Winners to be announced at SOPA Awards Gala Dinner on June 13

Gala Dinner tickets on sale; speaker Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa

HONG KONG, CHINA  - May 16, 2018 - The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), a Hong Kong-based not-for-profit organization, today announced the finalists for the SOPA 2018 Awards for Editorial Excellence after receiving the highest number of entries since the launch of the awards in 1999.

The finalists (see the full list here) were shortlisted from more than 850 English and Chinese-language entries submitted by international, regional and local media across the region.

Now in their 20th year, the awards are widely considered the most prestigious in the Asia Pacific publishing industry and a world-class benchmark of journalistic best practice.

Participating media competed in 17 categories. These include the SOPA Award for Public Service Journalism, which replaces the Journalist of the Year award, to honor outstanding work by both individuals and teams that represents an exemplary contribution to public service in the region.

The entries were assessed by a judging panel of more than 100 media professionals, including journalists, editors and columnists from some of the regions most influential publications, along with academics from a number of Asias leading journalism schools.  

The winners will be named at the SOPA Awards Gala Dinner to be held on June 13 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. At the Gala Dinner will be keynote speaker Maria A. 

Ressa, former bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta with CNN, and now CEO and Executive Editor of Rappler, a Philippines-based social news network that connects factual reporting with public opinion to foster conversation and drive social change.

SOPA will also organize workshop and media tours on June 13 at Facebook, Google,  Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, plus the South China Morning Post which in February moved into a new state-of-the-art office with a newsroom designed for a media organization in the digital age. 

"The finalists selected by the judges have produced content of the highest quality covering a wide range of issues. Their work underlines the important role played by journalists in Asia, at a time when press freedom in the region is under threat," said Cliff Buddle, Chair of the SOPA editorial committee.

Dr. Jeffrey Timmermans, Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kongs Journalism & Media Studies Centre and 2018 SOPA Head of Judges paid tribute to the courage shown by journalists. He said: "The past years SOPA Awards entries showed journalists braving arrest to cover the human rights crisis afflicting the Rohingya, uncovering the underbelly of the Philippines war on drugs, and unravelling the mystery surrounding the death of Kim Jong-nam, to name just a few examples."

The SOPA 2018 Awards for Editorial Excellence are supported by Facebook and Google (both are Platinum Sponsors). FleishmanHillard, Media OutReach and High Technology Printing Group Limited provide SOPA with support respectively on public relations, newswire and printing services.

Tickets for the dinner are now available at http://www.sopawards.com. For corporate tables of 12 seats, bookings should be made through the SOPA Secretariat (contact information below). (MOR/*).