A press 'Oscar' for Standard's entertaining gossip column

The Evening Standard’s Londoner’s Diary has won a prestigious award at the Press Awards which celebrate the best in British newspaper journalism.

Your one-stop shop for all the best gossip about what is going on in the capital was named Diarist of the Year at the equivalent of the Oscars of the British press.

The judges said that the column, edited by Sebastian Shakespeare, is “entertaining and great for London” and “cheeky and breaks stories and is firmly in touch with its readers”. The Standard’s literacy campaign was also highly commended at the ceremony organised by the Society of Editors at the Lancaster London Hotel last night.

Spearheaded by Campaigns Editor David Cohen, Get London Reading aims to fight the scandal of illiteracy in London. Judges said: “Two hundred years after Charles Dickens, the Standard revealed the appalling problems still posed by illiteracy.”