THE nominees have been announced for the Scottish Weekly Newspaper of the Year - and the News has been named on the shortlist.

The Wee Paper is one of five regional titles in the running, alongside the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald, The Orcadian, and two sister Newsquest Scotland titles - the Dunfermline Press and the East Lothian Courier.

This year’s judging panel was led by Richard Neville, the former Head of News Brands at DC Thomson and now founding director of Neville Robertson Communications.

“This year’s finalists demonstrated great skill and dedication and showed that the weekly market remains as strong as ever,” said Richard.

“It is never easy to whittle down the entries and my thanks go to the team of senior editors who performed this difficult task.

"The shortlisted titles all serve their readers extremely well and I hope all our finalists will be able to celebrate their achievements on the night of the awards whether they take the top prize or not.”

It's the second nomination for the News at this year's awards - alongside a nod for Weekly Campaign of the Year for our coverage of the Alara's Little Legs fund-raising campaign.

Also in the running for the latter title are our sister title the Greenock Telegraph and The Orcadian.

The awards ceremony and dinner will take place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Glasgow Central on Wednesday June 7, and will recognise excellence in national, regional and digital journalism from across Scotland.

The event will cover a total of 34 categories across politics, business, sport, and the arts and include Daily Newspaper of the Year, Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year.

Scottish Newspaper Society director John McLellan said: “The Scottish Newspaper Society is extremely grateful to Richard Neville and all our judges for giving up their valuable time to select our finalists, and to our sponsors and our programme coordinators Event Consultants Scotland, who without whom the awards would not be the great success they are."

The 44th Scottish Press Awards are sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland, Diageo, VisitScotland, Edrington, Openreach, Glenmorangie, The Law Society of Scotland, Muckle Media, Women in Journalism Scotland, BIG Partnership, Registrars of Scotland. Event Consultants Scotland and Scottish Newspaper Society.

For more information and to view the shortlist, visit https://www.scotns.org.uk/the-categories/