Red diesel could win it for Jonathan

Multi award-winning journalist Jonathan Gibson (pictured), from BBC Birmingham, has been short-listed yet again for another prestigious accolade. He will be at the Headlinemoney Awards, to be held in London on 7 September, hoping that examples of his trade-mark investigative journalism will win him the title of  Local/Regional Journalist of the Year.

The category is for the best financial or business journalist working in the UK’s local/regional Press in 2020.

Jonathan was voted TV Journalist of the Year in 2016 at the Press Club-organised Midlands Media Awards, Journalist of the Year at the 2019 RTS Midlands Awards and Local Journalist of the Year at the 2020 British Journalism Awards.

For the Headlinemoney Awards, he submitted two examples of his work – the first being an undercover investigation into the illegal trade in red diesel, focussing on a Birmingham fuel supplier who was encouraging motorists to fill up with red diesel illegally to cut driving costs. The story was later picked up by Radio 4.

The second undercover assignment looked at the number of sex workers still meeting clients during lockdown and their wide-ranging reasons for doing so. Some were just cashing in while others were pregnant or needed to support their families with no other means of income.  The story was picked up by the Daily Mail and other media outlets.

Both stories helped Jonathan to win at the British Journalism Awards – his third submission being his investigation into the risk posed to workers at drive thru restaurants from the exhaust fumes of motorists at the serving hatches, produced in conjunction with Coventry University.

Last year, the Local/Regional Journalist of the Year at the Headlinemoney Awards was won by Robin Johnson, then business editor of the Derby Telegraph.