The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund (KSMF) is now accepting submissions for its 2016 awards in international journalism - the only awards of their type for print journalists.
KSMF invites freelance journalists everywhere to enter the 15 th annual edition of the awards, established in 2002 to honour American freelance journalist Kurt Schork, who was killed in 2000 while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone.
Unique to print journalists worldwide, the awards recognise the work of reporters who seek to illuminate the human condition through courageous reporting of conflict, corruption, human rights transgressions and other fundamental issues of the day.
The awards are in two categories: a Local Reporter award that recognises the often over-looked work of journalists in developing nations or countries in transition who write about events in their homeland. The second is for Freelance journalists who travel to the world's conflict zones, usually at great personal risk, to witness and report the impact and consequences of events.
Last year's winners were Clair MacDougall, a Liberia-based Australian whose accounts of the fearful Ebola epidemic and the people affected highlighted the story with the empathy of a writer who found herself in the midst of events impacting - in silent terror - on her adopted homeland.
The local reporter award was won by the Ukrainian reporter Ekaterina Sergatskova for her stories about people living and surviving behind the shifting military lines of the war in eastern Ukraine.
The Kurt Schork Awards shine a bright light each year on the particular difficulties freelance reporters face, underlining the highest standards in journalism and courageous reporting.
The two awards of $US5000 will be presented at a prestigious ceremony in London (UK) on Thursday, October 27.
Entrants must submit three articles each - published between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016.
Judges will expect superb writing and evidence of special determination and courage in obtaining their stories. Since 2009, the awards ceremony has been hosted by Thomson Reuters Foundation in London. The deadline for entries this year is midnight (GMT) on Tuesday, May 31. Further details about eligibility and entry criteria as well as the online Entry Form and an FAQ, can be found on the KSMF website.
