Annual Journalism Awards Night on 12 December

The 24th edition of the annual Journalism Awards for Excellence program culminating with the ‘Awards Night’ will be held in the Empire Ballroom of the Mount Lavinia Hotel on Tuesday, 12 December.

The program is organised by The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka in partnership with the Sri Lanka Press Institute and its affiliated unions, the Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka, Free Media Movement and the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association.

The annual program is to recognise professionalism in journalism and reward those who have excelled.

This year 36 journalists will receive the ‘Pen Trophy’ Award and 16 others will receive Certificates of Merit along with 5 Lifetime Achievement Awardees namely: H.L.D. Mahindapala, Stanley Samarasinghe, Seetha Ranjanee, S. Thillainathan and A.L.M. Nilam.

The recipient of the Young Journalist of the Year Award will receive the Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Scholarship presented by the Lakshman Kadirgamar Foundation for a course of advanced training at India’s leading school of journalism, MASCOM managed by the Malayala Manorama Group in Kerala. The scholar will be flown by SriLankan Airlines.

The main sponsors are John Keells Holdings, Aitken Spence, LOLC Finance, Dialog, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Bank of Ceylon and Olu bottled water. The Mount Lavinia Hotel is the host-hotel.

A record total of 354 applications from seven newspaper publishing houses was received by the distinguished 13-member independent panel of judges (print media) and four-member independent panel of judges (online newspapers) this year, said Journalism Awards for Excellence Convener Sukumar Rockwood.

This year entries were received for 16 print media categories and two online newspaper categories:

Print Media categories (16) - Mervyn de Silva Journalist of the Year; Scoop of the Year; Investigative Journalist of the Year; Best Environmental Reporter of the Year; Subramaniam Chettiar Award for Reporting on Social Issues; Sports Journalist of the Year; Denzil Peiris Young Reporter of the Year (Under 26 years); Photojournalist of the Year; Best Designed Newspaper of the Year; Business and Finance Journalist of the Year; Upali Wijewardene Feature Writer of the Year; Cartoonist of the Year; B.A. Siriwardena Columnist of the Year; Prof. K. Kailasapathy Award for Reporting under Special Circumstances; Best News or Feature using RTI and Best Health Care and Medical Reporter of the Year.

Online newspaper categories (02): Best Designed News Website and Best Video Story-Telling.