2009 Sanlam Community Press winners

This year some 145 community newspapers took part, with 945 individual entries judged in the various sections for typography, writing and photography from 262 journalists and photographers. More than 1000 photographs were judged individually. Though there were fewer entries this year, the general quality of entries were as high as previous years, according to the organisers.

The awards were presented for the 19th time on Friday evening, 18 September 2009, at an awards dinner at the Indaba Hotel, Fourways, Johannesburg, attended by more than 200 editors, journalists, photographers and their bosses.

Journalist of the Year

In the Journalist of the Year section, the Cape Town stronghold of the past three successive years was broken by Desireé Rorke of Lowvelder, Nelspruit. Impressive investigative work pulled her through and it was not a surprise when she was also credited with the first prize in the section Investigative Journalism.

Last year's Journalist of the Year, Pam Fourie of Cape Community Newspapers' Tabletalk, confirmed her class, when she captured top honours in Hard News, the second prize in Investigative, third prize in Local Government and sharing fourth place in Editorial Comment.

The Alet Roux Medal of Honour for the best newcomer in the Writing category went to Kate Henry of Caxton's Rosebank Killarney Gazette.

An exceptional portfolio earned Claudine Senekal of the Ladysmith Herald the Photographer of the Year prize, including a camera sponsored by Canon. She also won the section Portraits and had five photos in the News section's top 10, including the runner-up picture.

Newspaper category

The competition was as fierce as ever in the newspaper category, where the Lowvelder and Polokwane Observer walked away with 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 for the second year running.

In the Front Pages category Vaal Weekly (paid papers), Springs Advertiser (free sheets) and Witzenberg Herald, Ceres (small town papers) chalked up the first prizes.

In the Writing category two of the best achievers were a couple, Des and Anneli Erasmus representing the Namibian weekly Erongo, who clinched the sections Editorial Comment and Columns respectively.

Other Writing section winners were Liezl van Rooyen of Springs Advertiser (Local Government), Evan Naudé of Weslander, Western Cape (Human Interest), Izolde Pistorius, Vaal Weekly (Personal Finance & Business News) and Yusuf Omar, Muslim Views (Sport).

On the Photography side Sieb Sieberhagen (Paarl Post, Feature photos), Jacques Steenkamp (Vaal Weekly, three in the top 4 News photos) and Herman Steyn (Die Pos, Bela-Bela), the winner Sport photos, with four shots in the top 10, shared the main prizes with Claudine Senekal.

Largest press competition

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

“The awards are highly regarded as a benchmark for excellence in journalism and related fields in the community papers,” he said.

All the winners

For more, go to www.fcjonline.co.za and www.sanlam.co.za/wps/wcm/connect/sanlam_en/Sanlam/Sponsorships/Media/Sanlam+Awards+for+Community+Press/.