Journalists from The Birmingham Post, Sunday Mercury and Evening Mail scooped no fewer than five major awards at last Thursday's Midlands Media Awards.
The event, hosted by the Birmingham Press Club, was held at the Great Hall, University of Birmingham.
The Birmingham Post's Hyder Jawad was named Sports Journalist of the Year and Post reporter Jessica Shepherd was Newcomer of the Year. Evening Mail business editor Jon Griffin won the Business Journalist of the Year title.
The Sunday Mercury grabbed two awards - News Reporter of the Year (daily) ( Jeanette Oldham) and Feature Writer of the Year (Zoe Chamberlain) .
Other winners were Fran Llewellyn (South Shropshire Journal), Headline of the Year; Ben Bentley (Sutton Coldfield Observer): News Reporter of the Year (weekly); Emily Barber (Leicester Mercury) News Photographer of the Year; Matt Short (Leicester Mercury) Trevor Roberts Award; Jo Harvell (Gloucestershire Echo) Sports Photographer of the Year; Chris Maguire (Gloucestershire Echo) Scoop of the Year.
The Shropshire Magazine won Magazine of the Year and Sentinel Sunday was named Newspaper of the Year. It is the third year running that the Stoke-based Sentinel titles have walked away with the Newspaper of the Year title.
One of the judges, Andrew Pierce, assistant editor of The Times, said that the Sentinel Sunday had emerged head and shoulders above the competition.
"Sentinel Sunday is a real class act," he said. "I had not seen it before and was astonished by the quality of it - it was head and shoulders above the rest of the entries.
"In fact, it is probably the best regional newspaper I have ever seen. You would read that newspaper even if it was not reporting on your area."
The Scoop of the Year award won by Chris Maguire of the Gloucestershire Echo was the result of four years' of work on the largest fraud operation in the UK, which involved crooked Cheltenham solicitor Tim Robinson and 28 others.
The Echo covered five separate trials as part of its coverage, but could not report anything until October 29 2004, when they successfully applied for prohibitive reporting restrictions to be lifted.
Andrew Sparrow, chairman of the Birmingham Press Club, said: "The success of all the winners once again demonstrates the depth of talent in the Midlands media industry."
The wooden spoon, the award for Irritant of the Year, voted on by guests at the dinner, went to West Midlands Police press office for the second year.
