Awards honour for sports journalist who helped double subscriptions
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Behind Local News UK
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Behind Local News UK
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A journalist who covers Wolverhampton Wanderers should be ‘held aloft as one of the finest examples in regional news’ according to judges at the Regional Press Awards.
Nathan Judah is credited for helping double subscriptions of the Wolverhampton Express and Star during summer months, thanks to his in-depth coverage of Wolves’ pre-season tours.
In a glowing testimony, Nathan was also described as ‘a stand out winner’ for sports journalist of the year ‘with a fantastic breadth of reporting.’
They cited Nathan as a trailblazer in digital coverage for the Express and Star, leading the push for video content and directly driving subscriptions from sports fans since the introduction of a paywall in 2024.
Nathan presents the Wolves Poddy podcast with Liam Keen, right
Nathan is well-known for his coverage of Wolverhampton Wanderers and co-hosts the weekly ‘Wolves poddy’ podcast, which regularly surpasses 15,000 listens a week.
When accompanying Wolves on their pre-season tour, his daily tour diaries, videos, feature interviews, matchday coverage and podcasts helped more than double overall subscriptions for the paper.
With almost 48,000 followers on X, Nathan wrote a comment piece about the current toxicity of discourse both online and in-person and how it is affecting journalists. This was also accompanied with a heartfelt video. Judges praised Nathan’s bravery, for “not being afraid to report on the issues of the day”.
When Wolves decided to raise season ticket prices, Nathan produced an impassioned video plea, which prompted the club to subsequently revise its plans for children and disabled fans.
And in what was claimed as a first for a local newspaper, then manager Gary O’Neil sat down for an exclusive podcast interview, attracting 48,255 listens.
Andy Watters of the Irish News was highly commended as was Matthew Kindsay of the Herald, while Neil Allen of the Portsmouth News, Neil Loughran of the Irish News and Rob Robertson of the Herald were both highly commended,