The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), a Hong Kong-based not-for-profit organisation dedicated to pursuing excellence in journalism, announced on December 18 that the SOPA 2018 Awards for Editorial Excellence are now open for entries. The deadline for submissions is 3 pm Hong Kong time on January 31, 2018.
The coming awards will mark the 20th anniversary of the annual SOPA Awards. Since their launch in 1999, the awards have become a world-class benchmark to recognise the best practices in journalism in Asia Pacific, while driving journalistic innovation across international, regional and local media platforms in the region, according to Media OutReach statement.
As part of that effort, the 2018 awards have also evolved. Instead of recognising an individual journalist's contribution through a "Journalist of the Year" award, SOPA's top honour from 2018 will be the "SOPA Award for Public Service Journalism," honouring outstanding journalistic work - by individuals or teams of journalists - that represents an exemplary contribution to public service in the Asia-Pacific region. This new award will accept both Chinese- and English-language work in print, photography, video or online media. In addition, the award for Excellence in Lifestyle Coverage is now called Excellence in Arts & Culture Reporting, honouring the work that demonstrates high standards of reporting and writing in fine arts and cultural topics, including food and travel.
For the SOPA 2018 Awards, media will compete in 17 categories including SOPA Award for Public Service Journalism, Excellence in Business Reporting and Excellence in Feature Writing. SOPA encourages entries from both large and small publications with entries classified by circulation and language type -- English or Chinese. Winners of the 2017 Awards were selected from more than 750 submissions, a record number.