Tom Bergin wins another top journalism prize

Tom Bergin (photo)​​, former oil broker turned Reuters reporter and author, has been named business, finance and economics journalist of the year in the British Journalism Awards 2013 - a rare honour for a news agency journalist in awards dominated by newspaper entries.

The judges said: “Most of the other journalists writing about the tax affairs of companies like Google and Starbucks are following in his footsteps. He practically wrote the questions for the Commons select committee.”

Bergin’s Reuters colleague Stephen Grey was a finalist in the same category.

Irish-born Bergin has already won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for his reporting on how big companies including Starbucks avoid tax. He also won the George Orwell Prize for Journalism 2013 and has been shortlisted for a raft of other awards including the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism, the European Press Prize and New York’s Deadline Club awards.

He is the author of Spills and Spin: The Inside Story of BP, which reveals the inner workings of BP and the machinations behind its effort to tackle the biggest offshore oil spill in US history.

Bergin has been a reporter for more than 15 years during which he has covered stories from over 20 countries including Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, the United States and Russia. For the past seven years he has led Reuters coverage of the oil and gas industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

Previously, he led the Reuters UK economics team and mergers and acquisitions coverage. 

Before becoming a journalist he worked in fund management, as an oil broker and for the Mexican government in international trade promotion. ■