Category Archives: Awards

Journalism award to explore climate change disinformation

This year’s Bruce Jesson senior journalism grant has been awarded to Christchurch writer Byron C Clark to support an investigation into the spread of climate change disinformation online.

Clark’s book published earlier this year, Fear: New Zealand’s Hostile Underworld of Extremists, was described by the programme director of Auckland University’s Master of Conflict and Terrorism Studies, Chris Wilson, as “a crucial starting point for anyone seeking to understand the alt-right in New Zealand”.

Clark now believes that climate change “has emerged as a suitable substitute for Covid-19 in the conspiracist metanarratives”.

“Like the anti-mandate movement, it amalgamates those who believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, but that it is being used to push a putative ‘elite’ agenda; those who believe climate change is a hoax; and those who believe that the effects of climate change are the result of a deliberate conspiracy to manipulate the weather,” he says.

He plans to write a series of articles “examining the false narratives around climate change, the roots of these ideas, the local groups spreading them and relevant overseas linkages.”

Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chair Simon Collins says the foundation has agreed to give its 2023 senior journalism grant of $1000 to help pay for Clark’s living expenses while he researches and writes the series.

“This series will clearly be ‘a work of critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues’, as required by our criteria,” Collins said.

Jesson funding survives after public journalism fund axed

The independent Bruce Jesson Foundation journalism funding will continue after the government’s public interest journalism fund closes next month.
 
The tiny Jesson Foundation, supported by private donations, is again offering $4000 this year to fund “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.
 
It’s minuscule compared with the government’s $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund, which funded 110 fulltime journalism jobs with $10 million in 2020/21, $25 million in 2021/22 and $20 million in the 2022/23 financial year ending next month.

Continue reading Jesson funding survives after public journalism fund axed

Tenancy law investigation wins 2022 Jesson journalism award

An investigation which exposed the failure of New Zealand’s regulation of rental housing has won this year’s Bruce Jesson Emerging Journalism Award.

Massey University journalism students Mary Argue, James Pocock and Lucy Revill found that many Wellington tenants living in clearly mouldy and sub-standard housing were unable to win cases against their landlords in the Tenancy Tribunal.

Unique journalism award open for applications

A unique award fostering critical journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is now open for applications.

The Bruce Jesson Journalism Award, unlike any other journalism award in this country, provides up to $4000 up-front to fund the time and resources required to produce journalistic work.

The work can be in any format but must be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

The award, established in 2004, has helped some of the country’s leading freelance journalists such as Nicky Hager, Rebecca Macfie and Max Rashbrooke to write books and articles on critical social issues.

Last year’s award, for the first time, went to a mainstream media organisation with a grant to Stuff’s Northland reporter Denise Piper and photographer Jason Dorday to part-fund an investigation into whether we are doing enough to save our kauri trees from kauri dieback. Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chairs Maria Armoudian and Simon Collins said the grant reflected the dramatic changes that the internet has brought to the news media, forcing even commercial media to rely increasingly on public and donated funds to keep serious public journalism alive.

The foundation, founded in memory of Auckland journalist and writer Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, also offers an award of up to $1000 for published work by a New Zealand journalism student nominated by a journalism programme leader. This work must also be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. The increased value of this prize is possible thanks to the support of a gift from the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.

Applications for both of this year’s awards are now open and close on Friday 2 September.

Full criteria and details on how to apply are available on the Bruce Jesson Foundation website here & here.

Dr Maria Armoudian, co-chair: 027 777 9974
Simon Collins, co-chair: 021 901 036

www.brucejesson.com

2021 Senior Journalism Grant

The Bruce Jesson Foundation will part-fund a Stuff investigation into saving our kauri forests – a recognition that mainstream commercial media now need support to fund important public-interest journalism.

The planned five-part series by Stuff Northland reporter Denise Piper and photographer Jason Dorday will investigate whether we are doing enough to save the taonga of our kauri trees from kauri dieback.

The Bruce Jesson Foundation, founded in honour of journalist and politician Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, has given its annual senior journalism award for 2021 to fund $3500 in travel and accommodation costs for Piper and Dorday to visit endangered kauri forests and interview key experts.

Stuff will fund the two journalists’ salaries for the time they devote to the project, the costs of their equipment and production of their stories.

Bruce Jesson Foundation co-chairs Dr Maria Armoudian and Simon Collins said the foundation’s decision to back a project proposed by fulltime employees of a major corporate for the first time reflected dramatic changes in the economics of news media since the foundation was established in 2001.

“All our previous senior awards have been to freelancers who genuinely could not have done the work without our help,” they said.

“The original idea of the award was to honour Bruce Jesson by supporting journalists like him who wanted to investigate issues that would not be funded by the mainstream media. We expected awards to go to ’fringe’ journalists like Bruce himself, not to employees of the mainstream commercial media. To date that is exactly what we have done.

“But in the past two decades, the advertising that once funded our commercial news media has been largely lost to internet-based, non-news platforms such as Trade Me, Google and Facebook.

“The media companies are seeking to negotiate with Google and Facebook to recover some of that revenue, on the basis that the online platforms derive much of their revenue from links to the media companies’ free online content. But that will only be a partial solution.

“The government is also helping by providing $55m through NZ On Air over the next three years to fund journalism projects that ‘fill a public interest service and would otherwise be at risk or not produced without this fund’s support’.

“But it would be unthinkable for any democracy to leave the funding of public interest journalism solely to the government, which may be unlikely to fund projects critical of the government, or to commercial organisations, which may be unlikely to fund projects that won’t get enough ‘clicks’ to attract advertisers.

“Although we are tiny, with only up to $4000 available each year, we at the Bruce Jesson Foundation believe that our role is to offer another option for ‘critical, informed, analytical and creative’ journalism which neither the government nor commercial organisations are willing to fund.”

Armoudian and Collins said it was particularly pleasing that the foundation’s first award to journalists employed by a mainstream media company was going to Stuff, which has recently been bought out of corporate ownership and has adopted a charter and a “mission” “to help make Aotearoa a better place through independent journalism and innovative services that connect people and communities and underpin democracy”.

Every Stuff story online now includes a request for donations because “the way journalism is funded is changing and we need your help to sustain local newsrooms”.

“However, we have now decided that our awards will be open to journalists employed in any mainstream media company as well as to freelancers and anyone else proposing “critical, informed, analytical and creative” journalism on issues of public interest which can’t be funded from other sources,” Armoudian and Collins said.

The Foundation’s annual award of up to $1500 for published work by a student journalist is not being made this year.

The Bruce Jesson Foundation acknowledges the support from a gift by the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.

Unique journalism award open for applications

A unique award fostering critical journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is now open for applications.
 
The Bruce Jesson Journalism Award, unlike any other journalism award in this country, provides up to $4000 up-front to fund the time and resources required to produce journalistic work.
 
The work can be in any format but must be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.
 
The Bruce Jesson Foundation, founded in memory of Auckland journalist and writer Bruce Jesson who died in 1999, also offers an award of up to $1500 for published work by a New Zealand journalism student nominated by a journalism programme leader. This work must also be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. The increased value of this prize is possible thanks to the support of a gift from the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.
 
Applications for both of this year’s awards are now open and close on Friday 17 September.
 
Full criteria and details on how to apply are available here.

Entries Open for 2020 Jesson Journalism Awards

The Bruce Jesson Foundation is offering up to $4000 this year to fund a piece of critical journalism that will contribute to serious public debate in an era of “fake news” and up to $1500 for its Emerging Journalism Prize to recognise outstanding recent work. The increased value of this prize is possible thanks to the support of a gift from the Grace Memorial Trust in memory of Diana Unwin.

The Foundation’s annual grants aim to fund “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

Acting chair Simon Collins said applications for this year’s grant are now open, and close on Monday 14th September.

“Unlike other journalism awards, ours aim to pay upfront for journalism that would not be done otherwise,” he said.

“We are willing to pay for travel and other research costs, and for the time someone will need to produce a piece of serious journalism which is not ‘fake news’.

“Social media and the internet have made it possible for anyone in the world to produce journalism that contributes to public debate, but most people need to earn a living and don’t have the time to produce journalism that will uncover new facts or to do the research necessary to present a new, in-depth perspective on an important issue.

“We are not looking just for paid, professional journalists, because they are already paid to produce well-researched journalism.

“Rather, we are looking especially for people like Bruce Jesson, who produced critical books and articles analysing NZ society from the margins, driven by his passion to understand the world and to change it.”

Previous grants have part-funded books on inequality, on New Zealand’s role in the US “war on terror”, and on the abdication of corporate and political responsibility that led to the deaths of 29 miners at Pike River.

They have helped to finance Jon Stephenson’s award-winning reporting from Iraq, a documentary on New Zealand’s climate change policies, investigative articles on rest homes, and a report on how the welfare system treats beneficiaries in domestic relationships.

The foundation is also calling for nominations from tutors in NZ journalism courses for the $1500 Emerging Journalism Prize for “outstanding recent work by New Zealand print journalism students”. 

This work must have been published, in any form, between the closing date for last year’s awards, 31 October 2019, and this year’s closing date, 14 September 2020.

Applications and nominations can be submitted online through the Foundation website or to the Secretary, Bruce Jesson Foundation, c/- Politics & International Relations, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142

Entries close soon for Jesson journalism awards

Entries for this year’s Bruce Jesson Journalism Awards will close on 31 October 2019.

The awards include a senior award paying up-front costs of up to $4000 for a planned work of “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

There is also an award of up to $1000 for published work by a New Zealand journalism student nominated by a journalism progrannme leader. This work must also be “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

Full criteria and details on how to apply are available on the Bruce Jesson Foundation website www.brucejesson.com.

Contacts:

Simon Collins, acting chair: 021 901 036, ehlarandsimon@gmail.com

Dr Geoff Kemp, trustee: 021 445 721, g.kemp@auckland.ac.nz

Levin journalist wins 2018 Bruce Jesson journalism award

Levin journalist Aaron Smale has won this year’s Bruce Jesson journalism award to fund research into abuse of patients at the former Lake Alice mental hospital near Marton.
Smale, a freelance journalist whose previous work on abuse at Lake Alice helped to put the wider issue of abuse of people in state care on the public agenda, receives a $4000 grant to fund further work on the issue.
The annual grant was established to honour journalist and politician Bruce Jesson,  who died in 1999. It funds “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.
Bruce Jesson Foundation acting chair Simon Collins says Aaron Smale’s work, done mostly without secure employment but with a passionate commitment to social justice, is “exactly the sort of work that the Jesson Foundation exists to support”.
“This work would not be done without an independent source of funding for public-interest journalism,” he says.
“We are very grateful to everyone who has donated to the foundation over the past 18 years so that we can contribute in a small way towards funding Aaron’s important work.”
The foundation has given this year’s Emerging Journalist Award of $1000 for published work by a student journalist to Wellington journalist Meriana Johnsen for a story published in the Sunday Star-Times on police handling of suicide calls, written while she was a journalism student at Massey University.
Two other Massey students have been awarded special $500 highly commended awards: Amber Allott, for an investigation into reptile trading published in NZ Geographic magazine, and Anna Whyte, for an in-depth story on revenge porn published on the TVNZ website.
The awards are being announced at the annual Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture, which is being delivered at Auckland University at 6pm tonight by Monte Cecilia Housing Trust chief executive Bernie Smith.

Trust offers $4000 for critical journalism

The Bruce Jesson Foundation is offering up to $4000 this year to fund a piece of critical journalism that will contribute to serious public debate in an era of “fake news”.

The Foundation’s annual grants aim to fund “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”.

Acting chair Simon Collins said applications for this year’s grant are now open, and close on Friday 14 September.

“Unlike other journalism awards, ours aim to pay upfront for journalism that would not be done otherwise,” he said.

“We are willing to pay for travel and other research costs, and for the time someone will need to produce a piece of serious journalism which is not ‘fake news’.

“Social media and the internet have made it possible for anyone in the world to produce journalism that contributes to public debate, but most people need to earn a living and don’t have the time to produce journalism that will uncover new facts or to do the research necessary to present a new, in-depth perspective on an important issue.

“We are not looking just for paid, professional journalists, because they are already paid to produce well-researched journalism.

“Rather, we are looking especially for people like Bruce Jesson, who produced critical books and articles analysing NZ society from the margins, driven by his passion to understand the world and to change it.”

Previous grants have part-funded books on inequality, on New Zealand’s role in the US “war on terror”, and on the abdication of corporate and political responsibility that led to the deaths of 29 miners at Pike River.

They have helped to finance Jon Stephenson’s award-winning reporting from Iraq, a documentary on New Zealand’s climate change policies, investigative articles on rest homes, and a report on how the welfare system treats beneficiaries in domestic relationships.

The latest grants in 2015 supported a new documentary on New Zealand’s role in the US-led global surveillance network, and a report on the feasibility of the Auckland Council adopting the Living Wage.

No grants were awarded in 2016 or 2017, but the foundation is keen to find projects worth supporting this year. Applicants should submit an outline of their proposed project and explain how it meets the criteria set out on the Foundation website.

The foundation is also calling for nominations from tutors in NZ journalism courses for the $1000 Emerging Journalism Prize for “outstanding recent work by New Zealand print journalism students.”

Stories must have been published, in any form, between the closing date for last year’s awards, 29 September 2017, and this year’s closing date, 14 September 2018.

Last year’s award was won by a student at Massey University’s journalism course in Wellington, Baz Macdonald, for a story on how the benefit system’s rules have failed to keep up with the growing numbers of New Zealanders living in less formalised and more insecure relationships.

Applications and nominations can be submitted online through the Foundation website or to the Secretary, Bruce Jesson Foundation, c/- Politics & International Relations, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142.