The top five journalism heroes of 2011

After our list of the top five journalism villains of the year, it's time to celebrate five heroes (and some runners-up as well). With thanks once again to everyone who submitted nominations, including Neal Mann, Rachel Corp, Iain Hepburn, the Wannabe Hacks' Undergrad, two former News International employees who asked not to be named and a whole host of other journalists who pleaded anonymity.

The also-rans

First, an honourable mention to three who came close.

• Lord Hunt was the unexpected choice of one local paper journalist, who praised the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission for seeing 'past this phone hacking nonsense to recognise that the regional press actually does a pretty damn good job'. See here to find out how.
• Fleet Street Fox was nominated by one colleague, for anonymously championing the trade throughout a difficult year. As she acknowledged in her end-of-year roundup, the tabloid reporter has had a fantastic twelve months - and now she has the book deal to prove it.
• Nick Davies, the Guardian investigative journalist who broke the phone-hacking story, was also nominated. Regardless of where you stand on the Guardian's coverage overall, and subsequent corrections not withstanding, it was a hell of a story.

5 - Brian Whelan

A newspaper reporter-turned-editor for Yahoo!, and an occasional contributor to FleetStreetBlues, Brian Whelan earned a number of nominations for first exposing Independent interviewer and columnist Johann Hari, and then doggedly pursuing the story in the face of determined indifference from many. Brian's very readable blog offers a mix of links to his own journalism and wider insights - his pictures and video of the final hours of the News of the World captured from inside the newsroom were particularly gripping.

4 - David Wooding

Political editor at the time of the paper's closure, David Wooding became overnight the de facto spokesman for staff at the News of the World facing redundancy. As one admiring colleague put it: 'He did an excellent job getting the message across that more than 200 innocent, untainted people had paid a hefty for a crime they did not commit'.

Runner-up: Colin Myler - the News of the World editor also came in for praise in leading his team through the 'deeply surreal final three days with consummate class and dignity', and subsequently standing up to James Murdoch in front of a Parliamentary committee.

3 - Arab Spring bloggers and tweeters

So much has been written about the impact of social media on journalism that it's hard not to believe it's all hype - but overseas, the series of revolutions across the Middle East showed the medium's true worth. As ITN's Rachel Corp put it: 'Bit worthy... but for me when on the foreign desk this year it's all been about Arab Spring bloggers/tweeters/social media types.. Some anonymous, some under pseudonyms. Many taking amazing risks to get info out. Some killed for it. Never think social media replaces the 'proper' trained and experienced reporter - but for large chunks of the year, especially in Libya and Syria, they've been our only source.'

2 - Mark Stone

Sky News reporter Mark Stone was memorably dubbed by the Daily Telegraph as a 'chiselled god of news' - and it was a sobriquet he earned in a few short minutes on the riot-torn streets of Clapham back in August.



As reporters, it's all too easy to shout angry questions at evasive politicians from the safety of the media scrum. It's far harder to shout those same angry questions at looting rioters, with only your iPhone for backup and the police nowhere to be seen. Nuanced in-depth analysis it wasn't, but for ballsy on-the-spot reporting it was unrivalled - and given the generally poor coverage of a massive breaking news story on the media's doorstep, that's to be celebrated.

Runner-up: Paul Lewis - Guardian special projects editor and another journalist who had a 'good riot'. His 2,600-word long-form feature on the five days of riots gives an excellent, old-school ground-eye view of the unrest.

1 - Joe Casey

Joe who? He's the least-well known name on this list, but like all of the best journalists, even if you don't know who BBC reporter Joe Casey is, you'll definitely know his work.

Tsunamis, revolutions, recessions and Royal Weddings - 2011 was a year jam-packed with breaking news. But in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, top-class investigative exclusives were somewhat thin on the ground. The Panorama investigation into abuse at the Winterbourne View care home - an investigation which saw Joe Casey spend five weeks working and filming undercover - was a notable exception.

The best investigations are conclusive, shocking, genuinely in the public interest and effective, and the Panorama story qualified on all four counts. The unequivocally horrific images from inside a supposedly state-of-the-art residential hospital prompted public revulsion, political intervention, arrests and court appearances and closures.

It's worth noting, too, that such an obviously praiseworthy story probably arose from some otherwise dubious methodology - as we pointed out in this post:

It involves a reporter who smelled a story going undercover, lying about his CV to falsely obtain a job, covertly and no doubt illegally filming the most vulnerable people in society, then standing by and doing nothing as they were submitted to the most horrific physical and mental abuse. The resulting BBC Panorama film was one of the best and most effective pieces of investigative journalism we've seen in recent years.

Brave, intelligent reporting - and a timely reminder of why the world needs top quality investigative journalism.