The News senior writer Mary Anne Gill has been named a finalist in two categories in the country’s major media awards.
Gill is in the running for the Community Journalist of the Year award and Best Reporting, Local Government in the Voyager Media Awards.
Gill, who has been honoured with several awards during her career, is a previous two-time winner and finalist in reporter of the year.
“It’s been 22 years since then, so this is pretty special.”
Mary Anne Gill
She returned to journalism in 2021 after working for several years as a communications’ advisor.
In 2022 she broke a series of major stories. One series resulted in the resignation of a Waipā district councillor – and it was only then other media began reporting the issue.
She also produced the lion’s share of the 90 exclusive stories Good Local Media produced for the 2022 local body elections.
That was almost 10 times the combined total of stories produced about the Waipā elections by other media.
Good Local Media publisher David Mackenzie said the nominations were just reward for a year of outstanding work, and he noted that The News did it without tapping into the Government’s lucrative Local Democracy reporting fund.
Some of her top stories would never have been reported had The News not been on the scene, he said.
Good Local Media publishes Te Awamutu News and Cambridge News.
Gill said she always wanted to finish her career in community newspaper journalism.
“It’s where I started nearly 40 years ago in Ohakune and then Taumarunui. It’s the ultimate honour for me to be doing this in the community where I live.”
She said of the stories which helped her become a finalist in the community newspaper category, none was more special than the story she did about Margaret Evelyn, the 81-year-old Cambridge resident who lost her life after a tree fell on her on the edges of Victoria Square, and the subsequent outpouring of community love for Margaret at a gathering called Tea without Marg, which she covered.
Mackenzie said the nominations also underlined the growing profile of Good Local Media publications in a week when one of its stories about a ram raid smashed its online viewing records – clocking up more than 230,000 page views to the Cambridge News website.
