The things PinkNews is proud of achieving in 2013
This year has been a big year in terms of steps towards equality, and here are seven reasons the PinkNews team are proud to have been a part of it.
Here at PinkNews, we always try our best to help uncover inequalities and discrimination, and help recognise key players in the long journey towards equality. This year saw the fruits of our earlier campaign, to ensure that equal marriage was on the national agenda. Having lobbied, before groups such as Stonewall, to secure the support of first Nick Clegg, then David Cameron and finally Ed Miliband to consider the case and fight for equal marriage.
Here are some of the things we are most proud to have achieved this year.
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PinkNews commended at the Online Media Award for Best Investigative Journalism
We were proud to have been nominated for the Online Media Awards 2013 in the Best Campaigning/Investigative Journalism category.
Finalists in the category included USA Today, International Business Times UK and The Times newspaper. The Times went to win the prize, with PinkNews achieving a commendation in the category.
PinkNews.co.uk was singled out for its continuous in depth equal marriage coverage and last year’s exclusive investigation that revealed children as young as 11 at a Catholic state funded school in south London were being urged to sign a petition against marriage equality.
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Inaugural PinkNews Awards ceremony takes place in the State Rooms of the Palace of Westminster
Hosted by the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, the first ever PinkNews awards took place in October this year.
The awards were presented to recognise the contributions of politicians, businesses and community campaigning groups to advancing LGBT life across the UK.
The Speaker, as well as guests including Helen Grant, Equalities Minister, and Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister all commended PinkNews on its role in the same-sex marriage story, but also emphasised the need to do more on moves to equality.
A full list of winners is available to view here.
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Our Deputy Editor gets engaged in Speaker’s House
PinkNews Deputy Editor Joseph Patrick McCormick proposed to his fiancé James Anthony Hanson at Speaker’s House in the Palace of Westminster at the PinkNews Awards.
The proposal, which was accepted, took place just moments before Nick Clegg made his speech at the PinkNews Awards, in which he compared the event to his own proposal in a train station on the way to Sleaford. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, also both congratulated the couple.
Ms Cooper suggested she wanted to be invited to the wedding, saying: “I do have a really nice hat.”
It is believed that Mr Hanson and Mr McCormick were the first gay couple to have gotten engaged inside the Speaker’s House.
Also, Mr Clegg wrote five articles for PinkNews during 2013.
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PinkNews and Out4Marriage gave evidence to the equal marriage Parliamentary Committee
Speaking in front of the Public Bill Committee of the House of Commons was the founder of PinkNews, Benjamin Cohen.
Alongside Out4Marriage Director of Campaigns James-J Walsh, Mr Cohen defended equal marriage against attacks from Tory MP David Burrowes who compared the bill to “the shark from Jaws”.
Mr Cohen gave an impassioned testimony, accepting that some would be opposed to the idea of equal marriage, but defending that it was the right thing to do.
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PinkNews was praised by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband
We were honoured to be thanked by Prime Minister David Cameron, and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband among others, who acknowledged the work of PinkNews and Out4Marriage leading up to, and during, the equal marriage debate in England and Wales.
It is particularly important for us that we work with politicians across the political spectrum and so are delighted that Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg and Mr Miliband are all regular contributors to PinkNews. We are also were pleased this year to have welcomed columns from leading members of the Greens and the Scottish National Party too.
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PinkNews founder overwhelmingly wins an Oxford Union debate on the motion: “This house would be glad to have gay parents”
The motion was carried with 345 votes to 21.
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