Applications are open for Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards 2021. Today, the three annual awards, for freelance and local journalism and, since 2017, for news fixers, are recognized worldwide as a mark of excellence and have an established track record for brave reporting on conflict, corruption and injustice.

The 20th 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.

Prizes

• Each award is for $5,000 and will be presented at a prestigious ceremony in London in late September 2021.

Eligibility

• Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards is open to freelance journalists, local reporters, and fixers from all over the world.
• Entrants must submit three articles each – published between June 1, 2020 and May 31, 2021.

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, 2020 and May 31, 2021.
• 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 also 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, it requires 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.
• Furthermore, the awards panel will take into account nominations for fixers who have received more than one recommendation from journalists they have worked with.

 2021 online entry form