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The Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror proved their worth during the past weekend's FCJ Local Media Excellence Awards. Picture with the awards the newspapers won are, from left to right, Wikus Lee (editor, Limpopo Mirror), Tshifihiwa Mukwevho (correspondent Limpopo Mirror), Andries van Zyl (news editor Zoutpansberger) and Isabel Venter (journalist).

Local newspapers still able to hold their own

 

The Zoutnet group of newspapers, the Zoutpansberger and her sister publication, the Limpopo Mirror, showed once again that they can hold their own against the best the community and local press industry has to offer in South Africa.

The Zoutpansberger performed very well and won two of the top trophies during the Local Media Excellence Awards, hosted by the Forum for Community Journalists (FCJ). One of their journalists, Isabel Venter, also managed to win a first place in the category Best Hard News Photograph.

Last Friday saw the first ever FCJ Local Media Excellence Awards taking place at the Leriba Hotel & Day Spa in Centurion. The awards have previously been hosted with Sanlam and the MDDA as the main sponsor and organizer of the event. Sanlam withdrew from the competition last year, however, which led to the FCJ themselves hosting the awards this year. For the past 25 years the competition has been presented under the auspices of the FCJ with the aim to recognise excellence in community media, small commercial (print) and local media owned by the mainstream media (print).

Receiving over 800 entries this year (newspapers, writing and photographs combined), the judging panel was pleased with the remarkable increase in print entries, saying: “The local media is clearly at the forefront of informing [and entertaining] the communities they serve. In fact, print media is far from dying when one looks at the local media newspapers. On the contrary, it is alive and kicking.”

In the newspaper category, the Zoutpansberger did exceptionally well and was announced as the Best Independent Commercial Newspaper (older than five years). The newspaper also took top honours in the category Best Front Pages, with the Limpopo Mirror taking second place in the same category.

The Zoutpansberger’s news editor, Andries van Zyl, managed to secure a top-10 finish in the highly contested Journalist of the Year category. (He took top honours in this category the previous year). The overall winner in this category was Jana Boshoff from the Middelburg Observer. Apart from this, Andries also impressed in the categories for Human Interest and Sport News, boasting a top-10 finish in both.

Andries’ colleague, Isabel, apart from her first place win with a news photograph showing a truck driver working hand-in-hand with local firemen, also took second place in the category for Best Feature Photographs. Another news photo of hers won an eighth place, while fellow journalist and photographer from the Limpopo Mirror Elmon Tshikhudo won a fourth place in the same category. 

In the other photography categories, Isabel managed to win a fourth place in the category for Best Portrait Photographs and a ninth place in the category for Best Sport Photographs. In the writing categories, Isabel also managed to take two top-10 finishes in the category for both Hard and Sport News.

Another fellow writer and correspondent for the Limpopo Mirror, Tshifhiwa Mukwevho, scooped up a top-10 finish in the category for Hard News.

“The awards are recognition of the hard work, often under difficult circumstances, of the team we have at the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror,” says Anton van Zyl, manager of Zoutnet and publisher of the two newspapers. “We have always placed a high premium on editorial content. In an era where people consume content via a variety of sources, it is important to focus on quality and be a trusted source of information,” he says. According to Anton, this is what distinguishes a newspaper that cares about the community it serves from the ones merely there to rake in advertising revenue. “The journalists need to do more than just collect news material. They need to interpret and select, but most of all be sensitive to the needs of this specific community,” he says.

 

Elmon Tshikhudo, journalist for the Limpopo Mirror, won a fourth place in the category Hard News Photograph during the annual FCJ Media Excellence Awards. 

 

Date:23 June 2016

By: Isabel Venter

Isabel joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2009 as a reporter. She holds a BA Degree in Communication Sciences from the University of South Africa. Her beat is mainly crime and court reporting.

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