The Newspaper Society has confirmed it is cancelling all three of its annual award schemes for 2009.

The NS said it was due to the current economic climate but that it also wanted to review the structure of the schemes.

The Circulation, Editorial and Promotions Awards, which aim to reward the best journalists and newspapers across the UK as well as circulation and advertising initiatives, are normally held in the spring.

These are followed by the prestigious Weekly Newspaper Awards and the Advertising and Digital Media Awards, both of which usually take place in the autumn.

A spokeswoman for the Newspaper Society said: “At present we are in the process of reviewing the entire Newspaper Society awards structure.

“As a result we will not be holding any awards this year.

“This is partly due to current market conditions and partly because we want to look at improving the format of our awards going forward.”

Comments

David S (02/03/2009 09:13:10)
Bizarre

FAST WOMAN (02/03/2009 09:51:27)
Not so bizarre when you think of the odds on prizes being awarded to redundant journalists or closed newspapers!

Spike (02/03/2009 10:04:12)
Given the cost of entering awards like this I am not surprised some are being pulled. Our group hasn’t entered the Press Gazette regional awards this year as we don’t want to waste the £50 a time entry fee.

regionalhack (02/03/2009 10:22:11)
I suppose there is a fair chance that any winner might have been made redundant by the time the prize giving happens at the NS annual junket. How embarrassing would that be for the (still profitable) industry?

Old Hack and Proud (02/03/2009 10:54:19)
Many of us considered being given an NS award to be something of an insult anyway! A bit like having the Footballer of the Year award made by the peanut sellers!

OPEN MINDED (03/03/2009 14:06:22)
I suspect ‘Old Hack’ is jealous of all those young journos who have won NS Awards hence the cynicism. Many of these awards have been well won and have highlighted great talent.

Hannah (03/03/2009 17:46:02)
Well said, open minded. Nice to have someone being vaguely positive about young reporters on here for once