardian wins award for exposé of founders’ links to transatlantic slavery

The Guardian has won a diversity award at the prestigious Press Awards after its exposé on its founders’ links to transatlantic slavery, while one of its reporters took home the award for news reporter of the year.

Judges at the Press Awards called the Guardian’s cross-platform Cotton Capital series, encompassing news articles, long-form essays, podcasts, video, a magazine, a 15-part newsletter and social media content, a “breathtakingly honest mea culpa”.

They added that it was “a hugely thoughtful and comprehensive project that provides a groundbreaking example of how an organisation addresses historical links to slavery”.

At Thursday evening’s awards ceremony at the Marriott in London’s Grosvenor Square, David Conn won news reporter of the year, Anna Isaac was named business and finance journalist of the year and Tom Jenkins took sports photographer of the year.

The judges said Conn demonstrated “stamina, tenacity and courage” in his two-year battle to reveal how the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her children received £29m as a result of a lucrative contract awarded to PPE Medpro, a company she helped secure a place for in the government’s Covid “VIP lane”.

Judges praised Conn’s “remarkable determination and courage” in holding power to account in the highest public interest, singling out the Mone investigation – which it said “encompasses political sleaze, reaches the highest echelons of power and speaks to broader corruption” – for particular praise.

Isaac’s work was hailed as “hugely impactful and courageous”, exposing “the clubby immoral behaviour of powerful people”.

Further accolades went to Chris Riddell of the Observer as cartoonist of the year and Laura Cumming as critic of the year.

Anna Bawden and David Batty were highly commended for a Guardian investigation into sexual harassment in the NHS. This was described as a hard-hitting series of stories that laid bare the extent of sexual violence and misconduct in the NHS.

Jay Rayner of the Observer was highly commended in the critic of the year category. “His work is full of the kind of wit, intelligence and insight that both he and the Observer are famous for,” the judges said.