£10,000 in prizes on offer in county cricket awards

The England and Wales Cricket Board is offering £10,000 in prizes for young journalists, broadcasters and regional newspapers in the County Cricket Journalism Awards 2015, supported by The Times.

The awards, in their fourth year, recognise outstanding contributions towards the coverage of domestic cricket during the 2015 county season.

The Young County Journalist of the Year award and the County Broadcaster of the Year award are named after Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the former BBC Radio Test Match Special commentator and cricket correspondent of The Times who died in 2013. The winners of these individual awards each receive a £5,000 prize.

The three other categories in which awards are made to recognise outstanding coverage of county cricket are: National Newspaper of the Year, Regional Newspaper of the Year and Best Online coverage of the Year.

The awards will be made by a panel of cricket writers and broadcasters based on their assessment of the season’s coverage in these categories.

Entries are invited for the Regional Newspaper of the Year Award, the Christopher Martin-Jenkins County Broadcaster of the Year and the Christopher Martin-Jenkins Young Journalist of the Year award.

Entry criteria:

Christopher Martin-Jenkins Young Journalist of the Year

This category is open to any newspaper or online journalist who was under the age of 30 years old on January 1, 2015. Each entrant is required to submit a maximum of three examples of their coverage of county cricket, preferably including evidence of exclusive stories or original material, which must have been published after January 1, 2015.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins County Broadcaster of the Year

There is no age restriction for this award. Each entrant is required to submit an example of live commentary from a county fixture staged in 2015. This should be between 15 and 20 minutes in length and uninterrupted but may also feature contributions from a co-summariser.

Regional Newspaper of the Year

This category is open to any daily, evening or weekly regional newspaper in England and Wales.

Entrants are required to submit examples of their newspaper’s coverage of county cricket – a maximum of five articles and all must have been published after January 1st, 2015.

Entrants are also required to supply a short statement of no more than 200 words explaining how the publication improved its coverage of county cricket in 2015. The panel will consider the resource and numbers of staff available to different regional titles before making its final decision.

The closing date for entries is Monday, October 5, 2015.

Entries can be sent:

Via post with photocopies of articles to the below address or via email with PDFs of articles to Isabelle.douglas@ecb.co.uk
For the Young Broadcaster Award, please email MP3 files to Isabelle.douglas@ecb.co.uk or send a CD to the below address c/o
Andrew Walpole, Head of Corporate Communications, ECB, Lord’s Cricket Ground, London NW8 8QZ

The SJA is the largest member organisation of sports media professionals in the world. Join us: Click here for more details
This year, the SJA’s nominated good cause is The Journalists’ Charity. To find out more and how you can donate on a one-off or regular basis, go to www.journalistscharity.org.uk