Herald journalists take top honours

New Zealand Herald journalists won a raft of reporting and feature writing honours at the annual Qantas media awards in Auckland last night.

Nine Herald journalists, including science writer Simon Collins, who was three-times honoured, won prizes and 23 others were finalists for their work last year.

The Herald was a finalist in the daily newspaper of the year category, won by Wellington's newly formed Dominion-Post, which also won the newspaper of the year title.

The Herald's investigation last year into leaky homes was a finalist in the best editorial project with significant impact upon the community, won by the Southland Times.

Herald reporter Andrew Laxon was a finalist in the business and consumer affairs category for his work leading the leaky homes inquiry.

Two Weekend Herald reporters, Eugene Bingham and Tony Wall, were finalists for the reporter of the year award, won by Oskar Alley of the Sunday Star-Times.

The Herald's Ainsley Thomson and Gregg Wycherley were finalists for the junior award, won by Karen Arnold of the Southland Times.

Herald reporter Louisa Cleave won the general reporting category for her national scoop exposing the Maori Television service chief executive John Davy as a fraudster.

The Herald won the award for best poster for the picture of the South Auckland pizza and bank gunman - later acknowledged in court as having helped in the capture of the murderer.

Among other Herald winners:

* Malcolm Evans chosen as cartoonist of the year.

* Veteran political writer Colin James named best political columnist and a finalist in the columnist and general feature categories.

* Simon Collins won the Industry NZ enterprise journalism award, and the science and technology awards for reporters and feature writers.

* Feature writer Graham Reid was top travel writer for a piece filed from New York a year after September 11, and was a finalist for features on arts and foreign affairs.

* Eleanor Black won the best social issues feature award.

* Linda Herrick won the arts feature award.

* IT editor Chris Barton won best information technology feature, and contributor Richard Wood won best IT news story, for which reporter Peter Griffin was a finalist.

The award for the best daily newspaper under 25,000 circulation went to the Manawatu Standard and the best weekly newspaper was the National Business Review.

The Herald's website, nzherald.co.nz, was a finalist in the best news website category which was won by nzoom.com.

Full list of Qantas winners and finalists