The England and Wales Cricket Board, together with the Cricket Writers’ Club, has opened entries for young journalists, broadcasters and regional newspapers for the County Cricket Journalism Awards 2016, with £12,000-worth of prizes on offer.
The awards, now in their fifth year and supported by The Times, are designed to recognise outstanding contributions towards the coverage of domestic cricket during the 2016 county season.
They are judged by a panel of leading cricket journalists and broadcasters.
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 and Daily Telegraph – who died in 2013.
Young County Journalist of the Year
The £5,000 prize fund for the Young County Journalist of the Year will be allocated as follows:
The winner of the award will receive £3,000 to fund a week-long trip to the UAE next March to report on the new North v South 50-Over tournament. This will include access to relevant players and management and opportunities to cover the competition for ECB digital channels as well as source commissions from other media outlets.
The two runners-up will each receive a £1,000 award to fund reporting on next summer’s county programme and/or the Kia Super League. This will also include access to relevant players and management and opportunities to cover the competitions for ECB digital channels as well as source commissions from other media outlets.
Regional Newspaper of the Year
The Cricket Writers’ Club in association with Benenden Health, Smile Group Travel and William Hill will support this award with a new prize fund of £2,500.
Awards from the prize fund will be made to assist regional newspapers in supplementing existing county coverage provided by staff reporters.
County Broadcaster of the Year
The winner of this prize will continue to receive a £5,000 award in recognition of their outstanding coverage of domestic cricket.
To enter:
Young County 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, 2016. 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 1st 2016.
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 2016. 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, 2016
• 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 2016. The panel will consider the resource and numbers of staff available to different regional titles before making its final decision.
There are two further awards made to recognise outstanding coverage of County cricket: Newspaper of the Year and Best Online Coverage of the Year. Each winner receives a trophy, but not a financial reward.
Entries are not required for either category. The judging panel makes these awards based on their own assessment of the season’s coverage of county cricket in the respective categories.
Please note: The closing date for entries is Monday October 3.
Entries can be sent:
• Via post with photocopies of articles to the below address or via email with PDFs of articles to gemma.marsh@ecb.co.uk – or c/o Gemma Marsh, ECB, Lord’s Cricket Ground, London NW8 8QZ.
• For the County Broadcaster Award, please email MP3 files to gemma.marsh@ecb.co.uk or send a CD to the below address c/o Gemma Marsh, ECB, Lord’s Cricket Ground, London NW8 8QZ.
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