ITV News, presented by Sir Trevor Macdonald, is provided by ITN

ITN's John Irvine, who reported from Baghdad for ITV News, was named television journalist of the year by the Royal Television Society (RTS).

Channel 4's war coverage won the news event award at London event and ITV also won the top Evening News award.

ITN's success came despite a period of tough cutbacks at the network.

In other categories, ITV also won programme of the year for Living with Michael Jackson.

Presenter award

The documentary was a special edition of the Tonight show, which saw presenter Martin Bashir interviewing Jackson about his family and personal life.

John Stapleton, who fronts ITV's morning programme GMTV, won presenter of the year.

The BBC also did well at the RTS awards, taking seven honours overall, including the specialist journalism award for Hilary Andersson's news reports from Africa.

BBC reporter Mark Daly won young journalist of the year for The Secret Policeman. The undercover programme exposed racism in the police force.

The BBC's Panorama won the award for international current affairs and Real Story, also on BBC One, won the home current affairs category.