How can journalistic excellence be measured? Beehive News believes in evaluating it at the most granular level: the news article. For this reason, the results of the ‘Top News Writers of 2024′ release below are not based on expert opinions or selective sampling. Instead, they stem from the hundreds of thousands of articles published in the last 12 months and assessed through a comprehensive and rigorous system.
Before diving into the results, here’s a brief overview of what Beehive News is, the methodology, and the rigorous criteria that underpin ratings.
THE PLATFORM
Beehive News aggregates and assesses over 1.5 thousand daily news articles in real time, from a growing number of publications in the UK and the world. Through these in-depth assessments focused on professional rigour and excellence, Beehive News directly promotes high quality journalism and exposes potentially misleading content.
The results represent the average ratings of over 545 thousand news articles published by over 15 thousand writers in 2024.
THE METHODOLOGY
Generally speaking, algorithms can be biased when improperly designed. To avoid this, our proprietary technology is carefully planned and coded in such manner that the article’s content (what the viewpoints are, for example) is less relevant than the article’s approach (whether it presents opposing viewpoints, for example). This means that two articles with entirely opposing viewpoints can both score very highly, provided they adhere to well-established industry best practices. This also ensures evaluations are logical – almost mathematical – and free from the influence of potential personal or political biases.
THE CRITERIA
The annual list is based on scores derived from three overarching categories: Bias & Fact Base, Context & Completeness, and Quality of Writing. Each of these categories includes a long list of criteria.
- Bias & Fact Base ratings are based on whether articles gather evidence from appropriate primary sources, use evidence to build logical reasoning, sufficiently demonstrate causality, present opposing viewpoints and avoid an emotionally charged tone, for example.
- Context & Completeness ratings take into consideration, for example, whether key contextual elements are present, historical or peer comparisons are provided, and numerical data is contextualised and comparable.
- Quality of Writing ratings are based on language use and structure, as well as on the use of overly complex or broadly accessible expressions and terminology.
THE CATEGORIES
The ‘Top News Writers of 2024’ list showcases three exceptional news writers for each of the ten main news topics: Politics, Economy, Business, Health, Science, Environment, Tech, Entertainment, Sports, UK Affairs and Opinion. Those three awards are granted for the best-rated writer overall (average across all rating criteria), the best-rated for Bias & Fact Base, and the best-rated for Context & Completeness.
In Global Affairs, the list showcases the best-rated news writer overall for each region – Western Europe, Eastern & Northern Europe, Americas, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and Africa.
This year, due to the prominence of important stories in more specific areas, we have also selected the best-rated news writers for Diplomacy, Ethics & Humanity, and Gender & Sexuality.
Finally, the list also showcases the best-rated news writers for each publication, considering all content published by them and assessed by Beehive News.
THE 2024 RESULTS
Altogether, the list recognises 52 news writers across 55 categories, selected from a pool of over 15 thousand professionals. This means that, together, these professionals represent the top-performing 0.03% of writers on Beehive News this year.
The results below represent the average scores of the content published by these writers and assessed by Beehive News using the outlined criteria. The professionals listed below have consistently adhered to high journalistic standards across all three rating areas, with some demonstrating exceptional strength in specific areas like Bias & Fact Base or Context & Completeness.
Typically, to be considered for the awards, Beehive News requires authors to have at least 4 articles published in the year. However, because Beehive News prioritises quality over quantity, we make exceptions for authors whose articles score exceptionally high in at least one of the three criteria and above average in the others. This means that not all of the recognised writers below are professional journalists; some have contributed to news outlets sporadically as columnists or experts in their field. That’s why we refer to them more broadly as ‘news writers’.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please write to Beehive News at info@beehive.news
Top News Writers by Topic
| Topic | News Writer | Published By | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🏛️Politics | Jennifer McKiernan | BBC News | Overall |
| Sam Coates | Sky News | Bias & Fact Base | |
| John McDonnell | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 💰Economy | Louise Cullen | BBC News | Overall |
| Sandra Haurant | The Guardian | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Angharad Carrick | Daily Mail | Context & Completeness | |
| 🏢Business | Ian King | Sky News | Overall |
| Theo Legget | BBC News | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Rebecca Black | The Independent | Context & Completeness | |
| ⚕️Health | Dr. Emily Leeming | Daily Mail | Overall |
| Linda Geddes | The Guardian | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Dr. Ranjana Srivastava | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 🔬Science | Kate Ravilious | The Guardian | Overall |
| Dimuthu Attanayake | The Guardian | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Stuti Mishra | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 🌳Environment | Ellen McNally | The Guardian | Overall |
| Helena Horton | The Guardian | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Jonathan Watts | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 💻Tech | Robert Booth | The Guardian | Overall |
| Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson | Daily Mail | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Andrew Griffin | The Independent | Context & Completeness | |
| 🎭Entertainment | Sarah Marshall | The Independent | Overall |
| Casey Cooper-Fiske | The Independent | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Kate Eshelby | The Independent | Context & Completeness | |
| ⚽Sport | Laura Keeny | The Guardian | Overall |
| David Goldblatt | Sky News | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Anita Chambers | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 🏛️UK Affairs | Hafsa Khalil | BBC News | Overall |
| Neil Pooran | The Independent | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Rachel Keenan | The Guardian | Context & Completeness | |
| 🌍Global Affairs | Bram Ebus | The Guardian | Americas |
| Salil Tripathi | The Guardian | Asia-Pacific | |
| Helen Pidd | The Guardian | Middle East | |
| Renate van der Zee | The Guardian | Western Europe | |
| Liudas Dapkus | The Independent | Eastern & Northern Europe | |
| Nick Dall | Al Jazeera | Africa | |
| 💭Opinion | Will Hayward | The Guardian | Overall |
| Jocelyn Noveck | The Independent | Bias & Fact Base | |
| Tedros A. Ghebreyesus | Al Jazeera | Context & Completeness | |
| 🤝Diplomacy | David Rising | The Independent | Overall |
| ⚧️Gender & Sexuality | Preeti Zachariah | The Hindu | Overall |
| 📜Ethics & Humanity | Priyanka Shankar | Al Jazeera | Overall |
Top News Writers by Publication
| Newspaper | News Writer |
|---|---|
 BBC News
|
James Brook |
 Daily Mail
|
Dr. Emily Leeming |
 Sky News
|
Ian King |
 Reuters
|
Ashutosh Mishra |
 The Independent
|
Nilima Marshall |
 The Guardian
|
Linda Geddes |
 Al Jazeera
|
Graham Keeley |
 Haaretz
|
Ruth Schuster |
 The Hindu
|
Jigeesh A.M. |
 Sixth Tone
|
Ding Rui |
 Bath Time |
Emma Leach |
 Perspectives
|
Jack Keen |
 The OxStu
|
Amelia Gibbins |
.