The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund (KSMF) is now accepting submissions for its 2018 awards in international journalism.

Since its inception in 2002, the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund has sought to support those journalists Kurt most admired, the freelancers and local reporters whose work is often poorly paid, mostly unsung and all too often fraught with danger.

Today, the three annual awards, for freelance and local journalism and, since 2017, for newsfixers, are recognized worldwide as a mark of excellence and have an established track record for brave reporting on conflict, corruption and injustice.

The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund exists to keep the world aware of the debt we owe to brave journalist who brings us news from dangerous places. The annual Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalsim uniquely honor the work of freelance journalists and of local reporters in developing countries or nations in transition who often otherwise receive little recognition.

Categories

The 17th annual call for awards is therefore now split into three categories:

• a Local Reporter award that recognizes the often over-looked work of journalists in developing nations or countries in transition who write about events in their homeland. 
• a Freelance award for those journalists who travel to the world’s conflict zones, usually at great personal risk, to witness and report the impact and consequences of events.
• A News Fixer award rewarding local journalists and/or experts, hired by a visiting foreign reporter or news organization, whose guidance and local knowledge materially benefited the content, impact and reach of the stories submitted.

Award

Each award is for $5,000 and will be presented at a prestigious ceremony in London in late October or November 2018. Since 2009, the awards ceremony has been hosted at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s main offices in Canary Wharf, London.

Eligibility

• Open to professional journalists
• If you are starting out in journalism but do not yet have full-time employment, your articles might still be eligible provided they have been published in a recognised newspaper, magazine or online publication during the eligible time period.
• The stories can be about conflict, human rights, cross-border issues, corruption, or any other controversial matter in a particular country or region.
• Each submission must demonstrate profressionalism, meet international journalistic standards and provide evidence that courage and professional tenacity were required in covering the story.

A panel of judges then assesses the entries, looking not just at the quality of writing but also considering the investigative effort, resourcefulness and often courage involved in getting the story.

Submission criteria

• Three separate articles must be submitted, including when journalists are nominating fixers for the new award.
• The submitted articles must have been published between June 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018.
• Accepted media: any print-based medium, such as newspapers and magazines, or established online publications. Blogs, personal websites and social media pages or channels are not accepted.
• Articles can encompass war reporting, human rights issues, cross-border troubles, corruption or other controversial matters impacting on people’s lives. Judges will be looking for professionalism, high journalistic standards, and evidence of dedication and courage in obtaining the story.
• Because of problems with scanned entries and failed links in previous years, we require that each article be provided as a text file – MS Word (.doc or .docx) or similar text format (.rtf), or a PDF of a text file.
• You may supply a URL link to your article(s), or a scan (as a PDF or JPG file) as supporting evidence of the publication context, but your entry will be disqualified if you do not also submit the required text files.

• The awards panel will take into account nominations for fixers who have received more than one recommendation from journalists they have worked with.

Application

Entrants must complete the entry form (either an online version or a PDF for printing and posting) and supply supporting documentation such as:

• a CV or resumé about your education and journalism career or about that of the fixer you are nominating.
• a passport-quality photo (JPEG, GIF or PNG file, size no larger than 250Kb) of yourself or that of the fixer you are nominating.
• a high standard English translation if the original articles are not in English.
• a short statement explaining what you had to do to get the story.

In the case of the fixer award, we require from the nominating journalist:

• A statement of nomination
• A copy of the story or stories generated because of the nominated fixer’s involvement
• A statement that the nominee is aware that he/ or she is being nominated and has given permission for the nomination (or perhaps the nomination for anonymous if win). The awards panel will take into account nominations for fixers who have received more than one recommendation from journalists they have worked with.
• An acceptance from the nominator and nominee that they accept the terms of the competition
• Two references

The maximum file size for text submissions or scans is 5Mb.

Entrants must complete the online entry form (or a PDF for printing and posting if not possible).

If you have any questions about the 2018 awards process, please write to [email protected].

Application Deadline: May 31, 2018

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For more information, visit Kurt Schork Awards.