Since 1997, the Newspaper Awards have been one of Fleet Street’s biggest nights of the year, with more than 12,000 hacks attending its swanky London ceremonies, reservoirs of plonk sunk and hosts including Michael McIntyre, Jonathan Ross and Jimmy Carr.
Now, in the inky-fingered equivalent of the ravens leaving the Tower of London, the Awards are no more. In a sign of the times, its organisers announced they had made the “difficult decision” to bring them to a close.
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In an email sent to publishers today, the Awards’ Helen Hargreaves stressed it was not due to newspapers’ decline but organisers moving on, writing: “As some of our team now reach retirement (and in some cases, beyond it!), we feel the time is right to step back gracefully and conclude the Awards on a high note.”
She adds: “This is not a decision borne out of decline – quite the opposite. The Awards have thrived for three decades, and that success has only been possible because of the support of our valued stakeholders.”
But the closure of the awards is another blow to an industry which is facing an onslaught of slumping sales, advertising models eaten by Google and Meta and the emerging threat of AI slop. Won’t somebody think of the industry, though, really affected by the end of the annual shindig? The caterers, guaranteed a bumper payday keeping thirsty hacks topped up all night. Hic!
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