The Express's "Free the 15" crusade has been nominated for campaign of the year at the Society of Editors' Media Freedom Awards 2026. In 2024, Environment Editor Steph Spyro began campaigning to give the penguins in London Aquarium's basement without fresh air or daylight a better home.
Campaign gains wide support
The campaign got the support of nearly 100 MPs, celebrities, fellow media outlets, animal welfare charities and tens of thousands of members of the public. After huge public pressure, the aquarium's owners this year announced they would end the breeding of gentoo penguins at all UK facilities. Merlin Entertainments also vowed to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a larger enclosure with daylight.
Awards ceremony in November
The awards recognise excellence across all sectors of the UK news industry and will culminate with a high-profile ceremony in London on the evening of Wednesday 11 November 2026.
Other campaigns and stories
Express health editor Hanna Geissler has spent four years leading the paper's campaign to Give Us Our Last Rights. She was on Westminster Green on Friday to hear the news MPs had voted against assisted dying legislation, despite voting for it last summer. She was there as Dame Esther Rantzen's daughter Rebecca Wilcox put her dying mum on speaker phone to pass on her despair at the decision. Hanna will not be giving up on her campaign despite the setback.
Richard Ashmore reported on the Piddington village independence vote over a planned asylum detention centre nearby. Announcing the momentous result, parish councillor Tim McNally told the world's media the village had come together to declare they were "seceding from the United Kingdom and pursuing self-determination". The fallout, although the vote is not legally binding, could be like the stones that start an avalanche as other towns and villages faced with similar Home Office asylum centre sites take note.
News reporter Eleanor Burleigh was in the Suffolk village of Brantham this week to cover the search for missing toddler Noah Woods. While the search ended tragically with the finding of a child's body on Wednesday evening, Eleanor reported on how the incident galvanised the community. As she wrote in her piece, the village will grieve for Noah, but it will also remember just how many people turned up to look for him.
Reporter Adam Toms joined new private security patrols in Chelmsford set up by Essex's Reform run county council. They have started on the back of fears from residents over rising anti-social behaviour and asylum seekers from a nearby centre being bussed in. He spoke to council leader Peter Harris and local people about the situation.
Express royal editor Emily Ferguson reported on former royal protection officer Dai Davies's concerns over Harry and Meghan's security team after they pulled Lilibet and Archie from their school after 2 days. He expressed his surprise at the total lack of pre-planning from the couple's team and said that if they had kept a low profile and not arrived in a convoy, there wouldn't have been a huge fiasco about the school drop off.
Tony Whitfield got an exclusive for the Sunday Express on how a violent Romanian criminal is battling to remain in Britain by claiming he has a right to a family life – even though his children live in his homeland and he has not seen them for eight years. Dumitru Busna, 37, who has appeared on Interpol's "Red Notice" list, is wanted back home to serve a 10-year jail sentence for a street robbery in 2011.
Richard Ashmore interviewed George Greenaway, the landlord of Britain's best pub, who said the new Labour tourist tax plan "will put people off" staying in hospitality venues. Holidaymakers across England face a possible new levy on overnight stays under Government plans to give mayors more economic power in their regions. Mr Greenaway said Labour's new tax appeared to be "giving with one hand and taking away with another" in reference to a previous business rate cut earlier this year for pubs.
