BT's Anita Gabriel bags journalism prize in SPH annual awards

Singapore

ANITA Gabriel, a senior correspondent with The Business Times (BT), on Friday won an "Excellence in Journalism" accolade at Singapore Press Holdings' (SPH) annual English/Malay/Tamil Media (EMTM) Group's media awards.

The annual ceremony honours the best work by journalists of the EMTM Group in the past year. The prize was for her scoop headlined "It's switch and save as SP powers up households with cheaper option".

Although the retail electricity market has been liberalised for over a year, many households were then unaware of differences in pricing between retailers and SP Group, which is barred from promoting its wholesale pricing to consumers.

Ms Gabriel's report said that if consumers had gone with the wholesaler instead of other retailers, they could enjoy even more savings.

BT news editor Chen Huifen said: "Anita's story appeared at a point when about 40 per cent of households had switched their electricity plans; that means there was potentially the other 60 per cent that could benefit from her scoop."

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Ms Gabriel added: "I am humbled by this recognition. The space that BT accords its writers to excel in their various beats deserves special recognition."

The EMTM Group consists of The Straits Times (ST), BT, The New Paper (TNP), Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, tabla! as well as ShareInvestor, SPH Radio and ST Press & Information Resource Centre.

The Journalist of the Year award went to ST's Joyce Lim, who was previously recognised in 2014 in a special award for consistently good work; she had been part of a team that covered Malaysia's general election the year before.

ST enterprise editor Li Xueying said Ms Lim has delivered scoop after scoop and grown from strength to strength through the years.

ST's veteran health correspondent Salma Khalik won Story of the Year for her report headlined "The puzzling case of SMC's judgment on a doctor who was fined $100,000", while the paper's Tee Zhuo was named Young Journalist of the Year.

BT journalist Sharanya Pillai was nominated in the Young Journalist category for her work on the forefront of BT's Garage vertical, which covers startups.