Limpopo-based newspapers, and specifically independent publications, once again made their presence felt during the annual Forum of Community Journalists (FCJ) Excellence Awards, held at the Leriba Hotel & Spa in Pretoria last Friday.
This award ceremony is the jewel in the crown of the FCJ, during which the top achievers in local and community newspapers in South Africa are honoured annually. This year, the competition attracted hundreds of entries once more from across the country, showing growth in all categories. These included entries from big conglomerates such as Caxton and Media 24, as well as smaller, independent publications, such as the Zoutnet group's Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror.
The Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror showed once again that they can hold their own against the big boys, featuring numerous Top-10 finishes in several categories, including a win in the extremely difficult Investigative Journalist of the Year category. Here, Zoutnet's Anton van Zyl took top honours, with the Zoutpansberger's Andries van Zyl taking second place.
In the hard-news category, three journalists stood out, which included the Limpopo Mirror's Elmon Tshikhudo, who scooped up second place in this fiercely contested category. Top honours went to Desireé Rorke of the TygerBurger in the Cape, while Liam Ngobeni of the Pretoria Rekord finished third.
Overall, the convenor of the panel of judges, Dr Thalyta Swanepoel of the North-West University (NWU), said the judges had been impressed with the quality of writing in most of the categories. She said they had experienced a healthy increase in the number of entries, which showed that the FCJ Excellence Awards was still recognised as the only media competition for all the players in the community-press arena. "Big or small, the FCJ Awards creates this wonderful platform where the industry's best can showcase their talent against each other," said Swanepoel.
Other Top-10 finishes in the writing categories for the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror included the Mirror's Frank Mavhungu in the sports category, while Andries van Zyl was a Top-10 finalist in the Hard News and Human-Interest categories. He was also a Top-15 finalist in the tightly contested Journalist of the Year category.
Apart from the writing categories, the Zoutpansberger also scooped up a third place in the Newspaper of the Year category for Independent Commercial Newspapers. Their colleagues at the Far North Bulletin in Tzaneen ultimately won this category, while also scooping up the Best Front-Page prize in the same category for independent commercial newspapers.