THE Derby Telegraph has been named Newspaper of the Year at the Midlands Media Awards.
The paper beat seven other titles to the prize at the awards held in Birmingham last night.
Derby Telegraph editor Neil White said: "Our Newspaper of the Year award is testament to the incredible dedication of the Telegraph's staff. They not only care passionately about our paper and website but also the community in which we work.
"Sparking the Al-Madinah investigation, encouraging thousands of people to give blood and take up first-aid classes and raising £30,000 to buy a minibus for underprivileged children to go on holiday to Skegness are just the headlines in a fantastic year.
"I couldn't be more proud to be the editor of the Derby Telegraph and to lead this brilliant team."
Education correspondent Zena Hawley was named Journalist of the Year and also took home Scoop of the Year for her story about female teachers being forced to wear veils at the city's Al-Madinah School.
This latest success comes on the back of Zena winning Scoop of the Year at the Regional Press Awards in May.
And there was further good news for Zena's daughter, Derby Telegraph health correspondent Caroline Jones, who beat her mum to win the Campaign of the Year category.
Zena said: "I was delighted to win both awards and equally delighted for Caroline to win hers. The ultimate accolade of Newspaper of the Year is a result of the dedication and hard work that all the people who work at the paper put in day-in and day-out. I have had a fantastic few weeks and would not swap my job in journalism for anything else."
Caroline won with the Save a Life campaign, which resulted in hundreds of readers signing up for first-aid classes, to become blood donors or to join the organ donor register. The campaign was supported by NHS Blood and Transplant and St John Ambulance.
Caroline said: "It's wonderful the Save a Life campaign has been recognised in this way.
"This award is the readers' as much as it is mine. Without their incredible take-up, the campaign would not have been the success that it has.
"I was thrilled to be nominated in the same category as my mum and I'm so pleased to see her win two awards – the newspaper as a whole has done extremely well and it's great to be a part of that."
Chief football writer Steve Nicholson, business editor Robin Johnson and crime reporter Martin Naylor were highly commended in the Sports Journalist, Business Journalist and Journalist of the Year categories.
The chairman of the judges, Peter Lowe, of Sky News, said: "This year, we found it extremely difficult to draw dividing lines between very high-quality work from newspapers around the region.
"But, in a year in which they were in the forefront of reporting the tragic and challenging Philpotts story, where they led a campaign to help preserve the future of an important local employer and in which they broke the story about the Al-Madinah free school, the Derby Telegraph was judged the outstanding publication."
