Watch: NewsBrands Ireland Journalism Awards live stream

The Business Post has 13 nominations across 11 categories, including business journalist of the year, political journalist of the year and young journalist of the year, in the NewsBrands Journalism Awards, which take place today.

The paper overall was nominated for campaigning journalism for articles published relating to Ireland’s spiralling housing crisis and institutional property investors consistently outbidding individuals looking to purchase property.

Both Irish Tatler and the Business Post Magazine, which both operate under the Business Post group umbrella, were nominated in the awards’ Newspaper Magazine category.

Political editor Michael Brennan received individual nominations for both political journalist of the year and scoop of the year relating to, among other works, Brennan’s May 2021 article which revealed that Round Hill Capital, a global property investment fund, purchased 135 out of 170 homes at a newly build estate called Mullen Park in Maynooth, Co Kildare.

Both Killian Woods, senior business reporter, and Barry Whyte, chief features writer, were nominated in the investigative journalism category. Woods was nominated for his investigations into Ireland’s property market, including details about landlords adopting incentivised rents that could “potentially circumvent” pricing control rules, as well as into the extent to which first-time buyers may be frozen out of the property market in the coming years.

Whyte, meanwhile, received a nomination for his investigations into genetic data harvesting from Irish medical patients by Genuity, a for-profit company with links to “dozens” of Irish hospitals and medical clinics.

Aaron Rogan was nominated for business journalist of the year for his work relating to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s legal battles with Facebook, as well as details of how Paddy Power failed to run sufficient gambling checks on a gambling addict described as a “wild man” who bet £548,000 in one day.

Rosanna Cooney received a nod in the young journalist of the year category for features relating to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), retail investor trading and the gender investment gap.

Five Degrees of Change, a climate change podcast hosted by Daniel Murray, political correspondent, was nominated in the podcast of the year award category.

Colin Murphy was nominated for broadsheet columnist of the year, having previously been nominated in the critic category of the awards. Marion McKeone, the US-based Irish journalist, was nominated for foreign coverage of the year, having won the award in this same category in 2020. Niamh Donnelly was nominated for showbiz journalist of the Year for her writing in the Business Post magazine.

“The shortlisted entries reflect a remarkable year of brilliant journalism produced by our member news publishers,” said Anne Marie Lenihan, chief executive of NewsBrands. “Our members produce a diverse array of journalism with different audiences and views, but all share a commitment to responsible journalism whose reason for being is to probe, to inform, to educate, and to entertain.”

The awards programme, which is sponsored by the National Lottery, celebrates the work of journalists writing for NewsBrands Ireland members over the past year across 23 categories. Tim Vaughan, former Irish Examiner editor, is chairing the independent judging panel for the 2021 awards.