Lifetime achievement award for our Ken

Ken Bennett (right) with Liverpool Press Club secretary Chris Johnson.

THE Evening Chronicle’s Saddleworth reporter Ken Bennett has been honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the Liverpool Press Club to recognise his incredible 60-year career in journalism.

Ken, from Liverpool, started at a St Helens weekly newspaper as a junior aged 15, before joining Mercury Press Agency working for national newspapers. He reported on the biggest news stories of the 20th century, including the Moors Murders and the Yorkshire Ripper.

At 19 Ken became the youngest reporter to be recruited by a national Sunday, The People, where he worked on major news and investigations for five years before moving to the Sunday Mirror in Manchester as a reporter and feature writer. He was northern news editor of the Sunday Mirror for 13 years, and later joined Express Newspapers in Fleet Street as group assistant editor for the Daily and Sunday Express and the Daily Star.

He won a Campaigning Journalist of the Year award for a major expose on a travel company.

Ken also spent 12 yearsas head of PR for Emap Radio - the UK’s biggest commercial radio group and is a former president of Liverpool Press Club - the country’s oldest.

He is a broadcaster and appears on BBC radio, TV and commercial radio stations. Ken is now travel correspondent for Trinity-Mirror’s 140 regional titles and has received many awards for travel writing.

In recent years Ken joined the Evening Chronicle, covering Saddleworth - and still never misses a beat.

“It came as a complete surprise,” said Ken. “I was humbled. I’m just happy to still carry the banner for local journalism and particularly in Saddleworth. I’m delighted to represent the community in such a diverse area.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented by Chris Johnson, Liverpool Press Club’s secretary, at a luncheon attended by more than 150 media professionals.

“Ken richly merits this honour for the outstanding contribution he has made throughout his career,” said Chris.