Middelburg Observer journalists under top 10 in FCJ Excellence Awards
The Middelburg Observer's editorial team competed against over 2042 entries from corporate and independent publishers alike during the Forum For Community Journalists Excellence Awards 2020.
Four of the Middelburg Observer’s journalists were nominated as finalists in the awards, covering photography and writing categories including Investigative Journalism, Sport, Hard News, Human Interest, Covid-19, Columns, Editorial Comment, Headlines, and the all-round photographer and journalist of the year.
The four journalists qualified for the following:
General News Photography: Daleen Naudé nominated as one of the top ten finalists
Investigative Reporting: Jana Boshoff placed second in the top three Daleen Naudé places third in the top three
Hard News: Gerhard Rheeder nominated as one of the top ten finalists
Covid-19 Reportage: Daleen Naudé first in the category for Covid-19 reportage Jana Boshoff was nominated as one of the top ten finalists
Human Interest: Daleen Naudé nominated as one of the top 10 finalist
Digital Reporting: Daleen Naudé nominated as one of the top five finalists
Editorial Comment: Tobie van den Bergh nominated as one of the top ten finalists. Placed second.
Journalist of the year: Daleen Naudé nominated as one of the top ten finalists.
•The FCJ Excellence Awards remains the only national newspaper competition for the South African community press with this year’s event attracting a total of 2 042 individual content pieces entered.
The 2020 top honours went to Samantha Lee-Jacobs from People’s Post who was announced at the FCJ Journalist of the Year whilst Wayne van der Walt from Highvelder took the title of FCJ Photographer of the Year.
The Alet Roux Award is given by the judges to a journalist who has been in the industry for less than three years and who is a finalist in the journalist of the year category. The judges were impressed with the quality of work entered by young journalists and the winner of 2020 is Jarryd Westerdale from Roodepoort Record and Northsider.
Top photographer Wayne van der Walt also dominated in the remainder of the photography sections as he won both general news and hard news photography.
The best columnist for the year was Phumelelo Hlati from The Representative whilst Jon Houzet from Talk of the Town won the Editorial Comment category.
The judges for the 2020 competition were André Gouws, Cornia Pretorius, Thalyta Louw-Swanepoel, Hennie Stander, Willem Kempen, Colin Hoffman, Marita Meyer, Pedro Diederichs, Johann de Jager, Johann Maarman, Marlene Malan, Hennie Homann, Eddie Alberts, Sarie van der Berg, Janus Snyders and Lizette Odendaal.
Judges in the photography sections were impressed by winners’ technique and overall impact of photos.
Judges in the writing categories commended community journalists on their Covid-19 reportage and the storytellers’ ability to skillfully interweave crucial and critical information, whilst maintaining storytelling-style.
The newspaper categories remain highly contested with judges stating that after careful consideration of all the entries the standard can only be described as ‘excellent’.
The FCJ again received support from Caxton and Media 24.
