Winners 2008

More entries than ever before made life very difficult for the independent judges of the Sanlam Awards for Community Press.  The awards were presented for the 17th time at an event – this year in Durban – attended by about 300 editors, journalists, photographers and their proud bosses. 

This year some 150 community newspapers took part.  And nearly 1 400 individual entries (about 300 more than last year) were received from editors, journalists and photographers.  More than 1 200 photographs were judged individually – the most ever!

According to Hugo Redelinghuys, manager: Media Relations at Sanlam Group Communications, the competition is the largest of the 32 press competitions held in South Africa annually. 

"The record entry proves that the awards are highly regarded as a benchmark for excellence in journalism and related fields," he says.

The Journalist of the Year award has found a home in Cape Town for the third successive year – this time at Pam Fourie of Cape Community Newspapers' Tabletalk.  She also shared honours with Wilson Dzebu of Limpopo Mirror in the writing section: Hard News.

His excellent portfolio earned Herman Steyn of Die Pos (Bela-Bela) the Photographer of the Year prize.  He also won the section prize for Features.

With increasing attention to the "looks" and general quality and "packaging"of content, competition was as fierce as ever in the newspaper category.  But Paarl Post and Springs Advertiser have proved they are true champions by retaining the Sanlam Cronwright and the Sanlam Hultzer trophies respectively for newspapers with circulation of more and less than 15 000.  Zoutpansberger won the Sanlam award as best independent community newspaper in the country.

In the Writing category one of the best achievers was Zerelda Bam of Randfontein Herald who scooped two sections, Investigative Reporting and Local Government. Joining her as section winners were TK Mashaba, Limpopo Beat (Township and Rural Newspapers), Cathy Grosvenor, Springs Advertiser (Editorial Comment), Esther Lewis, People's Post (Human Interest), Graeson Haw, Tabletalk (Columns), Francois de Jongh, Gansbaai Courant (Regional news), Norman McFarlane, Bolander (Personal Finance/Business: Sanlam Cobalt Trophy), Mark Kinnear, Lowvelder (Headlines) and Brian Gaffney, People's Post (Sport).

MC Botha of Hermanus Times (portraits), Zita Goldswain, Witbank News (News) and Salomé Kotzé, Klerksdorp Record (sports photos) shared the main photography prizes with Herman Steyn.

The other main prize-winners were in the Front Pages category where The Mercury (paid papers), Stellenbosch Gazette (free sheets) and Zoutpansberger (small town papers) chalked up the first prizes.

The Alet Roux Medal of Honour for the best newcomer went to Tanya dos Santos of The Newcastle Advertiser.

* The complete results can be accessed here.