With nearly 400 entries this year, the Standard Bank Sikuvile Awards total entries are up on entries numbers for last year and 2018.

This is an amazing achievement given the extremely difficult operating conditions for newspapers and newsrooms.

The Awards entries closed last week with judging starting next week on the 27 July when the judging panel will determine, virtually, the winners of the premier awards for journalism in the country.

As with previous years the category with the most entries is the Feature Writing category, which this year nearly doubled from the number of entries from last year. Next is the News Category, which is also up on last year. The News photography, Lifestyle, Columns/Editorial and Enterprise News are also well entered this year. This is only the second year since the Lifestyle category was introduced and it is proving very popular.

The judging panel will review the 14 categories as well as the South African Story of the Year, Journalist of the Year, Upcoming/Rising Star of the Year and the Lifetime Achiever Award – the Allan Kirkland Soga Achievement Award.

“Winners all receive R15 000, a trophy and a certi?cate,” said Lizeka Mda, this year’s convener judge.

“It is the continued sponsorship of the Awards by Standard Bank that allows for this cash reward and we are very grateful for this, especially in these difficult times,” she added.

The judging panel includes Dinesh Balliah, Henry Jeffreys, Mike Siluma, Tyrone August, Phindile Xaba, Shona Bagley, Pippa Green, Liesl Louw-Vaudran, Mary Papayya, Ryland Fisher, Neo Ntsoma, Maud Motanyane, Themba Hadebe, Gus Silber and Thabo Leshilo.

The awards event will be held virtually on 15 October.

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