PRESS RELEASE
SHORTLIST FOR GEORGINA HENRY PRIZE FOR INNOVATION ANNOUNCED FOR THE PRESS AWARDS FOR 2018
The final shortlist for the premier awards celebrating the best of UK national journalism has been announced.
The shortlist reflects the finalists chosen by the judges for Women in Journalism’s Georgina Henry Prize for Innovation, sponsored by Wiggin.
The National Press Awards for 2018, organised by the Society of Editors, recognises reporters and correspondents, commentators, columnists, cartoonists, designers, photographers, scoops, investigations and campaigns. The awards culminate with the coveted News Website of the Year and Newspaper of the Year titles.
Winners will be announced at a glittering gala dinner at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London on Tuesday 2 April 2019. The event is the most prestigious in the industry’s calendar with around 500 editors and journalists coming together to salute the quality and success of national newspaper journalism in print and on digital platforms.
This year’s awards will be presented by award-winning BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Emma Barnett.
The awards are organised on behalf of the industry by the Society of Editors. Proceeds help to fund the Society of Editors’ campaigning for media freedom and the Journalists’ Charity.
Sponsors for the awards include Camelot which has supported the Society of Editors since 2001, Cision, Google, Amazon Prime Video, EY, Wiggin, Wellcome Trust, Press Association, Luther Pendragon, No 1 Lounges, Penny Appeal, Journalists’ Charity and the British Journalism Review.
For tickets or tables for the black-tie event on April 2 please contact Angela Upton at office@societyofeditors.org or on 01223 304080.
Information and prices can be found here.
See the shortlist below.
Georgina Henry Award for Innovation – sponsored by Wiggin
Olivia Crellin and Laura Garcia, Press Pad
Hazel Sheffield, Far Nearer
Anna Codrea-Rado, FJ & Co
Zinah Nur Sharif, The Zirkus
The Chair of Women in Journalism, Eleanor Mills, released the following statement about the shortlisted nominees:
Once again the Georgina Henry Prize, awarded by Women in Journalism for digital innovation by a woman, had a strong field of entries. Our shortlist reflects the challenges that our entire industry faces
Olivia Crellin (founder) and Laura Garcia (co-founder)
Press Pad is a website which links young people wanting to do work experience in the capital with journalists who can offer a spare room. Current interning practices exclude those who cannot come and work in London for free for a couple of weeks i.e. the vast majority of the populations, if we are to improve the numbers of bright journalists from poorer backgrounds and from the regions in our newsrooms, ideas like Press Pad are a crucial part of the mix.
Hazel Sheffield
Far Nearer combines data journalism and local female journalists to fill a gap left by the retreating tide of local newspapers in covering local council meetings and decisions. The democratic deficit engendered by the closure of local papers and the shedding of local journalists is real and earnest, the judges believe Sheffield’s project – the first of which shows that 12000 buildings and public spaces have been disposed of by local authorities since 2014, has the capacity to turn some of that around.
Anna Codrea-Rado
An unfortunate result of the contraction of the journalistic industry is the number of former staffers now seeking work as freelancers, particularly in the digital realm as online news websites such as Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post and Vice shed jobs. Anna is a former Vice News Editor who was made redundant and has since become a successful freelancer – she decided to share her learnings and her journey with others in the same position with her website FJ&Co, an important resource for people who unavoidably find themselves in the same position.
Zinah Nur Sharif
Women in Journalism believes passionately that the media needs to be a reflective mirror to society, not a distorting lens – we can only truly reflect the society we serve if our newspapers are properly diverse – that is one of the reasons why we have shortlisted the brilliant online magazine The Zirkus by Zinah Nur Sharif which projects the voices of Muslim women in our communities and tells the kinds of stories too rarely heard in the main stream media. They tackle taboos, endeavour to reform culture, traditions and family expectations and the writing is lively and evocative.