The 2009 PPI awards, the radio industry’s most prestigious award ceremony, will take place in the Lyrath Estate Hotel, Kilkenny, today, Friday October 2. Journalists Paula Donnellan, Angelina Nugent, Teresa O’Malley, and Liamy McNally are the only local radio crew to have been shortlisted in the News Programme of the Year category.
They share the platform with national news broadcasters RTÉ and Newstalk. This is the third time since the PPI awards were introduced that Midwest’s news team has been a finalist in this category, taking the national title back in 2001. It was the lunchtime news broadcast on Thursday April 23 last that secured the nomination for this year’s award.
Midwest Radio journalists are no strangers to national and international awards in journalism and broadcasting over the past decade. Head of news Teresa O’Malley is representing Irish radio at the 2009 European Journalism Awards on October 15 in Brussels. She was the Irish winner in the radio section of this international competition for a documentary programme broadcast last January on former EU Commissioner Pádraig Flynn. Head of sport Angelina Nugent won the overall national award for coverage of Community Games this year, for the second year in succession. Liamy McNally won a PPI Bronze Award in last year’s ceremony for a documentary, Frank Stagg – The Stolen Body, part of the Dying for the Cause series on Mayo’s hunger strikers.
“Midwest News continuously strides to bring the news as it happens to its large audience across the region,” said a delighted Teresa O’Malley.
