Nora Tam’s award-winning photo of oil pollution at Victoria Harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui. The oil came from a boat crash in mainland waters. Photo: Nora Tam
The South China Morning Post has been recognised for excellence in news and business writing and page design by the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong, winning top prizes in those categories in the 2017 Hong Kong News Awards.
Senior reporter Phila Siu bagged the Best English News Writing prize with “Rags among the riches”, a compelling comparison of Hong Kong and Beijing’s efforts to combat poverty, though at different speeds and with different outcomes.
Coco Liu, reporting for This Week in Asia – the Post’s current affairs publication on trending topics across the region – won the Best English Business Writing award.
Her piece, “The winner techs it all”, reflected a growing trend of Southeast Asian businesses looking to China for inspiration for everything from e-commerce to mobile payment systems and news apps.
Marcelo Duhalde won the Best News Page Design award with his illustration of “A dog’s life”, an infographic of canine life expectancy in Hong Kong.
This Week in Asia deputy editor Debasish Roy Chowdhury was second runner-up in the Best English Headline category for “He said, Xi said” on how American president Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping made substantial progress on four pressing issues during their first face-to-face meeting last April.
China desk reporters Choi Chi-yuk, Viola Zhou, Nectar Gan and Jun Mai won a merit prize in the Best News Reporting category with their coverage of the 19th Party Congress last October.
Dennis Wong’s illustration of how Hong Kong was striving to become a smart city won him a merit prize in the News Page Design category, while Nora Tam and Cheng Kwok-yin were first runner-up and merit prizewinner in the Best Photograph for News and Features award respectively.
Post photographer Cheng Kwok-yin won a merit prize for this photo of student activist Joshua Wong leaving the High Court in a correctional services department vehicle, after he was sentenced to jail over the 2014 Occupy protests. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
“I’m delighted to see our award-winning journalists bring in more accolades for the Post,” Editor-in-chief Tammy Tam said.
“It’s a recognition of our commitment to excellence in journalism, especially in telling the Hong Kong and Greater China story to a local as well as global audience.”
Earlier this month, the Post won 31 Awards of Excellence for its online and print infographics, an illustration and a photo essay, at this year’s Best of News Design Creative Competition held by Society for News Design in St Petersburg, Florida.
At the March 17 Malofiej Awards – referred to as the Pulitzers for infographics – the Post won two silver and five bronze medals.
The SCMP graphics team experimented with digital storytelling formats last year, as part of its goal to create a unique reader experience with each visual story. What they produced included a narrative that takes readers on a journey using a scrolling map linking China with Europe and features using detailed illustrations to tell the story of the world’s hardiest insects – cockroaches.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Post makes news by winning top prizes
