Celebrating Great Journalism - 26 July

Welcome to our weekly round-up of impactful journalism from across our 120+ trusted brands, from national titles like the Mirror, Express, Daily Record and Daily Star, to local brands like MyLondon, BelfastLive and the Manchester Evening News, as well as our US-based brands.

Biden withdraws from the Presidential race

Another weekend, and another huge development in the race to be the next US President. Seven days on from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, President Joe Biden gave in to mounting pressure to stand aside as the Democratic nominee for November’s election with an announcement that caught even some of his closest aides by surprise.

On both sides of the Atlantic, our teams sprung into action to cover the news, with highlights including US Reporter Mataeo Smith ’s concise explainer about how the sitting President’s disastrous performance in a TV debate was the beginning of the end of his bid to win a second term.?

Against the backdrop of global competition to rank for the major breaking story, our US teams closely studied search trends to look for secondary lines starting to trend. This allowed them to quickly latch on to emerging interest in the Obamas with a summary of recent comments by Michelle Obama about running for the White House and a report of speculation that the Democrats were ready to parachute her in ahead of Kamala Harris.?

Meanwhile, the fallout from the Trump shooting continued to impact the presidential race, as captured in Senior Reporter Martin Fricker ’s colour piece from the ex-president’s return to the campaign trail in Grand Rapids .

Across the UK

On this side of the pond, the M.E.N. broke a major exclusive when they secured footage of a police officer kicking and stamping on a man’s head at Manchester Airport. The thorough and sensitive coverage, put together by Reporter James Holt and Content Editor Seamus McDonnell , was widely read. The footage, which has been shared widely on social media, sparked a tense protest in Rochdale , reported on by Senior Reporter Imogen Clyde-Thomas and Night Editor Rob Williams. With intense political fallout and a huge protest planned, there is plenty more to come from this story.

On BristolLive, Chief Reporter Tristan Cork has been digging into the mystery of missing man Jack O’Sullivan , who was last seen in Bristol four and a half months ago.? It’s a thoughtful and detailed approach to what is effectively a missing person appeal where the trail seems to have gone cold.

CoventryLive reporter Conor Knell ’s excellent approach to a local issue will resonate with lots of people in the city. His first-person piece driving on a stretch of the M40 known as the “English Autobahn” was a great example of a story that many of our readers will identify with.

At WalesOnline, Property Editor Jo Ridout and photographer Jon Myers, were invited to look around the beautiful coastal home of Sian Evans, lead singer of the band Kosheen. Jo's feature was a huge success for WalesOnline and amplified onto other sites, including the Express.

Over to sport, and the Mirror's interview with Trent Alexander-Arnold has performed very well. It was filmed and edited by the Studio team, filmed by Dan Richardson and Simon Teasdale and edited by Dan Dove .

Our new partnership with City A.M.

This week also saw us announce a content sharing partnership with City AM , under which daily business and financial news from the title will be published across our portfolio of national and regional titles.?

The two-year partnership will see City A.M. stories appear on BusinessLive, sites across the Live Network and the Express, while in print, content will be published in the Express, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo. The high quality nationally-focused business journalism that City A.M. produces should be the perfect complement to the existing regional content of BusinessLive and provide a strong stream of content for several other brands.

And finally this week, we have this lovely piece from Shauna Corr reporting from Belfast Pride , telling the story of Jules, a 44-year-old mum who, as a gay teenager in a rural village in the 90s, thought she’d never be able to have children because of her sexuality. Now, with a partner and two sons, she says the world has changed for the better.

Thanks for reading, we’ll be back with more highlights next week.