Journalists from The Times, The Sunday Times and timesofmalta.com yesterday won three journalism awards.
During the 19th edition of the journalism awards held last night, Ariadne Massa won the news category and timesofmalta.com editor Christopher Scicluna bagged the award for the e-journalism category. Photographer Matthew Mirabelli won the prize for sports photography.
Ms Massa and The Times photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi also won special awards for creativity in news journalism and photo journalism. It is the fourth time that Ms Massa won the news category and the second time that Mr Mirabelli won the sports category for the awards organised by the Institute of Maltese Journalists.
timesofmalta.com cameraman Paul Spiteri Lucas placed second in the e-journalism award while di-ve.com was third.
The print features award went to Malta Today's Charlot Zahra; photo journalism to Michael Ellul (In-Nazzjon); TV script journalist to Reno Bugeja (PBS); travel journalism to Xarabank (PBS); broadcast journalism for film went to Basement Productions (Net TV); radio, Cynthia Zerafa (RTK); culture journalism CDC Communications (PBS); and sports broadcast to Christian and George Micallef (Net TV). Opinion articles award went to Sarah Puntan Galea (The Economic Update) and Alvin Scicluna was awarded for good use of Maltese language.
The Times and The Sunday Times columnist Lino Spiteri won the gold award. This is given to a nominated person who, according to an independent jury, has gone beyond the call of duty of journalism during his or her career. The independent jury was made up of President Emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami, PBS chairman Clare Thake Vassallo and Dr Carmen Sammut.
Mr Spiteri told those present at the ceremony at the Palace Hotel that it was his passion for writing and not money that lured him to the media 50 years ago. Last night's winners were chosen from 36 finalists out of a total of 57 submissions.
The jury, composed of Anna Mallia, Mario Azzopardi, Joseph Felice Pace, Winston Azzopardi and Gino Galea, noted that several submissions in different categories were very poor and with a very low standard of presentation.
While calling for ethical journalism, institute chairman Malcolm Naudi paid tribute to Media.link photographer John Guillaumier, who recently passed away.
The winners were awarded a cash prize of €350, a certificate, and a trophy for the respective category.
The awards took place yesterday to coincide with World Press Freedom Day, being marked today.