Women in Journalism has announced its 5th annual journalism Georgina Henry Award for Digital Innovation to be presented at the prestigious National Press Awards on April 2, in London.
The prizes (£4,000 in total) will be used to support an initiative by the applicant. Applicants can be any age, working in either print or multimedia. The winner will also join the WiJ committee and be a honorary WIJ Fellow.
The judges will be looking for a flair for storytelling as well as evidence of innovation and/or impact.
They will be looking for the winner to demonstrate an identifiable voice and understanding for a specific subject.
The award is sponsored by leading media lawyers WIGGIN LLP.
The award was set up to honour Georgina Henry, who was a founding member of Women in Journalism as well as former deputy editor of the Guardian and head of Guardian.co.uk, before her death in February 2014.
Eleanor Mills, WIJ chair, said: “Women in Journalism is delighted to be offering the award in the name of one of our founding members, Georgina Henry of the Guardian. Offering a prize for innovation seems a great way to immortalise her memory and give a big break to an enterprising woman journalist.”
Caroline Kean, Partner of Wiggin LLP, said: “We have been with WIJ from its beginnings 25 years ago. We are proud to do something that both honours Georgina’s memory and offers opportunities to aspiring journalists – particularly at a time when changes in the industry and threats to press freedom mean that good journalists are more essential than ever.”
Past winners include Laura Bates for Everyday Sexism, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff for Gal-Dem magazine, Jem Collins of Journo Resources and PressPad.
The award, for women only, can be entered by sending three examples of work from the past 12 months to wijghaward@gmail.com, plus an 800-word pitch for an ongoing journalistic project, explaining what stage it is at, and how it is likely to proceed. The closing date for entries is February 9, 2020. The judges can also nominate candidates.
The six judges will be:
- Eleanor Mills, editorial director of the Sunday Times and chair of WIJ
- Alison Phillips. editor, Daily Mirror and deputy chair of WIJ
- Jane Martinson, columnist , Guardian, Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism at City University and a former chair of WIJ
- Alison Gow, President, Society of Editors
- Caroline Kean, partner at Wiggin LLP
- Sue Ryan, manager of Associated Newspaper’s trainee journalists’ programme and former managing editor, Daily Telegraph
For all other categories, entries for the National Press Awards are open until Friday 10 January and entrants can enter on the Society of Editors’ website.