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Journalism awards axed for 2020 – but some prizes will still be given

newsawards 2020 An annual journalism awards ceremony has been officially cancelled for 2020 – although some winners will still be revealed.

The newsawards 2020 event has been called off due to the coronavirus crisis following “extensive consultation” between organisers, sponsors and the newspaper industry.

The newsawards ceremony had initially been rescheduled from 6 May to a November date, but has now been scrapped altogether.

A number of the 2020 categories were judged prior to lockdown and the aim is to announce the nominations and winners of these categories during May of this year.

The results will be announced via the newsawards website, social media, press releases and email.

Next year’s ceremony will take place on Wednesday 5 May 2021, again at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, in London.

Gary Cullum, director of newsawards, said: “Having consulted our sponsors and industry contacts, there are too many unknowns at the moment and it was clear that there is not enough confidence that there will be an appetite for attending big events this year – even if social distancing restrictions were to be removed.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the newspaper publishers, printers and news media suppliers who entered the 2020 awards and we look forward to working with you all again when life has returned to a degree of normality.

“And, of course, a big thanks to our sponsors for their continuing support.”

You can read all our coronavirus-related stories here.

2 comments

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  • May 4, 2020 at 12:30 pm
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    There really needs to be a correction in the number of journalism awards. It seems that as the industry has declined in terms of circulations, economic power, importance, value, standards and the number of journalists, the more awards there are.
    The prizes for all mentality devalues the whole point.

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  • May 4, 2020 at 3:17 pm
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    How much was the entry fee, and will it be refunded for all the entries which will no longer be judged or awarded?

    Is it possible for HTFP to ever publish a story about awards without someone popping up underneath, claiming that everyone in the industry gets an award these days?

    There really are not a lot of awards given to regional press at all. In fact, there are fewer than there were a decade ago. For example, the various HTFP/EDF ceremonies in the different regions ceased about five years ago.

    There is a single national awards ceremony for the regional press – the Society of Editors’ Regional Press Awards – and even that single event invariably provokes much muttering about how there are ‘too many categories these days’. There are about 20 categories. That’s 20 awards in an industry which spans the entire UK and employs thousands upon thousands of people. I would actually argue that there should be more categories, to prevent tiny outlets run on shoestring budgets from having to compete against enormous city dailies whose resources are closer to those of a national than most locals.

    Beyond that one ceremony, where is the evidence of this supposed abundance of awards? There are a handful of area-specific ceremonies, like like the Welsh Media Awards. Otherwise, regional press are welcome to enter things like the Orwell or the Foot, but rarely get much of a look in – and there are single categories for regional press at events like the British Journalism Awards, the newsawards, the Drum online media awards, etc. And even then, you tend to find that most of those are more for branding or ‘digital innovation’ than journalism.

    This ‘awards for all’ scandal is a fantasy which seems to exist solely in the minds of a few who dwell in the comments section of HTFP.

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