Simon Rogers wins 'statistical excellence in journalism' award

Editor of the Guardian's Datablog and Datastore Simon Rogers has been named one of the winners of the Royal Statistical Society's awards for statistical excellence in journalism.

According to a release, Rogers was the winner in the online category, while Chris Giles of the Financial Times took the award for print and the BBC for broadcast. The awards recognise work from the previous year,

This is not the first time Rogers has been recognised by the Society, having been commended in 2010 within what was at the time a combined category for print and online.

In a release honorary officer for the Society’s external relations work Professor Stephen Senn, said: "This year saw a record number of entries to our awards for statistical excellence in journalism.

"Many showed particularly good use of statistics and data, which presented the judges with a very difficult task in choosing who should win or be specially commended. Our congratulations go to those who have been successful, and our thanks to all those who submitted entries."

Earlier this year the Guardian's Datastore and Datablog celebrated both its three year anniversary, and reaching just over one million users a month on average for the past year for the first time.

Last year Rogers received the inaugural City University XCity award, which recognises a former student for "an outstanding contribution to journalism in terms of making a difference in the way news and features are written or presented".

Update Wednesday 22 August:

Simon Rogers told Journalism.co.uk that winning the award is "a huge honour and a brilliant vindication of the Guardian's focus on data journalism."

"It matters to us that our work is statistically rigorous as well as journalistically exciting and this is a great endorsement for that".

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