The Awards recognise the standard bearers of print and online excellence and is hosted by the Publisher Support Services (PSS) and sponsored by Standard Bank. This year’s entries were judged over two days by 16 judges.

Fray says that there is great work coming from newspapers with smaller staff and circulations in the provinces and they are producing courageous storytelling. The hard news category was excellent in that stories not only told what happens but why and what it means.

The Enterprise Category continued to grow, both in quality and in diversity. Fray say this is not surprising given that online is now the preserve of breaking news. Sport photography, despite a low number of entries, retained its traditional high standard while the Presentation Category was of an exceptional standard. The Investigative Category continued its commitment to telling stories, with the majority of entries of a very high quality, with a desire to show how public process are abused on display here. She says the growth in the Columns/Editorial Category in both quality and entries was excellent this year.

The Feature Writing category also attracted a wide variety of good work, making it a difficult category to judge. With a total of 94 entries, on a wide range of material - from business to crime, prison conditions, and marginalised communities - of which many were very good, but not all of them could make the shortlist. In the end, the criteria, the relevance of the subject, the quality of reporting, writing, and structure that combined human stories with context and analysis determined the finalists and the winner.

Disappointing were the number of entries in the Multiplatform Storytelling and Multimedia Category. “However, the quality was excellent and the clear winner is a benchmark of journalism in this channel.”

Pippa Green, one of the judges of the Awards who judged mainly the features and enterprise categories, says the work is very encouraging. “Despite all the difficulties that journalists face both internally and externally, the quality of their work is still very good and this is encouraging and shows that we must not give up on journalism as a social good.”

Fellow judge, Dinesh Balliah, says she would like to see more hard news in the online spaces. “We are seeing less 'hardness' in newspapers as online continues to colonise that space. What we need to see is a shift to multimedia and multiplatform that involves social and move away from the clear resistance that currently exists to reporting on social channels.”

Ishmet Davidson, Media 24 GM distribution and board member of the PSS, which hosts the Awards, says that the PSS believes that awards such as the Sikuvile Awards, provide the opportunity for our journalists to shine but also inspire and motivate young people to take up journalism as a career. He also thanked the judges for their valuable time and input.

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