Experience won the day for ST, with its veterans taking the top prizes: South-east Asia correspondent Leslie Lopez, 45, took the honours for Story of the Year; Nirmal Ghosh, 49, the senior Thailand correspondent, became Journalist of the Year, and senior writer Sandra Davie, 49, won the Feature of the Year award.

Mr Nirmal Ghosh, 49, The Straits Times' Thailand senior correspondent, won the inaugural Journalist of the Year award.

"I am absolutely delighted. An accolade like this from my peers and my editors is very special," said Mr Ghosh. "I have to thank my editors over the years for having faith in me and giving me the space to give of my best. And this gives me something new to live up to!"

Mr Han Fook Kwang, editor of The Straits Times said about the new award; "We've always had a Young Journalist award, but never a Journalist of the Year award.

'We wanted to recognize an outstanding journalist, it's as simple as that," he said.

The newspaper's extensive network of foreign bureaus ? of which Mr Lopez and Mr Ghosh are part ? delivered two other prizes: Its China and Malaysia correspondents won Special Awards for Excellence for their gripping coverage of the Sichuan quake and the watershed Malaysian elections last year.

Sub-editor Patricia Wee, who has 28 years' experience, bagged the Headline of the Year prize. Rounding up the winners was ST lensman Lim Wui Liang, 29, who claimed the Feature Picture of the Year prize for a photo which captured the hard work that grave diggers do.

Of the 14 awards at stake, ST took seven, The New Paper, four, The Business Times, two, and Berita Harian, one.