HONG KONG -- The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the best practices within journalism, announced today that the SOPA 2025 Awards for Editorial Excellence are open for entries. The deadline for submissions is 3pm Hong Kong time on Thursday, February 13, 2025.

The SOPA Awards for Editorial Excellence celebrate the best journalism in Asia-Pacific, setting the regional standard for quality and professionalism. This year marks the 27th consecutive annual awards, which were first handed out in 1999 and are widely regarded as the Pulitzer Prizes of this region.

The awards span 21 categories and are divided into three groups according to language and the size of the publication. Global and Regional winners are judged in English, and in Chinese. And for the third year SOPA will hand out an award for “Excellence in Bahasa Indonesia News Reporting,” for works that had a demonstrable impact in setting the domestic agenda in politics, business or social/cultural affairs.

“We are pleased to once again be hosting the annual awards, which help encourage great journalism in an era of tightening press freedom,” said Yi-Shan Chen, Editor-in-Chief of Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine, who serves as co-chair of SOPA’s Editorial Committee. “We look forward to a robust competition across a variety of news platforms from video to podcasts to feature writing and business reporting.”

The 2024 SOPA Awards drew more than 700 entries across the 21 categories.

List of last year’s finalists and winners here:
https://2024.sopawards.com/the-sopa-awards/awards-finalists/

Among the winners were smaller publications that highlighted reporting on grassroots issues that otherwise might have been overlooked by larger news outlets. Several benefitted from a subsidy that lowered entry fees for certain smaller publications as well as for first time entrants.

For instance, Malaysiakini’s exposé on “Baby snatching: How stateless mums lose their infants in Sabah hospital” won the top regional award in Reporting on Women’s Issues (link to story here), and Master-Insight.com won the Honorable Mention for Chinese-language Opinion Writing for “My Outstanding Student, Li Keqiang.” (link to story here)

A similar program will be offered for the 2025 SOPA Awards for first time entrants and smaller publications, defined as having a maximum of 20 full-time staff, of which at least 50% are full-time editorial staff. Those publications will be eligible for a subsidy for up to two entries, which means each entry will cost only HKD$200 (about US$25). Please contact SOPA early via email at mail@sopasia.com to see if your publication qualifies.

The University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC) has administered the awards since 2011. Senior Lecturer Ting Shi is Head of Judges for the SOPA Awards, while Rita Widiadana, a long-time Jakarta-based journalist, will act as head judge for the Bahasa Indonesia entries.

Telum Media is a supporting partner of the 2025 Awards.

For a limited time, SOPA is offering a 40% discount on the SOPA Membership fee as well as a similar discount on up to five award entries. For the SOPA Membership discount code, please request via email to mail@sopasia.com by latest Thursday, 13 February, 2025.

Details on submissions, eligibility requirements and application information can be found at: www.sopawards.com. The finalists will be announced in May 2025 and the winners in June 2025.

Please see the Rules and FAQ sections on the SOPA Awards website: https://sopawards.com/the-sopa-awards/rules-faq/ for updates regarding 2025 submissions.

Awards Categories:

· Excellence in Reporting on Women’s Issues
· Excellence in Journalistic Innovation
· Excellence in Audio Reporting
· Excellence in Video Reporting
· Excellence in Human Rights Reporting
· Excellence in Feature Writing
· Excellence in Technology Reporting
· Excellence in Magazine Design
· Excellence in Arts and Culture Reporting
· Excellence in Bahasa Indonesia News Reporting
· Excellence in Explanatory Reporting
· Excellence in Business Reporting
· Excellence in Infographics
· Excellence in Reporting Breaking News
· Excellence in Opinion Writing
· Excellence in Reporting on the Environment
· Excellence in Photography
· The Scoop Award
· Carlos Tejada Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting
· SOPA Award for Young Journalist
· SOPA Award for Public Service Journalism