Call for entries to the 2019 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism

Kurt Schork on assignment (c)

The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund (KSMF) is now accepting submissions for its 2019 awards in international journalism. The awards recognise excellence in courageous reporting of conflict, corruption, human rights transgressions and other related issues.

The only international recognition of their type for print journalists, the awards are split into three categories:

• Freelance Journalist Award: recognising journalists who travel to the world’s conflict zones, usually at great personal risk, to witness and report on the impact and consequences of these events.

• Local Reporter Award: recognising the often overlooked work of journalists in developing nations (or countries in transition) who write about events in their homeland.

• News Fixer Award: recognising local journalists and/or experts, hired by a visiting foreign reporter or news organisation, whose guidance and local knowledge materially benefited the content, impact and reach of the stories submitted.

KSMF invites freelance journalists, local reporters and fixers from all over the world to enter the 18^th annual awards, established in 2002 to honour American freelance journalist Kurt Schork who was killed in 2000 while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone.

Last year’s winners were Austrian journalist Simona Foltyn (Freelance), Indian journalist Shalini Nair (Local Reporter) and Wael Resol from Syria (News Fixer). The Kurt Schork Awards continue to highlight the particular difficulties faced by freelance journalists, local reporters and fixers, as well as their courageous reporting. The News Fixer Award, launched in 2016 and presented for the first time in 2017, seeks to highlight the work of some of the unsung heroes of modern journalism.

The three awards of US $5000 each will be presented at a prestigious ceremony in London in late October or November of 2019. Since 2009, the awards ceremony has been hosted at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s main offices in Canary Wharf, London.

Entrants must submit three articles each – published between June 1, 2018 and May 31, 2019.

Judges will look for journalistic excellence in applicants’ submissions and evidence of determination and courage in obtaining their stories. The deadline for entries is midnight (GMT) on Friday, May 31.

Further details about eligibility and entry criteria, as well as the online entry form and an FAQ, can be found on the KSMF website at: www.ksmfund.org

You can watch the 2018 Awards highlights here.