Janice Turner wins Comment Journalist of the Year

[Bittermints]

Well done, Janice. Richly deserved.

twitter.com/pressgazette/status/1072247520141733888

Janice said: “When you write about really difficult and toxic subjects it really helps to have your newspaper behind you and I just want to thank the Times... who have been completely behind me in dealing with something that is complicated. I have a privilege in being able to write about this difficult subject, which is not something women in universities have at the moment, and I urge that we debate this more thoroughly and freely.”

Congratulations to Janice, this prize, is so well deserved.

Brava Janice! Thanks for shining a light where light was sorely needed. I am very pleased to hear that you have a supportive employer.

So happy for Janice-well done.

Well done Janice! Your articles are fabulous!

Good for you Janice.

Janice you are a life saver.

Congratulations and thank you Janice!

Great news - well done Janice 🎉💐

Also good news is that there are some congratulations tweets from people who, as far as I’m aware, have said nothing before. Jonathan Freedland, Oliver Kamm, Jenny Colgan, Jenny Eclair, Simon Fanshawe, Amanda Craig, Helen Rumbelow... nice to see a bit of support for a brave journalist. People are starting to stand up.

Congratulations Janice Turner

She’s always been a very readable, considered and direct journalist - stood out amongst some of her intellectually flabby peers well before this. Reading her take on this current situation validated my own growing uneasiness and now outright opposition to the way things were being slipped past the public. Her award is totally justified - well done to her and to the awarders.

Very well deserved. Her articles are brilliant. Great to see her get this recognition.

Very glad to see this. Richly deserved. for Janice.

The middle section of Janice's column today is about this (specifically the attempts to influence judges):

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-recipe-for-avoiding-an-identikit-christmas-6rh0tn0gg?shareToken=6489a270e688fadf57f11c1dfce0adc9

Wow. Am I bad in that the bit that most resonated was the first section about brands?

Well done! Also good to see Carole cadwalla win as well. The Cambridge Analytica stuff was an incredible piece of work.

The graun/observer used to be known for this kind of stuff. It’s a shame it’s drowning in a sea of woke rubbish and lifestyle fluff these days

I'm delighted, she writes extremely thoughtfully on the subject. However, it sounds as if there was the usual shenanigans to stop her being honoured (from today's column):

Only afterwards did I learn the pressure applied by trans activists to try to stop me winning. Besides angry tweets demanding the sponsor, Press Gazette, remove me from the shortlist, one judge told me he was contacted privately and instructed not to vote for a “transphobe”. Another nominated journalist was told by a prominent activist he should publicly boycott the ceremony just because I was in his category. This comes after a trans campaigner judge at another journalism awards resigned after I was shortlisted, making a horrific, wholly unproven link between my work and the suicide of children.

Given that most journalists presumably hold free speech and the freedom of the press to be extremely important, I'd imagine (and hope) those sorts of shenanigans would tend to backfire.

Fantastic and very well deserved, we need more brave journalism like Janice’s

Many congratulations Janice! And thank you for your important work