JOURNAL MEDIA PICKED up two awards at today’s University College Dublin’s business journalist awards, which recognise and reward excellence in business journalism.

Maria Delaney and Niall Sargent from Journal Media’s investigative platform Noteworthy picked up prizes, as did former The Journal reporter Ian Curran.

Delaney and Curran were joint winners for their submission, “Holy Land: How much money are religious orders pocketing from lucrative property sales?” for Business Feature of the Year, alongside the Sunday Independent’s Sean Pollock for his piece on Irish tech firms.

It examined orders involved in historic abuse and the dozens of properties sold that were worth a total of over €90 million since 2016, while simultaneously a shortfall of approximately €105 million could be found in terms of redress for institutional child abuse.

• You can read the full article here >

Niall Sargent won for two submissions as part of a collaboration with journalists from publication The Detail – Rory Winters, Luke Butterly and Tommy Greene – and Ella McSweeney, of The Guardian.

A great win for @Niall_Sargent and associates in the Business Analyst of the Year Category @noteworthy_ie @Rory_TheDetail @lukejbutterly @Tommy___Greene @TheDetailTV @ellamcsweeney #SmurfitAwards pic.twitter.com/nf99jtWgN3

— UCD Smurfit School (@SmurfitSchool) December 5, 2022

They worked together on pieces examining allegations of forged documents and illegal dumping in the poultry industry: ‘Suspected false documents and illegal dumping: the murky world of poultry manure’ and ‘Canary in the coal mine’: Protected nature areas under pressure from poultry farming’.

• You can read both articles here and here

There are just seven award categories and Journal Media was nominated in two in total, winning both. The winner of each category is awarded a €1,000 prize.

It also saw the first Women in Business Journalism Award go to Elaine Burke of Silicon Republic.

The awards, in their 15th year, honour excellence in Irish business journalism across the media spectrum and are run by UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, in conjunction with the Business Journalists Association of Ireland.

Professor Gerardine Doyle, Director of UCD Smurfit School and Associate Dean of UCD College of Business said the judges were proud to recognise the best of Irish business journalism as “work which enriches the public’s understanding of critical issues of the day and how they impact business and society”.

The winners were announced at the contest’s awards ceremony at the Westbury Hotel on Dublin’s Balfe Street.